When they bought their house from a private developer on Detroit’s east side nearly four years ago, Emily Weiss and Gabrielle Durnen were told it had a clear title and there was no mention of it being formerly owned by the city’s land bank.
Then, in December 2025, they got a letter.
The land bank was notifying the couple of its intent to take their home away, under the terms of an agreement Weiss and Durnen had never been notified of, which was part of a special deal with developer John Hantz in East Village from years before. They were told they needed to show proof of their property being rehabbed in order to clear the land bank’s interest in their property title. And the warranty deed they received from the title company was apparently not valid.
Weiss said it felt “unreal” to get the letter. “We had to check and see if it was a scam.”
It was all too real. And the latest example of challenges that can arise when residents buy homes once owned by the Detroit Land Bank Authority, the quasi-governmental agency that holds publicly-owned residential properties in the city.
It’s unclear how the couple received a warranty deed from the title company when the title was not clear.
There has long been controversy over the land bank, including transparency concerns, eligibility hurdles and land holds that prevent Detroit residents from making certain purchases. That includes holding some parcels specifically for large developers who may not live in the city and, in some cases, offering special agreements that adjust the terms for acquiring or maintaining land, creating unequal practice between residents and developers.
In Weiss and Durnen’s neighborhood, the issue with their home is one of the long tentacles of a massive land sale the city made to Hantz more than a decade ago. The city gave Hantz roughly 2,000 properties that he agreed to stabilize through demolition and improvements, like widespread tree planting, or to sell the 80 homes he had been given. He sold the houses to developers who inherited his responsibilities, but then did not necessarily follow through on meeting those conditions set forth by the land bank to allow for clear title and sale of the homes to occupants.
Weiss and Durnen’s property was among five houses that received the December letters from the land bank, demanding evidence that the homes had met rehabilitation compliance standards. By early February, after weeks of stress and questions from BridgeDetroit, the land bank made an about-face, notifying Weiss and Durnen that records were found showing the home was compliant prior to the couple’s purchase and that the land bank was planning to relinquish its interest in the property.
“We’re in a defensive position for sure,” said Weiss. “It feels like we’re being attacked by the land bank and being lied to…”
Some housing law advocates say sloppiness and special deals with developers by the land bank often result in trouble for families who simply want to buy and live in a house in Detroit.
“The whole purpose of the land bank is to clear blight and to rehabilitate homes,” James Martines, an attorney at the Detroit Justice Center, told BridgeDetroit. “You can’t just start renting the place out or sell it when it’s half done, otherwise people would be able to take advantage, and you create the same problem that the land bank was trying to address.”
An unexpected letter
Weiss and Durnen bought their home in spring 2022 from The Woodland Initiative, a development firm led by Brad Byarski. The Woodland Initiative and Byarski were both listed as the sellers on the property.
The Woodland Initiative acquired the property from Hantz, whose project began in 2013. He bought 2,000 abandoned and blighted parcels on the near east side for little money and began investing in their improvement. Hantz Woodlands tore down dozens of homes, cleared lots and planted tens of thousands of trees in an effort to stabilize the area and make it more attractive to other investors. There were terms that allowed Hantz to resell to other developers, who then inherited his obligations for rehabbing the properties before selling them.
That’s what happened with the Woodland Initiative when the developer sold the home to Weiss and Durnen. Chirco Title Agency, Inc. handled the sale and provided a warranty deed, which guarantees a clear title and protects the buyer from future claims and liens. There was no mention of Hantz Farms or the land bank until the December letter, the couple said.
For its part, the land bank, responsible for shepherding the property from its derelict state to homeownership, should have cleared the title once it determined Woodland had met its obligations. But in the December 2025 letter, the organization raised the spectre of a title problem with Weiss and Durnen due to the uncertainty over the state of the rehab efforts.
Land bank spokesperson Nicole Simmons initially put the onus on the title company for not catching the terms outlined in the deed when the property was first sold to Hantz Farms, LLC. She did not specifically address at what point the land bank should have released the title to Woodland Initiative in the process.
“The seller… did give a warranty deed to the current owners, thereby guaranteeing that the seller had clear title to the property. Unfortunately, the seller did not have clear title,” Simmons said in a statement.
“DLBA’s interest in the property runs with the land and is enforceable against future owners until the DLBA records a release of its interest. This is not impaired just because the seller used a warranty deed.”
Weeks later, Simmons told BridgeDetroit records were found showing the home was compliant. As of Feb. 25, Weiss noted that she still had not received proof that the land bank had released the property to them.
Donovan McCarty, director of the Housing Justice Clinic at the University of Michigan, said that there isn’t anything the couple or a potential buyer in Detroit could have done to prevent the situation, highlighting why the land bank’s special deals with developers can be problematic.
“They did everything they were supposed to do – they got a warranty deed,” he said, referring to Weiss and Durnen. “We make things easy for developers to basically get around the law, whereas individuals, we make the burden so high where a mistake like this could potentially cost them their home.”
Martines, who is not representing any of the parties involved, said Weiss and Durnen have potential legal claims against both the title company and the land bank over the handling of the sale.
“The title company, they should be responsible for the negligence of not going back and seeing that the title was clouded,” Martines said. “And the land bank shouldn’t have allowed the property to be transferred from the developer to an individual without it being registered for occupancy. By the land bank’s own rules, all of those properties needed to be registered and up to date before any other conveyance – that never happened.”
A spokesperson for Byarski declined to comment on the issue since Chirco handled and insured the transfer of title and deed. Chirco did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Representatives for Hantz also did not respond.
The origin of land bank deals
The Detroit Land Bank Authority was established in 2008 as a way to address the city’s massive inventory of vacant, abandoned and tax-foreclosed properties, including managing clear titles and getting the properties back into productive use. Among the goals for the land bank were promoting neighborhood revitalization, increasing homeownership and promoting urban agriculture. It became particularly important during Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy in 2013 as the authority jointly oversaw the demolition of thousands of blighted structures with the Detroit Building Authority.
It offers a suite of programs designed to make it easier for residents to obtain lots and discounted homes.
The land bank currently has an estimated 59,000 parcels in its possession, including vacant lots and homes in various conditions.
Of the parcels, nearly 28,000 are available for sale to Detroiters, either as a side lot or a neighborhood lot. Other parcels are being held, in some cases, waiting for developers to come in and buy up large swaths of land.
Besides Hantz, other developers in recent years that acquired a large number of parcels from the land bank include Bedford Development in the MorningSide neighborhood, Ron Castellano with the Herman Kiefer Hospital complex redevelopment and Century Partners and The Platform with the Fitzgerald Revitalization Project. In each case, there were challenges for the developers in living up to promises made.
Simmons said it wasn’t common, but not unusual, that a seller would be allowed to sell a property before it’s brought into compliance, but did not provide specifics on who else has similar deals. Simmons recommended that prospective homebuyers in Detroit should “always closely examine the title record before buying.”
Martines said it has implications when the land bank makes special deals with developers. “It’s creating a due process issue for everybody else,” he said, where not everyone is afforded the same process and procedures.
In recent years, there has been a push to abolish the land bank, but the Detroit City Council signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with the entity in November. Prior to that, the land bank had been operating without an agreement for two years.
For Weiss and Durnen, the land bank letter arrived a year after the extended property compliance deadline with Hantz expired.
Simmons said there was a delay because the land bank has been trying to resolve outstanding issues with Hantz Farms for two years, getting properties into compliance and reducing blight, and only recently learned of the sale from The Woodland Initiative to Weiss and Durnen.
The couple spent time while on a recent vacation looking for a lawyer.
Beyond the questions raised about their ownership rights, Weiss and Durnen also wonder how the house was deemed compliant before they got it, claiming it came into their possession with a non-functioning furnace in the lower unit, no gutters, a roof that needed repair, peeling paint, holes in unglazed windows and $3,500 in back taxes and a $2,000 water bill.
Simmons declined to further discuss the property’s compliance.
BridgeDetroit visited the other four houses that received letters from the land bank and found they were unoccupied and rundown. The city’s online parcel viewer shows that a property located at 3456 Cadillac is still owned by The Woodland Initiative, while 2108 Montclair and 3027 Garland are owned by Florida-based VOJ Holdings LLC, and 2987 St. Clair is owned by Glenn Prentice, who formerly was part of The Woodland Initiative. Reached by BridgeDetroit, Prentice said he was unaware of any letter. VOJ Holdings could not be reached for comment.
The land bank did not respond to a request for updates on the status of the four homes.
Both McCarty and Martines said the land bank should be protecting the land better for residents and not developers and private industrial interests.
“If the Detroit Land Bank is going to give these sweetheart deals to developers,” McCarty said, “then they need to closely monitor them so these kinds of things don’t happen.”
Detroit Documenters contributed to this report.