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Two years after his real estate empire falls apart, slumlord Bob Coyle indicted
This morning, the U.S. Attorney's Eastern District office announced charges against Robert Coyle, Sr. - the Philly slumlord who built an empire of run-down houses in Kensington and Port Richmond and, according to accounts collected by the Daily News and City Paper, made false promises to tenants about "rent-to-own" agreements.
Two years after his real estate empire falls apart, slumlord Bob Coyle indicted
This morning, the U.S. Attorney's Eastern District office announced charges against Robert Coyle, Sr. — the Philly slumlord who built an empire of run-down houses in Kensington and Port Richmond and, according to accounts collected by the Daily News and City Paper, made false promises to tenants about "rent-to-own" agreements.
At the height of the housing bubble, Coyle leveraged his properties to take out increasingly massive loans from several local banks — and shortly after the housing market crashed, Coyle walked away from his debt, defaulting on more than $5 million in mortgages.
Coyle is being charged with four counts of loan fraud for allegedly falsifying documents and information submitted to several banks — not with defrauding his tenants, though it remains to be seen whether federal civil charges will be filed as well.
More often than not, these cases end in a settlement: but it's possible Coyle might go to trial. As I reported in 2010 (read this for an overview of the entire case), documents filed as part of a civil suit by Republic First bank against Coyle revealed that Coyle had his own case to make: that Republic First had effectively collaborated with Coyle in inflating the value of his inventory and steered title insurance business his way in exchange for Coyle's taking on his son's bad debt:
According to Coyle, he and the bank were in talks over a large mortgage deal when Republic First "requested that [I] take on additional properties" — properties that belonged to Robert Coyle Jr., his son, under various company names — "which had existing debt in excess of [$2 million] ... at a price higher than their true value so [Republic First] would not have to take a write-off."
In exchange for taking his son's bad debt off the bank's hands — records show that in 2006, Republic First sued Coyle Jr. for $2.3 million — Coyle alleges, the bank agreed to steer title insurance business to Coyle's company, National Abstract Savings, to the tune of $20,000 per month. Moreover, Coyle says that Republic First intentionally inflated the value of his homes to make them seem worthier of the loans.
Here's a copy of the indictment.
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