Fly away, little bird
/Rocker Steve Miller‘s a joker, backing out of buying a $6.7 million mansion in Dutchess County at the last minute and leaving the owner in a lurch, a new Manhattan federal lawsuit says.
The “Fly Like an Eagle” and “Joker” singer had ponied up a $670,000 down payment to buy the Lagrangeville home of former Toys “R” Us CEO John Eyler — but reneged on the eve of the closing in December after an appraisal “greatly undervalued” the house at $4.3 million, the suit says.
Miller claimed that he couldn’t get approved for a mortgage because of the appraisal, which suggested he was about to overpay for the home by $2.4 million.
Eyler argues their sale contract explicitly states “that sale is not contingent upon a satisfactory appraisal due to the unique quality style of the improvements, the value of the infrastructure and the large size of the parcel,” court papers say.
My sympathies, limited as they are, probably lie with the seller here. The contract seems to have specifically addressed the issue of an appraiser failing to distinguish between a regular home's value up in Lagrangeville (it's off the Taconic, near Kent) and one of the celebrity/money guys' homes, so if the appraised value was brought down by the selling price of the double-wide down the street, that's Miller's problem, not the seller's.
Heres the listing, 132 Seely Road, in Lagrangeville. My guess is that the appraiser got it right, though that still leaves the owner holding on to Miller's cash. Hey man, you know what to do.
