In 2020, Carl Westcott — an American entrepreneur who has founded several companies, including 1-800-Flowers — signed a contract to sell his Santa Barbara home to Perry and Bloom for $15 million. Shortly after the contract was signed, Westcott and his lawyers alleged that he was unable to properly review the property contract because he was on “several intoxicating pain-killing opiates” at the the time.
The case is currently scheduled to go to a non-jury trial on Aug. 21 in L.A.
In court documents obtained by The Times, Westcott, 83, said he “was of unsound mind and not competent to give his free, voluntary, or intelligent consent to the contract.” The filing added, “The contract that [Westcott] signed to sell his home is therefore void or voidable.”
Westcott says in the lawsuit that several days before being presented with the proposed real estate contract, he had a six-hour back surgery and was prescribed powerful medications that left him “intoxicated” at signing time.
In the week after the agreement was signed, Westcott said, he began to “feel mentally clear again.” It was at that time that he “realized that when he entered into the Residential Sale Agreement, the opiates had deprived him of the mental faculty to understand or comprehend the significance of the discussions he had been having concerning the sale of his home and the consequences of the Residential Sale Agreement.”
Westcott also said, per the filing, that he sent a letter to Berkshire Hathaway, the company overseeing the transaction, announcing that he did not want to sell his home.
Perry and Bloom were informed of Westcott’s letter and allegedly responded that they were “not willing to walk away from purchasing Mr. Westcott’s home and he is obligated to complete the sale.”
Additionally, Westcott claimed, according to court documents, that Gudvi never delivered a check for “$450,000, representing buyer’s initial deposit towards payment of the purchase price, to Berkshire Hathaway, for Berkshire Hathaway to hold and to deposit in escrow within three days after the Residential Sale Agreement was formed on July 18, 2020.”
It is unclear, based on the details provided in the documents, who is currently living in the house in question.
The entrepreneur is seeking a cancellation of the sale and all associated paperwork he agreed to, as well as compensation for legal fees.
This isn’t the first time that Perry has been embroiled in a legal battle over a home.
In 2015, the “I Kissed a Girl” singer purchased an eight-acre Los Feliz convent for $14.5 million from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Nuns who once lived on the property opposed the transaction and tried to sell the property to restaurateur Dana Hollister. A judge ruled against the nuns the following year, declaring the sale to Hollister invalid. In late 2017, a jury required Hollister to pay $5 million to Perry and the archdiocese for intentionally interfering with the sale of the former convent.