Katy Perry to face family of 84-year-old homeowner, dying veteran, after being subpoenaed to testify in ‘gruelling’ legal battle over $15 million Montecito mansion

Katy Perry is facing a bitter legal showdown with the family of a dying veteran who was forced to hand over his Montecito mansion to her following a years-long property dispute, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Ailing Carl Westcott, 84, agreed to sell his eight-bedroom home to Perry in 2020 for $15 million, but days later tried to cancel the deal, claiming he was under the influence of painkillers when he signed.

A court ruled the contract was legitimate, and late last year Perry was declared the legal owner of the gated 1930s estate, which includes a tennis court, two guest houses and a swimming pool.

The Firework singer is nevertheless seeking a reduction of around $6 million on the price, claiming that the bedridden octogenarian – currently being treated for Huntington’s disease – owes her large sums for repairs and lost rental income.

But she will have to present her arguments in person after a California judge ruled that Perry must testify at an upcoming damages trial where she will come face to face with Westcott’s furious family, who say the “grueling” battle blighted their beloved patriarch’s final days.

DailyMail.com understands that Westcott’s entire immediate family, including his sons Chart and Court Westcott – who is married to former Real Housewives of Dallas actress Kameron Westcott – are all planning to attend the trial in Los Angeles Superior Court.

“It’s clear she’s trying to squeeze every last dollar out of Carl’s family with no empathy, at the expense of an elderly man’s inheritance,” a family friend told us.

“The fact is the Westcott family wants her to take them on because they believe they deserve it. She took their father’s house and now she wants to take his shirt off.”

“The least she can do is look them all in the eye while she does it.”

The sprawling 9,285-square-foot compound in the Santa Ynez foothills has been registered under owner DDoveB, a nod to Perry’s three-year-old daughter, Daisy Dove Bloom, since May.

Perry placed $9 million in escrow to pay Westcott, a prominent veteran of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division who was born into an “extremely poor” family in Mississippi.

He grew up in a shotgun house with no plumbing, but moved to Los Angeles where he started several successful businesses, including 1-800-Flowers.

His father had only a second-grade education and could neither read nor write, and Westcott was sent to a young offenders’ home for selling school meal vouchers.

But he got his life back on track when he moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and began selling cars, eventually opening his own dealerships.

“When you’re poor in Mississippi, you’re the poorest of the poor,” Westcott once said.

“We didn’t have cars, and I always thought people who had cars were rich. In fact, I thought people who had lawns were pretty remarkable.”

The exact amount of the remaining $6 million Perry owes him will be determined by the second phase of their four-year legal saga.

The damages trial was originally scheduled to take place this month and last several days. But Westcott’s lawyers asked for more time after Perry – whose fortune is estimated at $350 million – hired 25 experts to search the house for defects.

They will argue that the two-acre property needs repairs for water damage, an oak tree that fell on a building and various other maintenance issues that arose while she waited years to move in.

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She also wants about $3.5 million in lost rent she supposedly could have earned on the luxurious retreat, although she said at the time of the sale that she planned to raise her daughter there.

Perry’s attorneys argued at a June 20 hearing that she and Bloom — who will likely also be subpoenaed and asked to testify — were essentially “laypeople” and would instead rely on the testimony of professional construction experts.

But Judge Joseph Lipner insisted: “As I sit here right now, I definitely expect Ms. Perry to be a witness.”

DailyMail.com previously revealed how Perry found himself caught up in the extraordinary dispute with Westcott after claiming his judgment was clouded by powerful medication and poor health when he signed the deal on July 15, 2020.

He had only purchased the house in May of that year and had moved in two months before his dealings with Perry’s representative, Bernie Gudvi, who had agreed to pay him $3,750,000 more than the price he had just bought it for.

The then 80-year-old had been released from hospital just four days before signing, after undergoing a six-hour back operation.

He was taking a powerful cocktail of opiates to numb the pain, his lawyers said.

When the drug wore off, Westcott said he realized he had made a mistake and informed Berkshire Hathaway by email on July 22 that he no longer intended to sell.

“The combination of his age, his fragility due to his back problem and recent surgery, and the opiates he was taking several times a day, caused Mr. Westcott to become insane,” his complaint said.

Perry and Bloom’s agents ignored Westcott’s request and wrote to him a few days later warning that they would take legal action if he did not relinquish the property.

Westcott’s family fought on his behalf after he became bedridden and mentally incapacitated by Huntington’s disease, which attacks the brain and can cause progressive dementia.

She emerged victorious from the first phase of their trial last year after Judge Lipner ruled there was “no compelling evidence” that Westcott lacked the capacity to sign the contract.

“There is no reason for termination. The contract must be respected,” he concluded, leaving aside the question of damages, that is, the amount of the discount to be granted to Perry, who did not testify in person.

This wasn’t the first time Perry had run into legal trouble when it came to buying a home.

In 2015, she fell out with elderly Roman Catholic nuns over the sale of a convent she had purchased in 2015, paying $14.5 million in cash to Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez.

Sister Rita Callanan and Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, who had lived in the convent since the 1970s, claimed Gomez had no right to dispose of the property and said they had already sold it just weeks earlier for $15.5 million.

But the archdiocese filed a lawsuit to block the deal, arguing that it was the nuns who had overstepped their authority.

In 2016, a judge ruled against the nuns and awarded Perry and the archdiocese damages totaling more than $15 million.

During the 2018 legal battle, Sister Holzman, 89, collapsed and died during a court appearance.

This prompted Sister Callanan, the only surviving nun who lived in the Order of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to declare that Perry had “blood on his hands.”