Elvis Presley granddaughter sues to stop Graceland foreclosure sale

Elvis Presley’s granddaughter is suing to try to keep her grandfather’s legendary Graceland estate in the King of Rock-and-Roll’s family.

In a lawsuit filed last week, actress Riley Keough asked a Shelby County, Tenn., court to stop what she called a fraudulent sale, after a lender claimed that Keough’s mother, Lisa Marie Presley, took out a $3.8 million loan and that the family failed to pay it back.

A foreclosure auction had been scheduled for Thursday, but in court Wednesday morning, a judge temporarily delayed the sale, sustaining his previously issued temporary injunction until a future hearing. Keough became the sole owner of the Memphis mansion last year after the death of her mother in January 2023.

Here’s what to know:

The facts

Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC, the creditor behind the foreclosure, claims it made a $3.8 million loan agreement with Lisa Marie Presley in 2018 that she failed to repay. She used Graceland as collateral, the creditor says. The loan agreement bears the signature of a Florida notary, Kimberly Philbrick.
Keough alleged in the lawsuit filed in Shelby County Chancery Court that her mother never borrowed any money from Naussany Investments and never gave a deed of trust to the company, contrary to the creditor’s claims.
Keough’s attorney also alleged that Naussany Investments “is not a real entity.” Instead, the lawsuit said, it appears that the company was created to defraud the family. “These documents are fraudulent,” wrote Keough’s attorney Jeff Germany, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Philbrick, the notary, wrote in an affidavit accompanying Keough’s lawsuit that she never signed the loan agreement and never met Presley. “I do not know why my signature appears on this document,” she wrote.
Shelby County Chancery Court Chancellor JoeDae L. Jenkins said Wednesday in court that he was deferring ruling on the case in part because no representatives for Naussany Investments were present and Keough’s attorney needed to provide more evidence.

Background

Naussany Investments had in recent months pressed the family to pay back the alleged loan, filing a collections claim in a Los Angeles County court in September. The family refused. This month, the creditor posted a public notice of a foreclosure sale scheduled for Thursday.

In that notice, Naussany Investments sought to hold an estate sale outside the Shelby County Courthouse to the “highest and best bidder.” Keough’s suit seeks to stop that sale.

Brad Russell, an attorney for Naussany Investments, said he had no comment on the matter because of the ongoing case. Kurt Naussany, who is also listed as a defendant in the suit, did not respond to a request for comment.

Elvis Presley Enterprises said in a statement that it supported Keough’s allegations.

“Elvis Presley Enterprises can confirm that these claims are fraudulent,” the organization said. “There is no foreclosure sale. Simply put, the counter lawsuit has been filed to stop the fraud.”

Following Jenkins’s ruling Wednesday, the organization said Graceland would continue to operate.

“As the court has now made clear, there was no validity to the claims,” Elvis Presley Enterprises said in a statement Wednesday morning.

Important context

The ownership of the late rock star’s famous Memphis mansion has a tense legal history. Elvis Presley’s will appointed his father, his grandmother and his only child, Lisa Marie, as the beneficiaries of his estate.

In 1993, Lisa Marie Presley, the only one of the initial trustees still alive, appointed her mother, Priscilla Presley, as one of two co-trustees, along with business manager Barry Siegal.

But when Lisa Marie died last year, her mother said she found an amendment to the will that replaced her and Siegal as trustees with Keough and her brother Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020. After a months-long dispute, Riley Keough agreed in a settlement to pay her grandmother a lump-sum payment and keep Priscilla Presley as a “special adviser” to the trust.

Keough, in turn, would be the sole trustee of the Promenade Trust, which oversees the Graceland museum, and be charged with safeguarding the money.

Since opening to the public in 1982, Graceland has hosted more than 20 million visitors, according to its website, and now averages more than 500,000 each year. It is one of the most visited home tours in the United States.