IRS places liens on Nicolas Cage's New Orleans homes

by Rebecca Mowbray, The Times-Picayune

Internal Revenue Service liens, filed with the Orleans Parish Recorder of Mortgages on July 14, are attached to the three-story purple-gray mansion Nicolas Cage owns at 1140 Royal St. in the French Quarter.

Actor Nicolas Cage may have more trouble selling his homes in New Orleans than most other people who have plunked for-sale signs in front of their houses.

That's because the Internal Revenue Service has placed a tax lien for $6.26 million on his properties for failing to pay income taxes in 2007.   Another IRS lien for $360,545.84 stems from unpaid income taxes between 2002 and 2004.

The presence of the liens means that Cage must pay the debts before he can sell or refinance his properties, or the proceeds will be taken out at closing. The IRS can attach liens after it notifies a taxpayer about unpaid taxes, and the taxpayer neglects or refuses to pay the debt in 10 days.

The liens, filed with the Orleans Parish Recorder of Mortgages July 14, are attached to the three-story purple-gray mansion he owns at 1140 Royal St. in the French Quarter. According to the IRS and the mortgage office, Cage was probably served with the lien at his French Quarter address, but they would apply to any property the Academy Award-winning actor owns.

Cage, the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola, owns two houses in New Orleans. He put both of them on the market this spring.

The Royal Street home, a 10,300-square-foot property Cage bought in December 2006 known as the LaLaurie mansion, is listed for $3.55 million.

During an interview with David Letterman last year, Cage called the mansion "a very notorious house, a very famous house, meaning it is allegedly the most severely haunted house in the United States of America. "Some people have beach-front property, " Cage continued. "I have ghost-front property."

Cage also owns a Garden District mansion with a double gallery and formal gardens at 2523 Prytania that he bought in June 2005. That property is listed for $3.45 million.

His homes are listed for sale with Dorian Bennett Sotheby's International Realty. Bennett predicted that the liens would have no impact on Cage's ability to sell his homes in New Orleans.

"It doesn't do anything, quite frankly," Bennett said. "There are lots of people with lots of personal issues who are selling property. It's rampant throughout our city and all cities that they've run into financial issues. It's nothing more than just a legal issue and a monetary issue."

Bennett said that Cage's homes have generated a lot of interest among potential buyers. "They're some of the best architecture in the city of New Orleans."

Cage has had a string of unsuccessful movies in recent years, including "Knowing," "Bangkok Dangerous," "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," "Ghost Rider" and "Grindhouse."

In 1995, he won the Academy Award for best actor in "Leaving Las Vegas."

Rebecca Mowbray can be reached at rmowbray@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3417.