Slash Sues Over Unsuitable Party House

01/26/09 1:28pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

A Los Angeles judge has ruled that Velvet Revolver and former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash and his wife Perla Hudson can go ahead with a lawsuit against real estate brokers who the couple say misrepresented a Hollywood Hills house as a good party location.

Slash (real name Saul Hudson) and his wife are suing real estate agent Gregory Holcomb and Sotheby's International Realty. They claim they lost more than $500,000 U.S. (about $611,000 Canadian) when they bought the house, which they say they never moved into because it wasn't to their specifications and they were duped into buying it.

Holcomb and Sotheby's tried to have the trial thrown out, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mel Red Recana said on Friday that it could go ahead. Slash and Hudson are suing for damages of $1 million in addition to punitive damages.

Hudson previously filed a sworn declaration with the court in which she said she and Slash had bought the house in January 2006 for $6.25 million and sold it in November 2007 for $5.7 million.

"I thought I had found a dream home when Holcomb sent me information about a house with spectacular views on what was purported to be a private street," Hudson wrote in the declaration.

But the couple say they soon discovered that the street is public and has no parking, which they say makes it a bad party location. They also say the home wasn't 7,800 square feet, as they had been told, and had other problems. They allege that Holcomb made a commission of $124,000 on the house sale.

Todd Whitman, Slash and Hudson's lawyer, said Holcomb never told the couple they could back out of the deal.

Holcomb and Sotheby's say they couldn't have known the house listing was incorrect and the house wasn't on a private street.

The trial is scheduled for Sept. 21.