COLUMBIA, Ill. — The house where Christopher Coleman allegedly murdered his family is near foreclosure, according to a lawyer for his late wife's family.

"I've been told a notice of foreclosure has been served on Christopher Coleman and that at least one car loan is in default," the lawyer, Jack Carey, said Monday.

Police say that before the killings, Coleman was having a long-distance love affair with a friend of his wife's in Florida, and that he held a joint credit card with his lover and kept a post office box in Columbia.

The status of the house at 2854 Robert Avenue came to light after lawyers for Coleman and the family of his slain wife, Sheri Coleman, reached agreement Friday afternoon on a permanent injunction to protect the marital assets.

Carey said the order, filed Monday in Monroe County Circuit Court, allows Sheri Coleman's mother to enter the home and "secure, inventory and remove" personal property of her daughter and deceased grandchildren.

William Margulis, one of Coleman's attorneys, said Monday that his client got a letter threatening foreclosure if he did not make arrangements. He did not indicate what would happen from here.

Sheri Coleman, 31, and her sons Gavin, 9, and Garett, 11, were found strangled May 5. Christopher Coleman, 32, is being held without bond pending trial on charges of first-degree murder.

Proceeds from the sale of the home are to be deposited in a trust account of Sheri Coleman's family attorney, the order said. Christopher Coleman, or anyone working on his behalf, is barred from making the sale.

It remained unclear if there would be any money left. The house appears to have little equity. A refinanced mortgage for $230,850 was filed in November 2008.

Sheri Coleman's family sued to preserve the property shortly after the murders. They said their aim was to protect items of sentimental value — and to prevent Christopher Coleman from profiting from the murders or selling the house to pay for his defense.

Both sides agreed to sell a Mazda automobile.

Christopher Coleman's relatives also are allowed to inventory and remove furniture and other belongings from the home and place them in storage.

Christopher Coleman had suggested that someone who left repeated anonymous threats over his security work for televangelist Joyce Meyer might have been responsible for the deaths, but police said they tracked the threats to a computer he used.

The Joyce Meyer Ministries got him to resign shortly after public disclosure of his love affair with a woman in Largo, Fla., named Tara Lintz. She has declined to answer a reporter's questions but did talk with police.

Charges were filed after investigators decided the victims had been dead too long to fit Christopher Coleman's claim that a killer entered the house after he left for a morning workout at a gym.