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

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 office manager, John Hall, was charged in August with creating fraudulent rental licenses used to evict tenants. Hall pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing. Coyle remains the focus of a complex federal and local fraud investigation.

* Earlier this month, 117 houses were slated to go to sheriff sale. But the sale was postponed for the fourth time since November 2009. The auction is now scheduled for April 5. Marc Zucker, an attorney for Republic Bank, said that the bank wanted to give "tenants further breathing room."

* Council members Maria Quinones-Sanchez and Frank DiCicco plan hearings next month on how to deal with the fallout from "mass foreclosure" on Coyle's properties.

* Municipal Judge Bradley K. Moss is trying to determine whether Coyle had valid housing-inspection licenses when he tried to evict tenants in court. These licenses are legally required for each property in order for a landlord to collect rent and/or evict tenants.

"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."

Jeanette Marcano was one of them.

Marcano turned to Landvest, Coyle's most widely known company, when she needed a bigger home in spring 2009, after taking custody of her grandchildren.

She picked a house on Lippincott Street, in Kensington, that had no plumbing, interior walls or windows. She spent $10,000 to make it livable and believed that she'd found a home for life.

She's terrified that she'll lose the house at sheriff sale in April, and that she and her seven grandchildren will have nowhere to go.

"I'm living in fear," Marcano said. "I'm under so much stress."

Last month, her heating system broke and she doesn't have the $5,000 needed to fix it. She's been using space heaters. She struggles to maintain a home that she doesn't own.

"Somebody else is going to benefit from what I put in here and that's not right at all," she said. "But if I don't make repairs, nobody is going to do it and I have to live here. I have to make this a home for my grandkids. It's like I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't."

For years, Coyle operated Landvest and at least nine other real-estate companies out of an Allegheny Avenue rowhouse-office in Port Richmond. He became known for peddling shabby homes "as is," telling Marcano and others that if they used their own money to fix up the house, they'd eventually get the deed.

Many people whom he lured were desperate. They had little money, poor credit, no real-estate savvy, and some spoke little English.

Coyle obtained more than $15 million in loans from five banks, using nearly 300 homes as collateral. He then defaulted on the loans and the banks moved to foreclose.

Coyle's empire began to topple in June 2008, when former Coyle employee Joseph Carlin told court administrators that Coyle had presented fake housing-inspection licenses to Landlord Tenant Court.

Judge Moss had his staff pull a few of Coyle's licenses and ask the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections if the agency had issued them. In each case, the answer was no.

Hall, Coyle's office manager, told investigators that Coyle pressured him to fabricate documents, a claim that Coyle has denied. Hall believes that "Coyle was setting him up as the target of the criminal investigation, so [Hall] left the company," according to an affidavit of probable cause.

Hall faces a maximum 24 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

Two months after Carlin tipped off the court, the District Attorney's Office raided Coyle's office.

Coyle then padlocked his office and walked away.

Attorneys, some of whom work for nonprofit legal agencies, continue to fight to stop sheriff sales on behalf of clients who live in Coyle's homes.

Meanwhile, Moss' staff has pulled 371 of Coyle's landlord-tenant cases. Staffers put them on a database, which they turned over to city Councilwoman Quinones-Sanchez. She will ask L&I to determine if each license was valid or fraudulent, Moss said.

If the licenses were fake, Moss said, he will hold hearings. "We'll alert people who have judgments against them and figure out what to do," Moss said. "Some people could get judgments vacated, which will help them with their credit.

"The process is not moving forward as fast as we'd like," he said, "but it is moving forward."

City coffers continue to take a hit from Coyle's tattered housing stock. Coyle owes the city more than $1 million in unpaid property taxes, water and utility fees on some 480 homes, most of which sit vacant, Quinones-Sanchez said.

Quinones-Sanchez said that the city is willing to consider waiving or reducing tax liens on homes that people want to buy, but two banks, which hold mortgages on nearly 200 homes, haven't been willing to accept a loss. Quinones-Sanchez hopes that the hearings, held by Council's Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and Homelessness, will spur the banks to work with the city to get the homes into the hands of responsible, taxpaying owners.

Inez Ramos hopes that she's one of the lucky ones.

In November 2009, Ramos had thought that she would lose her house on Buckius Street, in Frankford. It was listed for sheriff sale after she'd spent $10,000 to reconstruct it, and had been paying $600 in monthly installments to Coyle since 2006.

"He stomped on a dream," she said. "There was light at the end of the tunnel and he turned out the light."

Ramos and her fiance, Edwin Torres, have spent about $45,000 on the house. Now, they are working with East River Bank, which holds the mortgage, to get title to the home.

"We call it our paradise," she said. "My friends call it the Garden of Eden. It's no Taj Mahal, but it's our home. It feels so good just to say that - our home."