Frustrated Detroit tenant speaks out about terrible living conditions
The City of Detroit announces major lawsuit against Real Token as renters struggle with dilapidated living conditions
- The firms sell “fractional ownership” in Detroit rental properties.
- The city’s top lawyer called the complaint the biggest nuisance abatement lawsuit it has ever filed.
An apartment building with fire damage. A home without heat or smoke detectors. Multiple properties with broken windows.
Over on the east side, a Detroiter living in her home without running water for two months, forcing her to survive off of bottles of water. Another tenant living upstairs in the same apartment complex with no hot water in her kitchen, electrical sockets that don’t work and gaps in her windows. Outside of their home, a backyard door that appears boarded shut.
These are the among the properties, and living conditions, at the center of a sprawling lawsuit filed by the city of Detroit on July 2 against Real Token, a Florida-based blockchain real estate company; its co-founders, brothers Remy Jacobson and Jean-Marc Jacobson, and 165 affiliates, for public nuisance violations involving more than 400 residential properties in Detroit.
“This is the largest nuisance abatement lawsuit ever filed by the city of Detroit,” said Conrad Mallett, corporation counsel for the city of Detroit, speaking at a news conference on the city’s west side near one of the many properties cited in the suit.
At issue: Real Token, or RealT, is operating a cryptocurrency venture in Detroit, involving dozens of limited liability companies and related entities, by offering international investors “fractional ownership of Detroit properties represented as digital tokens,” according to the suit. The city of Detroit, in its complaint, alleges that its tenants — Detroit residents — are paying the price with poorly maintained rental properties and unsanitary and unsafe conditions. The city’s lawsuit follows an Outlier Media investigation published earlier this year about the company.
“Behind the high tech language lies a deeply familiar problem in this city, and that is neglected properties … unresponsive management, and Detroit families, many of them single mothers, left to live in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. Tenants have reported persistent mold, broken plumbing, caved-in ceilings and a total lack of basic maintenance, yet their rent is still being collected,” said District 2 Council Member Angela Whitfield-Calloway.
On its website, Real Token says “for the first time, investors around the globe can buy into the US real estate market through fully-compliant, fractional, tokenized ownership.” Since 2019, the company says it has garnered more than 65,000 registered investors. Ownership of property is spread out across “representative tokens” and owners “can collect revenue from rent, and vote on property decisions,” according to the company’s website. Each property has a management company that “sources tenants,…
Read More: Detroit sues blockchain real estate company Real Token
