La Toya Jackson — an older sister of the recently deceased “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson — is facing foreclosure on a 1,856-square foot condominium unit located on the 27th floor at Regency Towers inside Las Vegas Country Club in Nevada.

ReviewJournal.com reports that the singer/songwriter, who is perhaps more recognized for her famous family and two spreads in Playboy in the early 1990s, is in default with an unpaid balance of $750,000. She purchased the home for about $260,000 in 1996.

It’s possible that Jackson has no intentions of rescuing the condo from the auction block — she reportedly moved all of her belongings out of the residence back in August. Other reports indicate that Sept. 30 is the possible date for a future foreclosure sale.

La Toya, 53, is not the first or only Jackson to miss mortgage payments.

Michael was at the center of perhaps the most famous celebrity foreclosure story ever when his sprawling Neverland Ranch in Los Olivos, Calif., was teetering on the edge of repossession. He avoided foreclosure in the eleventh hour by selling a major interest in Neverland to a real estate investment company, Colony Capital, which entered into a joint venture with Jackson to renovate and re-sell it.

For what it’s worth, Dr. Conrad Murray — the man at the center of the investigation into Michael Jackson’s death — is also in danger of losing his 5,268-square-foot home in the exclusive Red Rock Country Club in Las Vegas to foreclosure.

Stay tuned to Foreclosure.com for more updates on La Toya’s foreclosure situation as it unfolds. To read about even more celebrity-related foreclosures click here.

“Extreme financial distress” and New York City’s decision “not to renew” the current owners’ lease has forced the Tavern on the Green to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The historic eatery, which was established in 1934, is located in Central Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It was and continues to be an extremely popular haunt, raking in a reported $38 million in gross revenues back in 2007 — “the second highest-grossing independently-owned restaurant in the United States.”

But the owners, the family of Warner LeRoy, racked up debt as much as $50 million since they took title in 1974.

So after recently crunching the numbers it appears that the restaurateurs realized that repaying their long list of 200 creditors on time wasn’t going to happen. In addition, according to a Bloomberg.com report, the city recently awarded the lease to restaurateur, Dean Poll, for 20 years starting at the end of Dec. 31, 2009.

In short, bad economy + debt + no lease = Bankruptcy.

Here’s the good news: Tavern on the Green will remain open and operational during the “reorganization.” What’s more, Poll intends to make $25 million in upgrades when he takes the helm in 2010.

In the meantime, Tavern on the Green will likely be sold to the highest bidder in bankruptcy court where it will likely fetch a pretty penny — the name alone is valued at more than $19 million.

America’s most notorious and best known gangster, Al Capone, is still making headlines in the Chicago newspapers more than 62 years after his death.

And it has nothing to do with illegal gambling, smuggling, bootlegging, prostitution or massacres.

Capone’s 407-acre 1920s-era “hideout” in Couderay, Wisc., which includes a 37-acre private lake located in the beautiful northwoods of “The Badger State,” is headed to the Sawyer County courthouse for a foreclosure auction set for 10:30 a.m. Oct. 8, 2009.

The minimum bid on the property — one of many that Capone used throughout the nation back in the day to “lay low” — is $2.6 million.

Here’s the official property description from Chippewa Valley Bank:

“Includes the original 1920’s main lodge of native fieldstone with massive split fieldstone fireplace, an eight-car garage renovated into a fabulous bar and restaurant, bunkhouse, year-round caretaker’s residence, guard tower along with other outbuildings and Capone’s unique ‘jail cell.’ Very private and pristine beautiful. There are many unique features to this property designed by the notorious gangster himself.”

Contents of the lake and whatever (or whoever) is possibly contained on the land — maybe even some legendary buried treasure — are also included.

For more information on Capone’s Wisconsin retreat click here and here.

Los Angeles Times has three solid recommendations in an article today entitled, “Beware of foreclosure prevention scams.”

Here are the key points:

1. If the company claims to be able to guarantee success in preventing foreclosure, no matter what your financial situation or mortgage details, don’t listen further to the pitch. Nobody can guarantee you’ll get a loan modification, and nobody can guarantee that your lender won’t pull the plug and foreclose.
2. Although there is no federal law against collection of upfront fees for loan modification assistance — unlike so-called credit repair operations, through which fees are prohibited until services are completed — any company asking for $1,000 to $4,000 in advance should be checked out thoroughly by the homeowner before any payment.
3. Mortgage modification companies that claim to have special inside connections allowing them to make your payments directly to your lender — provided you send your monthly checks to the modification company, not to your regular servicer — are almost certainly intent on one thing: cashing as many of your checks as possible, pocketing the money and leaving you unprotected and heading for foreclosure.

As of April 6, 2009, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating about 2,100 mortgage fraud cases throughout the nation — a 400 percent increase from five years ago.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore the options of a possible loan modification with your lender. Just be careful.

And try not to pay any upfront money to a third-party company with an official-sounding name when you may not have to. Especially because there are free government programs such as “Making Home Affordable” that offer housing counselors and other helpful support at no cost.

To check and see if you are eligible for a loan modification use this self-assessment tool right here.