Katy Perry wins battle for Los Angeles convent

Katy Perry has moved one step closer to becoming the owner of a Roman Catholic convent in Los Angeles.

A judge has invalidated the sale of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Feliz to a restaurateur, making the pop star the prime candidate to move in.

Perry, the daughter of Protestant pastors, initially put in a bid for the convent last year (15) and Archdiocese officials agreed terms with her, but nuns living at the convent had other ideas and they decided to sell to Los Angeles restaurateur Dana Hollister.

On Wednesday (13Apr16), Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Bowick approved the archdiocese's motion to block the sale to Hollister in its entirety, giving Perry the go-ahead to snap up the Roman villa-style property for $14.5 million (£10.2 million).

According to the Los Angeles Times, Hollister had offered to buy the former convent for $15.5 million (£10.9 million). She had hoped to convert the property into a hotel.

Last summer (15), two of the convent's nuns stepped up their campaign against Perry's bid to buy the place, alleging the sale would violate their religious vows.

Sisters Rita Callahan and Catherine Rose Holzman claimed it was their right to sell the eight-acre estate and they had already struck a deal with Hollister.

Legal documents obtained by the New York Times featured an email the two nuns wrote to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, in which they stated, "In selling to Katy Perry, we feel we are being forced to violate our canonical vows to the Catholic Church."

They also claimed the Archdiocese officials were bullying them into accepting Perry's sale when they would prefer the property to go to Hollister.