Madoff's home in Florida lost almost $2M in value

Even Bernie Madoff isn't exempt from the real estate slump. The Florida mansion that prosecutors seized from the Wall Street swindler appears to have lost a big chunk of its value since Palm Beach County officials assessed its taxable value last year at $9.3 million. A new appraisal that federal officials did in March pegged the property's likely market price at $7.45 million. Prosecutors disclosed in a court filing Thursday that Madoff and his wife had tentatively agreed to let the U.S. Marshals Service sell off the waterfront Palm Beach property while the courts decide how much of the family's assets should be distributed to his victims. The planned seizure of the home was accelerated, however, because of the hefty cost of maintaining the five-bedroom home and legal complications created by a competing claim to Madoff's assets posed by a lawsuit in Connecticut. The home was seized Wednesday, along with a vintage yacht and a 24-foot (8-meter) motorboat. Court papers say the monthly costs on the 6,500-square-foot (603-sq. meter) house on the Intercoastal Waterway included $3,000 for homeowners insurance, $1,000 for utilities and $3,300 for maintenance and security. The family's annual flood and hurricane insurance bill was $115,000. Prosecutors are trying to preserve as much of Madoff's fortune as possible to distribute among his victims. They said in the court filing that they had refused to allow the family to pay its home insurance bill for April because they didn't believe that Madoff and his wife, Ruth, would own it for much longer.