Detroit City Council approved a legal settlement with a long-criticized landlord who owns nearly 300 properties and has racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in blight tickets.
After a lengthy discussion, council members on Tuesday signed off on the settlement in a lawsuit against Gaston Munoz, who heads a Detroit-based real estate firm. Some council members scrutinized the agreement as too good a deal that encourages bad behaviors, but the city’s top lawyer said it spurs compliance.
“We have been trying to address these properties for years,” said District 6 Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero, who said she only supported the settlement because she felt she was out of options. It’s a step in the right direction to hold “bad landlords” accountable, she said.
The agreement stipulates that Munoz abate 299 properties on a monthly schedule and get them re-inspected and certified by the city’s buildings department. Once the properties are rehabbed, the city will cut Munoz’s blight ticket fines — totaling roughly $460,000 — in half. He must still pay off other debts for water bills, taxes and inspection fees. The vote was delayed last week pending information about the number of occupied homes.
The settlement passed with a 6-3 vote. Council Members Mary Waters, Renata Miller and Denzel Anton McCampbell voted no.
“This deal incentivises bad behavior,” said McCampbell, who represents District 7.
The action comes after the city filed a lawsuit late last year in Wayne County Circuit Court against Munoz, of Detroit International Holding LLC and Munoz Realty Inc., and several of his companies and associates over blighted conditions that threatened the health and safety of residents. The city accused Munoz of failing to get safety certificates and accumulating thousands of dollars in water debt and blight tickets.
The lawsuit, filed in December, included 10 of the “worst” properties, per the Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department (BSEED), according to Jason Harrison, supervising assistant corporation counsel for the city.”We think this is the best deal possible at this point in time,” he told council members on Tuesday.
In 2022, the Free Press and BridgeDetroit reported on tenants living in Munoz-managed properties who struggled to get repairs and dealt with strong odors and dark brown sludge in their basements. At the time, Munoz said he had a system in place for tenants to report repairs and dismissed the problems tenants raised as hearsay.
An attorney listed for Munoz did not respond to a request for comment from BridgeDetroit on Tuesday. Munoz did not reply to an email and phone call by publication.
Only 34% of the more than 453 properties Munoz owned or managed had, at the time of the lawsuit filing, a certificate of compliance from the city’s buildings department showing the properties had been inspected and were safe to live in, leaving 299 properties in violation of both city and state laws, according to the complaint.
As of May 2026, 55 properties were compliant, according to Harrison. None of the properties subject to the order are in foreclosure.
The settlement requires Munoz to abate 10 properties a month by Nov. 30 2028. If properties pass an inspection by the city’s buildings department, Munoz can get a 50% discount on blight tickets. Munoz must resolve any pending balances to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department; BSEED (for fees outside of blight tickets), and city of Detroit taxes collected by Wayne County, according to the May order signed by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Helal Farhat.
Miller criticized the settlement as a “sweet deal.” She said 10 properties a month was not enough, especially if the landlord is collecting rent.
Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallett said the discount is meant to encourage compliance. The settlement brings Munoz and his properties under the jurisdiction of the Wayne County Circuit Court, he said, but acknowledged there’s more work to do.
Rental compliance and lack of enforcement have long been issues in Detroit. The city has been taking residential real estate companies to court in recent months. Last year the city sued Real Token, a blockchain real estate company, for public nuisance violations involving hundreds of residential properties in Detroit.
In Munoz’s case, Mallett said, the law department’s decision to bring the houses into compliance for the benefit of the tenants was at least as important as collection on fines and debts.
“We wanted to collect the water bill. We wanted to collect the tax bill. We wanted to collect the BSEED fees that were owed …,” Mallett said. “This is a self-created situation — that is, Mr. Munoz allowed these properties to deteriorate to where they were.”
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit settles suit against realty group owing $460K in blight tickets
Reporting by Nushrat Rahman, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Nushrat Rahman, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
