Featured Image Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tiffany & Co./ Lionel Hahn/Getty Images
Topics: Celebrity, Crime, Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Celebrity, Crime, Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom
Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom are in a three-year legal suit with a veteran claimed who he sold them his house while of 'unsound mind'.
The celebrity couple, who purchased their Santa Barbara home back in July 2020, are now in a legal battle over their $15 million home and are set to begin a trial against the man who sold them the house, according to court documents from the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The man in question, 83-year-old Carl Westcott, claims he sold his abode while being heavily medicated after taking 'several intoxicating pain-killing opiates'.
Advert
In the court documents, Westcott claims that 'he lacked the mental capacity to understand the nature and probable consequences of the contract' after being on painkillers after back surgery several days before the real estate sale.
"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.
The report goes on to allege 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," it resolved.
While the 'Fireworks' singer and the Pirates of the Caribbean star are not named as parties in the suit, the business manager who represented the couple during the sale of the home, Bernie Gudvi, has been listed as the primary defendant.
After realizing he had been of 'unsound mind' at the time, Westcott emailed brokerage firm Berkshire Hathaway Home Services and stated 'that he did not want to sell his home', the filing states.
Following his refusal to sell his home, the veteran received correspondence from an attorney representing Gudvi, Perry and Bloom, per Westcott's lawsuit.
The court documents continue: "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."
Now three years later, the non-jury trial is set to commence later this month (21 August) at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles.
UNILAD has reached out to Katy Perry's representatives and the Los Angeles County Superior Court for comment.