Kevin Spacey has agreed to settle his legal fight with a Bethesda real estate investor over the auction of the actor’s waterfront home in Baltimore, the investor said Friday.
Sam Asgari, of Simo Homes LLC, said the sides had settled their monthslong dispute, but he declined to comment further. The terms of the settlement are not public. An attorney for Spacey did not immediately respond to a message.
Asgari said he hopes to put the 9,000-square-foot Inner Harbor pier home on the market at the end of this month — an indication that Spacey has agreed to move out.
In addition, online court records show that Asgari asked a judge on Wednesday to finalize his purchase of the house. The filing also indicates that the two sides have dropped their fight over whether the auction in July was valid.
The settlement comes after Spacey’s attorneys appeared last month in Baltimore Circuit Court and asked the judge to disqualify Asgari from buying the home. They argued that the actor’s mansion was auctioned without sufficient notice and therefore fetched too low a price.
Spacey’s home was sold in the foreclosure auction to Asgari for $3.24 million — about $2 million less than Spacey paid for the house several years ago.
The actor’s attorneys have seized on the lower price in their arguments to redo the auction. A redo would have allowed Spacey more time to stay in the home.
Appraiser Jonathan Montgomery, however, testified that he valued the house around $2.5 million. That’s below Asgari’s winning bid.
Spacey moved to Baltimore while filming the hit Netflix political drama “House of Cards.” He bought the luxury home for $5.65 million under the name Clear Toaster LLC to protect his privacy. He has lived there at least seven years, but he fell behind in his mortgage payments, and his house was auctioned.
The sides have been negotiating for months. According to court records, Asgari had offered Spacey $50,000 to move out by Sept. 15 in what’s commonly known as a “cash-for-keys” agreement. Spacey, however, wanted to remain in the house until February and in exchange would agree to not interfere with the purchase or Asgari’s attempts to resell the house, according to court records.
Following a foreclosure auction, the sale must be ratified, or approved, by the courts before the highest bidder can settle on the property and receive a deed. Investors say the process takes months. Only afterward may the buyer take further legal action and attempt eviction by sheriff’s deputies. The process generally permits an ex-homeowner to stay for months in a house after auction.
A debt collection agency filed the foreclosure case against Spacey in April 2022. His attorneys tried mediation but were unable to avoid the sale. His homeowners association also filed a lien against the property for unpaid monthly assessments and fees.
Once listed as “Baltimore’s most extraordinary home,” the house floats on a pier that stretches into the harbor from Federal Hill in one of the city’s most exclusive gated communities. The house features five floors, five bedrooms, seven full baths, an elevator, sauna, home theater, rooftop terrace and four-car garage.
The distinctive pier home remained Spacey’s primary residence after he was fired from “House of Cards” over allegations of sexual assault.
Spacey was sued in Manhattan for allegedly making a sexual advance on a teenage boy in the 1980s, which the actor denied. In October 2022, jurors sided with Spacey in the case. Nine months after that decision, a London jury acquitted Spacey of sexual assault in another case. The actor told jurors he had been out of work since the first sex abuse allegations came out against him.
More recently, Spacey has stepped back into acting. He had a voice-only role in the 2023 film “Control,” and he plays a character named “The Devil” in an Italian film called “The Contract,” according to Variety. On Oct. 11, Spacey posted a photo of himself riding a horse and wearing a western costume on set in Phoenix.
This story may be updated.
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