disgraced entrepreneur Devin Elder<\/a>, plans to make any repairs. The city\u2019s Code Enforcement personnel have been documenting problems at the apartment complex for months, but the property \u201cbasically is abandoned,\u201d said spokesperson\u00a0Ximena Copa-Wiggins.<\/p>\nThe city issued a notice to vacate more than 30 units on the second floor of multiple buildings at the complex at 3200 Thousand Oaks Drive earlier this week because of concerns about damaged stairs, Copa-Wiggins\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
Most of the apartments were already vacant, she said. About half-dozen units were occupied, and city staff haven’t yet been able to determine whether anyone is living in the other half-dozen apartments.<\/p>\n
It’s unclear when the two tenants fell through the stairs and if they suffered injuries.<\/p>\n
In July, the city put The Preston on its registry of complexes that have been cited for code violations, which is part of its inspection program targeting negligent landlords. Owners who don\u2019t make repairs are fined $100 per unit per year. The Preston landlord was making some repairs but then the work stopped, Copa-Wiggins\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
The property was built in 1981 and has been owned by 3200 Thousand Oaks\u00a0LLC, a company affiliated with Elder, since 2023. But the company was involuntarily terminated in September, state corporate filings show. Neither attorneys for Elder nor management at The Preston immediately responded to request for comment Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
Elder pleaded guilty in February to a single count of wire fraud after admitting to operating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded about 345 investors in 17 real estate investments. He faces up to 20 years in prison and has pledged to pay his victims about $66 million in restitution as part of his plea agreement.<\/p>\n
Elder once had a goal of managing $1 billion worth of real estate. He acquired a portfolio of apartments, office-warehouse buildings and rural land across Texas through his company\u00a0DJE Texas Management Group LLC and other companies he controlled. He amassed his portfolio largely with money he raised from investors, but it began crumbling last year.<\/p>\n
DJE Texas stopped distributions and began winding down last year, worrying investors. Elder also began selling some of his holdings, including apartment complexes, vacant land, a single-family house and an office building, and lost several residential properties in foreclosure for allegedly failing to make payments to lenders.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors are working to sell 21 properties and administer the portfolio of promissory notes owed by individuals for single-family homes and parcels of land to benefit Elder\u2019s victims. The Preston complex is not among the properties.<\/p>\n
City personnel are helping residents ordered to leave to relocate to other housing. They\u00a0will keep monitoring the complex and trying to get in touch with ownership, but there are few options, Copa-Wiggins\u00a0said. She added that they haven\u2019t had a similar situation with an owner since launching the apartment inspection program in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is such a unique case,\u201d Copa-Wiggins\u00a0said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city of San Antonio has told about a half-dozen people to leave their North Side apartment complex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-232058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-san-antonio","9":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","10":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}