“We Buy Houses”: Market Heroes or Criminals?

The residential sale/leaseback/buyback (“RSLB”) transaction is a socially beneficial foreclosure rescue transaction that is being regulated increasingly by the criminal courts to the detriment of the homeowners, investors, and society at large. Because the transaction is being regulated more aggressively with the criminal law, peculiar outcomes arise, which include investors being sentenced, in some cases, to draconian sentences – a trend that will eviscerate the transactions rather than improving them.