What is the difference between haunting a house and living in it?

The expression "haunted house" refers to a house in which the people living there are haunted, that is, worried, about the thought of a ghost in the house. It has nothing to do with the demeanor of the ghost that supposedly inhabits the house or the legality of the ghost's inhabiting the house (Source, below - Cambridge Dictionary).

Is this a joke? 

Of course a ghost cannot buy a house. 

Homeownership should not be based on life or death, a person's home should be sacrosanct. If a person dies and decides to remain (haunt) their home, by rights they should be able to. Unfortunately the dead don't pay rent or taxes or VOTE. Crooked politicians will not stand up for them, we must do it ourselves. 

A few days after my gran died, it was evident she was still occupying the home she lived in her entire life. It was up to me to keep her home safe for her. I will never allow new owners in there burning sage and "cleansing" her right out of her own home. The house passed on to me and I pay taxes on her home myself. She is welcome to stay until she decides to go into the light. Unfortunately, my wife and children are afraid of ghosts so we don't visit very often but I try to go there alone a few times a year.

Pretty sure that in most places once you are dead you are no longer a legal entity and can't own anything including a house.

There's no good evidence that ghosts and demons even exist so make up whatever story  you like about hauntings etc... none of it is real.

We've got a ghost of a chicken in our house i think it's a Poultry geist