The latest victim of the foreclosure crisis? It's a real Thriller......

[marmar]

from Reuters, via Yahoo!:




Michael Jackson faces forced sale of Neverland
By Dan Whitcomb
2 hours, 40 minutes ago



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michael Jackson's famed Neverland Valley Ranch in California will be foreclosed and sold on March 19 unless the pop star pays a balance of nearly $25 million, property records showed on Tuesday.

FoxNews.com celebrity columnist Roger Friedman reported on the Web site (www.foxnews.com) that Jackson has been formally apprised of the foreclosure and that legal documents have also been filed with the Santa Barbara County Recorder's office.

"You are in default of a deed of trust ...," Jackson was told in the five-page filing, according to a copy of the document published by FoxNews.com. "Unless you take action to protect your property it may be sold at a public sale."

According to the documents, if Jackson fails to pay the outstanding balance, estimated at $24.5 million, Neverland would be sold to the highest bidder at a public auction on the courthouse steps.

The county recorder's Web site shows that a Notice of Trustees Sale was filed against Neverland Valley Ranch on Monday but no further details were available and a spokeswoman for the office declined to comment.

Jackson's publicist, Raymone Bain, did not return calls seeking comment on the foreclosure notice.

The onetime "King of Pop" has owned the 2,800-acre (1,133-ha) ranch in the rolling foothills above the California coast since 1988, naming it after the whimsical island where children never grow up in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan stories. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080226/ts_nm/jackson_neverland_dc

[pepperbear]

1. Yeah, Mike, because losing a multimillion $ piece of property when you own 4 or 5 others is

exactly like losing your one and only modest starter home.

[Hekate]

2. He's hung onto it through thick and thin, but Santa Barbarians will be glad to see him go...

Actually I don't know if he's even been back here since the last trial, but it's been rumored for years that his income-stream was pretty dried up.

The only thing I worry about is all the critters in his zoo.

Hekate