Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom are embattled in a lawsuit over their $15 million home.
The couple — who purchased their Santa Barbara abode in July 2020 — are set to begin a trial against the man who sold them the house, according to court documents obtained by Us Weekly on Wednesday, August 9..
The seller — Carl Wescott, an 83-year-old veteran and businessman — claims in the paperwork “that he lacked the mental capacity to understand the nature and probable consequences of the contract” for a number of health reasons, including being on painkillers after back surgery several days prior to the sale, the legal paperwork states.
“In addition to [Westcott’s] frailty from advanced age and poor heath [sic] from Huntington’s Disease, [Westcott] had a major six-hour surgery less than a week before the proposed contract to sell his home was presented to him on July 14, 2020,” the documents claim, alleging that “the multiple opiate medications, which were a synthetic form of morphine, disoriented and intoxicated [Westcott], depriving him of reason and understanding with respect to the terms and consequences of the contract, and seriously impaired [Westcott’s] mental faculties to the point he was of unsound mind and not competent to give his free, voluntary, or intelligent consent to the contract. The contract that [Westcott] signed to sell his home is therefore void or voidable.”
After coming to the realization that he had been under the influence at the time, Westcott “email[ed] Berkshire Hathaway, in its capacity as the dual agent for seller and buyer, [stating] that he did not want to sell his home,” explaining the situation and apologizing for the confusion. .
That same day, Perry, 38, and Bloom, 46, sent Westcott a letter in which “they wrote how much they liked the home and wanted to purchase it as their new home.” Westcott, in turn, replied “that he is in the final few years of his life and he cannot sell his home.”
The pair — who got engaged in 2019 and welcomed daughter Daisy in August 2020, one month after purchasing the home — then took legal action.
“On July 24, 2020, Mr. Westcott received a letter from a lawyer. The letter stated, in sum and substance, that the lawyer represented not only [business manager] Mr. [Bernie] Gudvi, but also Mr. Orlando Bloom and Ms. Katheryn Hudson (professionally known as Katy Perry) on whose behalf Mr. Gudvi had always been acting. The letter advised Mr. Westcott that his clients Mr. Bloom and Ms. Hudson are not willing to walk away from purchasing Mr. Westcott’s home and he is obligated to complete the sale.”
Three years later, the non-jury trial is set to begin on August 21.
While Perry and Bloom’s real estate situation is certainly dramatic, this is not the first time the “Roar” singer has been embroiled in a lawsuit concerning her home.
In 2015, Perry purchased a Los Angeles convent for $14.5 million from Archbishop Jose Gomez. However, several nuns who had been living at the convent for decades claimed that the archbishop not only had no right to sell the home — they had already sold it for more than $15 million. Gomez, for his part, sued the women, with a judge ruling the following year that the nuns’ sale was invalid. Perry and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles were awarded millions in damages.
