According to ABC, after drug abuse and a history of arrests, “Whitaker is now struggling to pay his bills and needed to sell the house which he gave to his mother nearly 30 years ago.” A Virginia court ruled that “Whitaker’s 73-year-old mother, Novella Whitaker, had to vacate the house by March 31.”
Whitaker had been going head to head against the matriarch of his seven-child family since last fall when he began eviction proceedings after unsuccessfully trying to convince his mother to move, his lawyer, Bruce Gould told ABC News.
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Whitaker, 50, bought the two-story brick home near the Botanical Garden in Norfolk, Va., for his mother in 1984 when he was still flush from his many wins in the ring.
The house was always listed under Whitaker’s name and as there was no written lease or deed of gift, the son’s oral promise to his mother is not enforceable under Virginia law, Gould said.
Whitaker reportedly “now intends to sell the house to retain the $150,000 of equity in the home to recoup $18,000 in overdue taxes he paid on the building on behalf of his mother and two siblings living there.”
While his mother was heartbroken and now will move in with his sister, Whitaker told ABC News affiliate WVEC-TV that the eviction was “a beautiful moment.”
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