Katy Perry's Roar: Files Suit Over Nun's Property

Katy Perry filed a cross-complaint against a businesswoman with whom the singer is vying to buy a former convent in Los Feliz, alleging her rival is an “opportunistic developer” who convinced elderly nuns they had the right to transfer the property to her.

Perry filed the court papers Thursday through her company, The Bird Nest LLC, against restaurant owner Dana Hollister. The singer is asking a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to declare her the party with the “sole and exclusive right to acquire title to the property” under a deal she previously reached with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Hollister’s attorney, Randy Snyder, did not immediately return a call for comment.

The archdiocese started the litigation by filing suit against Hollister on June 19, stating that Hollister is considering using the property for a boutique hotel with a restaurant and bar. According to that lawsuit, the archdiocese’s lease of the buildings for a priests’ house of prayer has a remaining term of 77 years.

The sale to Hollister is favored by two nuns who are members of the California Institute of the Sisters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The sale to Hollister was for $10 million, of which only $100,000 has been paid, according to the archdiocese. The proposed sale to Perry would be worth $14.5 million, consisting of $10 million in cash and an agreement to provide an alternative property for the house of prayer worth $4.5 million, according to the archdiocese.

Perry’s suit alleges that Hollister is an “opportunistic developer who falsely convinced certain elderly sisters of the Roman Catholic Church that they had the ability and authority to transfer to Hollister the real property that is the subject of this litigation.”

Hollister’s commercial plans for the convent violate current zoning and would disrupt the “quiet enjoyment of the neighbors,” Perry’s suit alleges.

City News Service; Katy Perry by Wikimedia Commons