Multi-Billion Loans: Banks to sell over 1,000 debtors’ properties

Deposit Money Banks have put up for sale over 1,000 properties belonging to several customers, who were unable to service their loans, according to Punch's investigations.

This came about eight months after the amount of bad loans in the banking industry rose sharply by 78.8 percent to N649.63bn at the end of 2015.

Impeccable sources revealed that most of the 19 commercial banks in the country had engaged the services of estate surveyors, prominent realtors and lawyers to help them to sell off the properties.

The move, according to the sources, was part of efforts by some banks to recover bad loans and shore up their capital base in the face of current economic crisis.

The properties had been used as collateral in obtaining loans by the banks’ customers.

Some of the realtors and lawyers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that they had been contacted by the banks to market the properties.

Document obtained exclusively by Punch showed that the over 1,000 properties include multimillion and multibillion-naira mansions, luxury hotels and petroleum tank farms, located in highbrow areas of Lagos, namely Ikoyi, Lekki, Ajah, Ikeja and Apapa.

They also include parcels of lands, detached houses, high rise commercial buildings, terrace houses and warehouses.

Other properties are scattered across the country in states like Enugu, Abia, Kano, Kaduna and Ogun.

While some of the properties are being offered for sale at their open market value, many others were offered at their forced sale value, which is the value the properties would sell for when a seller is under duress, and it is usually the two-third of the open market value.

In a bid to avoid litigation that could be instituted by some of the debtors, the banks, had notified the owners before putting them up for sale, making many of the properties to be under consent sale.

Some of the properties are already up for sale while some were still being occupied by their owners who have no where to put their families, thus struggling to get less expensive apartments.