‘No additional powers to compel repayments’

PROPERTY developers will not be confronted with any additional powers forcing them to pay back multi-million euro loans, under legislation establishing the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).

The state agency will have the same powers as banks to compel developers to pay back debts, meaning the taxpayer could be left with thousands of properties which some analysts believe have very little value, in place of the multi-million sums owed to NAMA. Taoiseach Brian Cowen said in relation to the developers who took out development loans that will now be taken over by NAMA, “the agency will continue to treat them as borrowers who continue to owe the full amount of their loan”.

He said: “Under the bill, the agency will have a duty to maximise taxpayers’ returns and the Government expects the agency will use the range of powers available to it under the bill to meet that objective.” Mr Cowen added that “anyone whose bank loan is purchased by this agency will have to repay NAMA just the same as he or she would have had to repay the bank originally”.