The new owner of actor Kevin Spacey’s five-and-a-half-million-dollar home in Baltimore, Maryland, says the star is refusing to vacate the property and he is fed up and wants to take ownership.
Spacey said he was forced to sell the waterfront home at a discount in order to pay off millions of dollars in lawyers’ fees he owes successfully battling sexual charges that ended in a trial in 2023. Spacey was acquitted.
The actor appears to have lost a fortune on the home, which was put up at a foreclosure auction in July and sold for $2 million less than it was worth. The formerly anonymous buyer is Sam Asgari, a real estate investor in Maryland. Asgari said not only is Spacy refusing to clear out, but he wants to be allowed to stay for another six months without paying any rent.
Spacey’s lawyer denied Asgari’s claims in an interview on August 14 with a local Baltimore newspaper.
Asgari claimed Spacey was “refusing to leave,” and asked for another half-year of time to live in the house for free.
Edward U. Lee III, an attorney for Spacey, said Asgari’s claims are false, but he would not provide any more detail.
Maryland foreclosure laws require court approval before the successful buyer can close out the transaction and take possession of a house purchased at auction; this process typically takes several weeks. Then, after the sale is “ratified,” the new owner has the usual right to take possession of the property. If the transaction goes normally, the seller clears out voluntarily, but if not, the new buyer will have to ask the sheriff for help to do a forced eviction.
It is not clear whether Asgari will take that step.
The mansion on the waterfront is “an iconic property” in the city of Baltimore, according to Sam Sheibani of Compass Realtor. He said his company was interested in buying it, but they would not do so under the current circumstances, and seemed to imply they did not want to pay Kevin Spacey any money.
Though he was acquitted at trial, the actor’s reputation has taken a severe hit, with many people continuing to believe he was guilty of the sexual assault allegations leveled against him by his accusers. One of them was actor Anthony Rapp, who accused a 26-year-old Spacey of making passes at him when Rapp was only 14 years old.
The actor has had severe financial problems for some time as he lost work owing to the allegations against him.
