'Idol' Winner Saves Home!
By
Brigid Brown
|
Monday, January 12, 2009
Fantasia Barrino is a crowd pleaser for sure ... deciding the fate of her home at the 11th hour!
Charlotte-based attorney Larry Goldman, an attorney for a lending company, says the auction of a million-dollar home belonging to American Idol winner won't happen because an agreement has been reached, reports the Associated Press.
Barrino, who faced the loss of her $1.3 million home in a debtor's auction set last week, was apparently ignoring the looming legal threat, officials told the New York Post.
The AI winner, who starred as herself in a Lifetime movie detailing her rags-to-riches story, owes a Florida credit company $65,000, money she borrowed in 2006 to pay back taxes she owed the IRS.
The Post reports, the singer made a $10,000 payment in August 2007. But she never paid the rest, so the company won the right in court last month to auction off her house for the balance.
Mecklenburg County sheriff's deputies, who are responsible for enforcing civil court orders, have tried at least a dozen times to reach Barrino at the home and by phone, said Sgt. J.W. England, a supervisor of civil judgments.
Over the course of about a year, Barrino has never responded to court documents, and no lawyer ever appeared in court to represent her, said Larry Goldman, a Charlotte attorney representing the credit company, Broward Energy Management.
"We try very hard and give the defendant every opportunity to pay. I certainly don't want anyone to lose their house," Goldman told the paper. "But as far as I'm concerned, we have a judgment."
Barrino, 24, has made no payments and filed no documents since The Post reported a court-ordered lien on the property in Charlotte's upscale Piper Glen neighborhood last month.
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Photo(s) by Adriana M. Barraza- © 2006- Hollywood Media Corp.- All Rights Reserved
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