Singer Katy Perry‘s yearslong legal battle over a Montecito mansion has taken yet another surprising turn after the veteran who sold her the property asked the court to make the pop star shell out more than $1 million in “ownership expenses” he says he incurred while their fight raged on in court.
New legal documents seen by Realtor.com® reveal that ailing veteran Carl Westcott‘s attorney, Andrew J. Thomas, has asked the judge in the case to make changes to his proposed statement of decision in order to take into account his expenses, as well as the interest he has lost on the remaining $6 million owed to him for the sale of his home, which still has not been handed over to him.
The contentious battle between Perry, 41, and Westcott, 86, began in 2020, when he agreed to sell his Montetico home to the “California Gurls” hitmaker for $15 million in a deal that was carried out via her business manager, Bernie Gudvi.
However, just days later Westcott, who has Huntington’s disease, attempted to U-turn on the sale, claiming that he had been under the influence of painkillers when he agreed to the sale.
Perry and Westcott spent the next three years locked in a bitter dispute over the property, before a judge granted ownership to the “Dark Horse” singer and her then-partner, Orlando Bloom, in December 2023. They officially took control of the dwelling in May 2024.
However, the chart-topper then went after Westcott for $5 million in damages, claiming that the home had required extensive repairs when she took ownership, and that she had also lost millions of dollars in potential rental income while their legal battle played out.
At the end of November, Judge Joseph Lipner proposed a tentative decision that stated Perry should not be awarded the full $4.8 million she tried to claim, but rather the lower sum of $1.8 million.
According to documents seen by Realtor.com, that total amount would have included $2,795,000 for lost rental income between September 2020—when Perry and Bloom closed on the deal—and March 31, 2024, around one month before the couple took ownership of the home.
The judge then deducted $1,062,736 of retained capital and the $149,703 that Westcott lost in interest during that time—while limiting the cost of the repairs to $259,581.84, which is the exact amount that was previously proposed by Westcott’s lawyers.
It is a much lower figure than the one initially proposed by Perry, who argued that she had lost “$3,525,000 in rental value,” while also demanding that Westcott pay “$1,343,401.95 for necessary repairs” to the property.
Gudvi initially paid the former businessman just $9 million of the agreed-upon price and has waited to pay the rest until a judgment was reached. He would owe Westcott $4,157,857.16 should the judge’s proposed decision be made final.
However, both parties had 10 days from Nov. 25 to make the judge aware of any “controverted issues or … proposals not covered in the tentative decision” before it would be finalized.
Now, freshly-filed legal documents from Westcott’s attorneys reveal that the veteran’s lawyers have asked the court to reconsider its decision, urging the judge to take into consideration additional expenses that were incurred while the first phase of the trial, before Perry was granted official ownership of the home.
The filing, which the lawyers note was “made within the requisite 10-day period,” states that Judge Lipner’s proposal does not take into account the property taxes and maintenance costs that Westcott paid during the “delay period,” referring to the time between 2020, when the sale was agreed and 2024, when Perry was officially granted ownership of the property.
While the court had initially rejected Westcott’s insistence that these costs be taken into account, stating that there was “no precedent for such deductions in the context of non-income-producing residential
property,” the veteran’s lawyers insist there is legal precedence, citing a previous case heard by the Second District Court of Appeal.
Westcott claims that these expenses totaled $1,236,209.41, which includes “$511,915.82 in property taxes, $257,067.52 to maintain the luxurious 2.4 acre grounds and landscaping, $140,841.96 for pool maintenance, $81,187.41 for electricity, $45,838.19 for gas, and $21,168.56 for water.”
Furthermore, the lawyers argue that the cutoff date for interest on the $6 million still owed to Westcott for the sale of his property should be extended beyond March 31, 2024 to Dec. 30, 2025, when a final decision is due to be made.
They note that Perry’s business manager, Gudvi, still has not handed over that final chunk of the money owed to Westcott, who has therefore lost out on the interest that has accrued—while Gudvi has continued to enjoy access to those funds as the legal battle has continued.
“The uncontroverted evidence is that Perry deposited $450,000 in escrow in July 2020 when the Purchase Contract was signed, and she held $14,550,000 of the $15 million purchase price until Westcott conveyed title on May 17, 2024,” it states.
“To this very day Perry continues to hold $6 million of the price for which the Court’s Tentative Decision awards no offset in Westcott’s favor for Perry’s use of the $6 million from March 31, 2024 until this day.”
The filing notes that the judge’s proposal uses March 31, 2024, as the end date for Perry and Gudvi’s lost potential rental income, but that this same date should not apply to the money that has not been paid to Westcott yet.
“The language of a contract is to govern its interpretation, if the language is clear and explicit, and does not involve an absurdity. Here, the language only speaks to the cutoff of Gudvi’s lost rent claims (to coincide with the approximate time when Gudvi gained possession of the property), not as to Westcott’s offsets for Gudvi’s use of retained purchase funds (which Gudvi continued to enjoy long after the March 31, 2024 cutoff date),” the layers state.
“Economically, it would make no sense for Westcott to have agreed to permit Perry to retain $6 million after March 31, 2024 and to give up the right to claim a credit for the value of those funds,” they add.
“Westcott proposes that the Court should change its Tentative Decision to add the entire $1,236,209.41 in enumerated ownership expenses as an offset and reduction to Gudvi’s loss of rental value claim.”
The lawyers also offer an “alternative” option to the judge, asking that he add the $511,915.18 in property taxes paid by Westcott as an offset—noting that this sum was featured in testimony given by the veteran’s executive assistant, Beth Prothro.
Meanwhile, Gudvi has filed his own objection to the judge’s proposal, claiming that the court “inadvertently used an incorrect rate of return for the one-year period from September 1, 2021, to August 31, 2022.”
Gudvi’s attorneys at Greenberg Traurig state that a 0.7% rate of return was applied to the money held by their client, but that “the correct rate of return for one-year U.S. Treasury Bills in the period from September 1, 2021, to August 31, 2022, was 0.07%—not 0.70%.”
They note that this means the value of the capital retained by their client “should be $966,796—not $1,062,736.”
Judge Lipner will now have the opportunity to read through Westcott and Gudvi’s respective requests and decide whether to make any adjustments to his decision, which is still expected to be finalized by the end of the year.
It will mark the end of a tumultuous, bitter legal battle between Perry and Westcott that has been raging since the sale was agreed upon more than five years ago.
At the time, Westcott attempted to back out of the sale of his home, stating that he was of “unsound mind” due to a recent medical procedure.
“The combination of his age, frailty from his back condition and recent surgery, and the opiates he was taking several times a day rendered Mr. Westcott of unsound mind,” Westcott’s lawyers stated in court documents.
However, Perry’s representatives argued that Westcott had been of sound mind when he agreed to the deal and that he wanted to back out only because he hadn’t been able to find an alternative Montecito property to his liking or budget.
In December 2023, a judge ruled in Perry’s favor and ordered that the original sale contract, arranged by the pop star’s business manager, be upheld. Perry officially took possession of the home in May 2024.
The 1930s-era, 9,285-square-foot compound sits among the Santa Ynez foothills and has eight bedrooms, 7.5 bathrooms, a tennis court, two guesthouses, and a pool.
Sensationally, during an August court hearing at which she appeared via Zoom, Perry admitted that she is not the owner of the Montecito property, which was actually purchased by her former fiancé, Bloom.
In her 55-minute testimony, Perry confirmed a courtroom revelation from her business partner: It was Bloom who held the title to the Santa Barbara County property through the limited liability company DDoveB, named after the former couple’s daughter.
Perry and Bloom had ended their six-year engagement one month before the hearing. However, the “California Gurls” singer said during her testimony that the actor and their shared daughter are her “family for life.”
Perry admitted that she contributed no funds when Bloom’s LLC purchased the house in 2024 and that her role in the home’s remodeling was limited to being a “partner and adviser.”
The celebrity witness elaborated further on her participation in the renovation, saying that she saw “pictures and videos” of the work being done but took no active part in it.
However, when she was asked who would be responsible for paying Westcott the remaining $6 million owed on the price of the house, Perry said that it was likely she and Bloom would pay together.
Though she stopped short of saying that she and Bloom were financial partners, she did say that the property at the center of the case was of “good financial interest for me.”
Perry has not revealed whether she or Bloom ever actually lived in the Montecito residence, which they originally purchased as a family home in which to raise their daughter, Daisy Dove, 5.
The former couple own another opulent mansion in the same neighborhood, which they bought for $14.2 million soon after Westcott attempted to back out of the sale of his home.
That property—which records indicate is registered in Perry’s name alone—has been undergoing significant renovations over the past five years.
It is unclear whether Bloom played any role in the lawsuit against Westcott. However, the actor has largely attempted to remain out of the fray as far as the legal battle is concerned.
Westcott’s legal team previously failed in its efforts to persuade the judge to call Bloom as a witness—having claimed that he should be asked to testify about the repairs that the singer said had to be carried out on the home.
However, the judge in the case shut down that request, insisting that the lawyers needed to rely only on testimony from the contractors who were involved in the process, while accusing the legal team of trying to turn the trial into a “celebrity circus.”
Hollywood actor Chris Pratt and his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger, were then dragged into the legal saga, when it was reported that they had moved into the Montecito property after leasing it from Perry and Bloom.
The couple, who are in the process of building a custom compound in Brentwood, are said to have been loaned the Montecito property to use while they wait for their new home to be completed.
Westcott’s lawyers had asked the judge in the August hearing to question Pratt about the condition of the home when he moved in, according to Fox News—noting that he could provide key evidence to slap down Perry’s claims that significant damage had been done before she officially took ownership of the dwelling.
The lawyers also pointed out that Pratt and his wife have been closely linked to the property since Perry first expressed interest in it—calling attention to the fact that she became involved in a bidding war with Schwarzenegger’s mother, Maria Shriver, who was also keen to buy the abode.
