Reuters, Jul 12, 2011 7:44 pm PDT
Grammy-award winning singer-songwriter R. Kelly has failed to make mortgage payments on his multimillion-dollar Chicago-area home for more than a year and now may lose the property to lenders, court documents show.
In a foreclosure action filed in June in Cook County Circuit Court, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank N.A. said that the singer, whose full name is Robert S. Kelly, had not made a monthly payment on the 11,000-square-foot home in Olympia Fields in south suburban Chicago since June 2010.
The suit said the current principal balance on the loan was more than $2.9 million, not including unpaid interest, which accrues at rate of $251 a day.
The original loan issued in 1999 was for $3.5 million, according to the lawsuit, and the monthly payments were $24,345.12.
The property has a number of liens on it, according to the lawsuit, including nearly $2 million from the Department of the Treasury.
The 44-year-old R&B star, who won three Grammy Awards in 1998 for his song “I Believe I Can Fly,” is no stranger to controversy. In 2008 a jury acquitted him of child pornography charges.
(Reporting by Karin Matz; Editing by Jerry Norton)