Online portal on property at auction launched

TIRANA, June 4 – Property placed as collateral and put up for auction because of loan defaults has now been made available in an online portal launched by the Albanian Association of Banks.
“The goal of establishing this portal is to increase transparency over the holding of auctions by bailiffs of property placed as collateral for loans under respective procedures aiming more efficient execution of collateral.” The portal (aab-ankande.com) provides detailed information on the property put up for sale and the initial sale price in the auction.
Recent changes approved by Parliament in consensus foresee that the value of collateral will be lowered by 20 percent in the first auction and by 30 percent in the second auction. This means collateral worth 1,000 euros will drop by 20 percent to Euro 800 in the first auction and by another 30 percent to Euro 560 in the second auction, a drop by 44 percent in total.
A request by the Association of Banks to reduce the collateral price in the second auction by 50 percent was turned down. The first and second auctions are held within one month and a deadline has been set to appeal courts decisions.
The Albanian Association of Banks had earlier warned legal steps that would require changes to the Civil Procedure Code are needed to accelerate the execution of collateral, one of the key barriers which has led to bad loans jumping to a record 24 percent and accounting for around 1 billion euros
Albania’s central bank has approved some changes to the regulations on capital adequacy, the administration of credit risk and liquidity in an effort to give a boost to lending which has slowed down to the lowest historic levels.