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Singer Katy Perry and her fiancé, actor Orlando Bloom, have been embroiled in a three-year lawsuit over a 7,100-square-foot Montecito mansion the pair purchased in 2021 for $14.2 million, according to reports.
The home’s former owner, 83-year-old Carl Westcott, had moved into the property at 1569 E. Valley Road just two months before selling it to Perry and Bloom.
In court documents obtained by The New York Post, Westcott claimed that the contract for the home sale, which was signed on July 14, 2020, was finalized when he “lacked the mental capacity to understand the nature and probable consequences of the contract.”
Westcott has Huntington’s disease, a deadly brain disorder, and less than a week before the contract was put together, he underwent a six-hour surgery, which he claimed in conjunction with his elderly age “seriously impaired [his] mental faculties to the point he was of unsound mind and not competent to give his free, voluntary, or intelligent consent to the contract.”
Westcott served in the U.S. Army as a 101st Airborne service member and had only purchased the home on May 29, intending to live there “for the rest of his life,” according to court documents.
About a week after the sales contract had been signed, on July 22, 2020, Westcott said the opiates he had been prescribed following surgery started to wear off and he began to “feel mentally clear again,” prompting him to send a letter to the real estate firm that was representing the property, Berkshire Hathaway.
“Mr. Westcott sent an email to Berkshire Hathaway, in its capacity as the dual agent for seller and buyer, that he did not want to sell his home,” according to court documents.
Perry and Bloom then sent a return letter to Westcott saying how much they loved the property and wanted to buy it for more than he had paid.
Although Westcott then “gave it his deepest consideration,” he determined that because he was nearing the end of his life, he could not sell the home.
By that time it was too late, however — Perry and Bloom’s lawyer advised Westcott that the couple was unwilling to walk away and he was obligated to go through with the sale.
A trial over the case is scheduled for later in August.
This is not the first time Perry has become enmeshed in a legal case over a piece of real estate.
In 2015, Perry was involved in a case with an order of Catholic nuns in Los Feliz, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
A group of 52 sisters first purchased a Spanish-Gothic-Tudor estate in Los Feliz in 1972 and had lived there until 2011 when Perry came knocking and just five sisters remained.
At the time, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez insisted that the sisters vacate the home because Perry was willing to pay for the property in cash. In 2016, a judge ruled in favor of Perry, who took occupancy of the home.
However, the battle of ownership continued and came to an abrupt end when one of the sisters, 89-year-old Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, collapsed and died while in court for a post-judgment hearing related to the case.
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