Polish buyer makes offer for John Paul II's house: lawyer

AFP, March, 2006

WARSAW (AFP) — A Polish buyer has made an offer to buy the house in southern Poland where the late Pope John Paul II was born nearly 86 years ago, a lawyer for the property's American owner said.

"The buyer is Polish," attorney Jacek Michalski of Dewey Ballantine law offices in Warsaw, told AFP.

Michalski refused to specify if the buyer was an individual or company, or the offer price for the house in Wadowice.

One of the clauses in the draft contract of sale specifies that the buyer must maintain "the religious character" of the house, as requested by the seller, American Ron Balamuth, who inherited the property from his family.

The seller, the descendant of a Polish-Jewish family, also stipulated in the draft contract that the new owner of the...