Tony Saxon, a record collector who was not a licensed contractor, claims to have sustained severe injuries during the gut renovation.
Kanye West has been ordered to pay an additional $181,433 following a lawsuit tied to the gut renovation of his former Malibu beach house, resulting in a $321,000 total award.
According to Rolling Stone, a Los Angeles County Superior Court ruling has ordered the musician to pay $147,000 in attorneys’ fees and $34,433.93 in costs to the West Coast Trial Lawyers legal team who represented Tony Saxon in a 2023 lawsuit.
In the original verdict, the jury awarded Saxon $100,000 for past and future medical expenses and $40,000 for past pain and suffering.
The lawsuit alleged Saxton—who is not a licensed contractor—sustained severe neck and back injuries while living and working at the luxury beach home West had hoped to transform into an off-the-grid bunker.
Although Saxon’s representation had originally requested a higher award—asking $1.7 million in compensatory damages—the amount Judge Brock Hammond finally ordered West to pay is more than the initial proposal, which lawyer Ron Zambrano challenged, resulting in an increase.
Kanye West has been ordered to pay an additional $181,433 in a lawsuit tied to the Malibu mansion he formerly attempted to renovate, bringing the total amount to $321,000. (Getty Images for The Recording Academy) “I respect Judge Hammond’s openness to consider my argument why his initial assessment was perhaps missing a critical point,” Zambrano told Rolling Stone. “Though I believe the value of what we brought to get Mr. Saxon his verdict is above where Judge Hammond ultimately landed.”
Meanwhile, in a statement to Billboard, West’s spokesperson Milo Yiannopoulos said the ruling was “fittingly humiliating” for Zambrano’s co-counsel, Neama Rahmani.
West purchased the Tadao Ando–designed oceanfront abode for $57 million in 2021 before beginning work that would turn the property into a modernist bunker.
The musician’s alleged unusual demands for the property were shared before a jury in court during Saxon’s case, including a request to rip out all of the toilets.
“He wanted no toilets,” Zambrano stated, according to Rolling Stone. “If people had to go No. 2, it was a hole in the ground.”
West purchased the architecturally significant property for $57 million in 2021. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) Saxon’s allegations also included that the rapper required him to live at the house during the renovation, and that he was asked to complete work without necessary permits.
West’s lawyer, Andrew Cherkasky, refuted the claims and even accused Saxon of lying about having the proper licenses to carry out the work he was hired to do. Cherkasky also said that Saxon slept in the concrete dwelling on his own accord.
Plans to upgrade the home were abandoned altogether, and West put the home on the market in January 2024, asking $53 million. At the time, he enlisted the help of celebrity real estate agent Jason Oppenheim.
The property was listed without electricity, plumbing, windows, or interior finishes—features that had been removed during West’s renovation.
Steve “Bo” Belmont, CEO of “real estate crowdfunding firm” Belwood Investments, purchased the concrete structure for the significantly reduced rate of $21 million in September 2024 with hopes to restore it to its former glory.
The musician allegedly planned to turn the concrete structure into an off-the-grid bunker, stripping it of electricity, plumbing, windows, and interior finishes before ditching the project. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) The drama surrounding the property didn’t end there. In March 2025, Belmont announced he was listing the home for $39 million, after restoring it to livable condition with minimal work.
Days after the abode hit the market, Belmont revealed he had struck a deal with a Montana-based developer named Andrew Mazzella. At the time, Belmont told the Wall Street Journal he’d agreed to sell the home for a price between $30 million and $34 million.
Though the two developers expected to close the deal by the following May, the property’s listing status hovered at “pending” for weeks, and the home eventually returned to the market at a reduced asking price of $34.9 million in August 2025.
In a later interview with the Journal, Belmont shared his side of the story of the failed deal, calling Mazzella “massively underqualified” to secure the funding for the agreed-upon price.
He called the buyer a “Montana cowboy” who was “trying to do something in Malibu,” explaining that he decided to cancel the contract after Mazzella failed to come up with the money.
Mazzella claimed Belmont turned down an offer to pay $27.5 million in cash, and that the restoration of the home would be continued while the deal finalized. Ultimately, Mazzella discovered the work had ceased months before, in April, and that the project would require “hundreds of thousands, maybe millions” of dollars to complete.
By December 2025, Belmont was threatened with foreclosure after having defaulted on the $18.5 million mortgage. He was given 90 days to catch up on payments.
In March 2026, the home was set to be auctioned off after Belmont was accused of defaulting on the loan, but the foreclosure auction was delayed when a bankruptcy action was filed on the dwelling.
The auction was rescheduled for April 7, then postponed again—this time, indefinitely—as reported by the New York Post.
“I will do everything in my power to ensure this home is not taken, and we finish the restoration,” Belmont told the Post in light of the second delay. He cited issues with a developer and some of the many lenders who financed the home, but did not name the parties.
“Despite these factors, I am still pushing forward aggressively on behalf of everyone who has invested in this property,” said Belmont.