CHARLOTTE, NC – Attor neys for Fantasia Barrino agreed over the weekend to settle a debt with a Florida creditor to prevent the “American Idol” star’s $1.3 million home from being auctioned off today.
“Assuming the promised payments all get paid as indicated, we will be satisfied,” said Larry Goldman, the lawyer representing creditor Broward Energy Partners. “I didn’t want to take her house.”
The 24-year-old singer owes the Florida company $65,000 – money she borrowed in 2006 to pay back taxes she owed the IRS.
Barrino made a $10,000 payment in August 2007. But she never paid the rest, so the company won the right in court to auction off her home for the balance.
Barrino has agreed to make payments over the course of several months, Goldman said. He declined to give specific details.
“Reading between the lines, I’m assuming the money is not there or, at least, it’s not there in the short-term,” he told The Post. “My client just wants to be paid.”
Barrino’s lawyer, Malhar Pagay, did not return calls.
The auction set for today has been canceled as a result of the settlement agreement. But Barrino still stands to lose her home in a future auction if the settlement is not followed.
Fantasia, who starred as herself in a Lifetime movie chronicling her rags-to-riches story, has had some financial problems since winning the third season of “American Idol” in 2004.
In 2005, she nearly lost another home she owns in Charlotte to foreclosure as well as her $240,000 Mercedes Benz. In both cases, she had failed to make payments as promised and only resolved the matters after being sued, according to court documents.
Tax records show the singer still owes $14,678 for last year’s property taxes on the two-story golf-community home that was to be auctioned.
Barrino’s managers did not return calls . And no one answered the door at the home last week.
The singer, whose MySpace profile says she has an album coming out this year, did not respond to a written message requesting an interview.