LOS ANGELES—A judge has asked a group of nuns to work out their differences with the Los Angeles Archdiocese over the proposed sale of their convent to pop star Katy Perry before seeking more drastic legal measures. The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary asked for a temporary restraining order against the archdiocese, which is suing to stop the nuns from selling the villa-style hilltop property in Los Angeles’s Los Feliz section to restaurateur Dana Hollister for $15.5 million. The nuns’ attorney, Bernard Resser, called Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant’s decision not to grant the restraining order on Monday disappointing.
The nuns will return to court on July 30, when the archdiocese’s attorneys will argue to kill the sale. They will return again in October to discuss who has legal control over the property. The archdiocese argues it has legal authority over the property and that the nuns’ sale was unauthorized. The archdiocese already agreed to sell the convent to Perry for $14.5 million in cash. The agreement, the archdiocese argued, is legally sound.
“The Dana Hollister deal is horrible,” said the archdiocese’s attorney, J. Michael Hennigan. “Forty-four thousand dollars and not a penny for three years, are you kidding?”
The archdiocese argued that Hollister put down only $44,000 for possession of the title and property. She is not required to make any additional payments until July 2018, according to the archdiocese.
But the sisters’ attorneys contend the archdiocese never sought to establish legal control over the order’s nonprofit institute until June and installed officers to oversee it.
The attorneys argue the move was illegal and accused Archbishop Jose Gomez of acting “as if he were above the rules and immune from the obligations of civil law.”
The sisters say they were first informed in September 2014 that the archbishop planned on selling the property to a woman called Katherine Hudson, who they later learned was Katy Perry.
Los Angeles Times/TNS
Image credits: Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/TNS