Probe Continues Into Suspected Philly Rent-To-Own Racket; Unsophisticated Would-Be Buyers Duped Into Fixing Up Decrepit Homes & Ended In Foreclosure

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Daily News reports:

• TWO-AND-A-HALF years have passed since Robert N. Coyle Sr. defaulted on bank loans on nearly 300 Kensington homes that he rented to the city's poorest in search of the American dream.

• Dozens of tenants who had poured money into decrepit homes believing that they'd one day own them found themselves in the eye of a massive foreclosure storm, and one step from homelessness. That's when they dubbed Coyle "a dream killer" and a "slumlord millionaire."

• Since the Daily News chronicled Coyle's shattered empire in October 2009, some tenants still fear they'll be evicted. Many of Coyle's homes sit vacant and boarded, making whole blocks resemble war zones. Meanwhile, a small army of bank executives, judges, attorneys, City Council members and criminal investigators battle to sort out the mess[.]

***

• Coyle's attorney, Alan L. Frank, said that his client was a decent person who intended to meet his loan obligations and honor any rent-to-own agreements, but that Coyle - and the banks - were overly "optimistic" about the real-estate market. "I really do believe that this mess is not his fault," Frank said. "The banks were literally lining up. They were all pitching their money at [Coyle's real-estate] entities."

• But Stefanie Seldin, a managing attorney at Philadelphia Volunteers for the Indigent Program (VIP), calls Frank's argument "laughable." "I just don't buy it," she said. "There was such corruption involved in all of his deals."

• "Granted, the banks' lack of due diligence is striking, but, nevertheless, he put people in homes that were not livable and he promised them that no matter what happened, they'd become homeowners. He preyed on folks who wanted to buy into the American Dream."

For more, see 'Slumlord' vs. the American Dream: Their homes, their hopes ... gone?