Serena Williams childhood home seized over stepmother’s $600,000 debt

Serena and Venus Williams’ childhood home will be taken away after her stepmother failed in a last-gasp bid to declare bankruptcy.

The home where the 24-time Major winner learned to play tennis will be seized over her stepmom’s failure to pay back $600,000 of debts.

It is the latest development in the legal saga surrounding Williams’ estranged stepmother, Lakeisha Williams. But it now appears that she will lose possession of the $1.4million Palm Beach home.

The former stripper racked up the debt after falling behind on payments, which she blamed on the failure of her trucking business and ‘fast food and frivolities’, according to legal papers seen by The Sun.

She repeatedly filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying the amount, but her last attempt to do so has ended in failure – and she will now be forced to sell it off to pay her creditors.

The derelict four bedroom, 10-acre property still has the tennis court in the garden where Richard trained his daughters. Lakeisha, 45, separated from the Williams sisters’ father, Richard, in 2017 and they have been in the process of a bitter divorce for several months.

Richard, who has suffered several strokes and is battling dementia, moved third-wife Lakeisha into his then palatial home in a rural part of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, after they wed in 2009.

Will Serena or Venus buy the house?

Lakeisha stayed in the house after they split, but the home fell into foreclosure in 2021 after Miami mortgage lender David Simon filed a legal suit to retrieve the money owed.

It now means the $1.4M Palm Beach estate will be seized, with the majority of the proceeds of the sale going towards settling her debt to Simon and 20 other creditors.

At this stage, it is unclear whether Serena or Venus will step in to save their former home from being sold to another buyer.

But the tennis courts where they once honed their craft are unrecognizable, with overgrown grass, rusting floodlights and a torn net – with only one court in a decent condition.