- Three North Texas apartment complexes in Plano, Mesquite and Dallas were evacuated within the past year after cities took syndicator-owned properties to court over severe code violations.
- Owners Lurin Capital, Nitya Capital and KeyCity Capital are all in distress, with bankruptcies, foreclosure fights, an FBI probe at Lurin and a state securities order against KeyCity’s founders.
- City-led legal action is rare in landlord-friendly Texas, so the cases show how far value-add syndicator distress has spread since rates rose after DFW’s 2021 multifamily trading peak.
Multifamily syndicators are behind three evacuated apartment complexes in North Texas, where cities sued owners and forced tenants out after years of code problems, The Real Deal reports.
The vacant properties are Evana Grove in Plano, Tradewind in Mesquite and Meadows at Ferguson in Dallas. Evacuation orders hit all three within the past 12 months.
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How It Got Here
Their model: raise pooled investor money, buy aging complexes, upgrade them and sell for a gain. The strategy swept through Sun Belt metros like DFW in the early 2020s, then stalled when interest rates climbed.
In 2021, DFW led the nation in apartment deal volume, with 551 properties and $14.6B changing hands, per Yardi Matrix figures TRD cited.
The fallout still shows in lender filings. CRE Daily reported that multifamily loans made up $562M, over 70%, of $778M in Texas Triangle properties flagged for September foreclosure auctions, with Lurin among the syndicators on the list.
Plano: Nearly 1,500 Violations
Evana Grove, a 1975 property at 3500 Hillridge Drive, drew close to 1,500 citations. Assistant City Manager Curtis Howard told TRD it was the worst complex in Plano.
The city sued Lurin Capital and cleared out almost 200 residents, a first for Plano. Water, sewer and gas were already shut off, per the filing. Tenants reported black mold, shattered glass and raw sewage surfacing in the parking lot, Howard told TRD.
Lurin’s troubles trace to April 2025, when Acore, a lender, alleged defaults on almost $400M of loans against a dozen Florida properties. Bankruptcy filings began in March 2026, and in September three creditors jointly filed an involuntary Chapter 7 petition against founder Jon Venetos.
CRE Daily reported that the FBI’s Dallas Division is investigating Lurin, which amassed about 10,000 Class C apartments in five Sun Belt states before defaults tied to at least $710M of debt.
Evana Grove has since sold. Howard told TRD the buyer is bringing it into compliance, though the buildings remain empty.
Mesquite: Two Years in Court
Tradewind drew headlines before the city moved in: a deadly 2022 fire that took the life of a 69-year-old tenant, and a winter 2024 outage that tenants said left them without heat or hot water for weeks.
Mesquite sued Nitya Capital in August 2024, and the case has dragged on since. A receiver took over in July 2025, the lender replaced that receiver in December as repair bills grew, and the successor sought an evacuation in February 2026.
An April order told residents to leave, when 150 units were occupied, but enforcement came only in the summer. The city’s filing listed 35 violations, among them missing hot water, cooling and sewage connections, and claimed the landlord never secured an occupancy certificate or rental license.
Mesquite is also pursuing $400,000 in unpaid fines from founder Swapnil Agarwal. He told TRD that conditions worsened dramatically once a receiver took over and that the property was more than 80% occupied beforehand.
Tenant attorney Benjamin Gerzik of Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, who visited in 2024 and 2026, told TRD the receiver has improved things. The court-approved plan has the receiver finishing a rehab by next summer.
Dallas: A Fin-Fluencer’s Portfolio
At Meadows at Ferguson, a 264-unit property, the pattern repeated. Dallas sued KeyCity Capital after a May 2024 storm displaced 20 families. A receiver took over in January 2026, and residents were required to vacate by late September.
KeyCity began bankruptcy proceedings at the end of 2025 while investors sued co-founders Tie and Boone Lasater. In June, the Texas State Securities Board ordered them to stop soliciting capital, alleging they hid more than $100M of bankruptcies, foreclosures and defaults. They settled in August and agreed to repay investors.
Tie Lasater blames the city. He told TRD that roughly 9 or 10 of his 125 exits failed and that Dallas must offer an incentive before KeyCity steps back in.
Why It Matters
Cities rarely force evacuations in a landlord-friendly state like Texas, so these cases mark the far end of syndicator distress. Gerzik told TRD a property has to be “off the deep end” to draw this kind of action.
They also fit a wider pattern. CRE Daily reported Berkadia’s view that receivership activity is rising and that troubled properties can take six to 12 months to reach a sale, so strain builds inside loans before it shows up in trades.
What’s Next
Watch Tradewind’s rehab deadline next summer and the new Evana Grove owner’s compliance work. Lurin’s lenders are still chasing Venetos, and Lasater says he wants control of Meadows back.
