NAMA, developers not buying back their own properties

A few questions not answered:

1. Are connected persons of developers/builders et al buying the properties that NAMA are selling?

Connected person is spouse, child, sibling, relation, trust, company etc

2. How does NAMA know that the buyers is none of the above?

3. How does the public know that this is not happening?

4. Why should we believe NAMA/Daly when we cannot trust government, regulators and bankers?

5. How does one go about buying a NAMA property?

Because it is against the law for developers or anyone connect to them to buy the land. It is in the NAMA legislation. As far as I know, buyers have to sign a declaration confirming this and it is a condition of sale.

Kenny shouldn't have said what he said. He has absolutely no proof that it is happening. It is a bad state of affairs when the leader of country is repeating idle gossip in the international media.

As Sunny says

It's against the law - not sure if it's a civil or criminal offence.
Purchasers have to sign an affidavit that they are not connected
It is in the sale contract.

The property is sold by receivers and they are told not to sell it to connected people.

NAMA will have loans covering around €30 billion worth of property, 30% of which is outside Ireland. I am quite sure that some property developers will try to fiddle the system. I think that NAMA has the controls in place. However, given the size of the undertaking and the thousands of properties involved, someone will probably succeed in getting control of a property they formerly owned. The media will make a huge issue out of this if it does happen.

How do we trust NAMA? Well the board is generally regarded as highly competent and highly upright, so that is as far as you can go. Whom do you trust. I don't think it's fair to compare the people involved with NAMA with the politicians and the bankers.

They will be publishing their annual report in the next few weeks which will have a lot of information in it.

Some peple think that every transaction should be public. Which buildings they have bought and how much the loan was and how much they paid for the loan. They also want to know who bought the building from the receiver and how much they paid. I think that NAMA is a commercial body and should not be disclosing all of this information.

The Chairman said that they will be publishing a list of all buildings for sale by NAMA receivers in the next few weeks.

What is a connected person, is that spouse and children? Would it run to siblings, or non relations married to children/siblings?

Brendan Burgess said:

As Sunny says

It's against the law - not sure if it's a civil or criminal offence..

Click to expand...

So it's against the law, but the law has not jailed anyone for anything in relation to banking/regulators office etc so one would have little faith in the law.

What fear would breaking the law in the Nama situation give to any developer I wonder. They operate in a a world of different laws.

Bronte said:

So it's against the law, but the law has not jailed anyone for anything in relation to banking/regulators office etc so one would have little faith in the law.

Click to expand...

Hi Bronte

People are jailed for serious criminal offences. They are not jailed for stupidity, greed or carelessness(usually). Fergus O'Rourke is writing a long piece on "http://www.irish-lawyer.com/ (Why they should not be arrested")on irish-lawyer.com which is worth reading.

I'll read that another time. Actually people go to jail for minor criminal offences but if you commit major white collar crime nothing happens to you. Whose done the most damage, the person who robs your TV or your purse or those responsible for what went on in banking.

Take Michael Lynn and Thomas Byrne. The first hasn't even been into court. Take the movement of money around banks to falsify balance sheets. All perfectly legit. It must be as no one is charged with anything.

Take the developers moving money into their spouses names. We see today a developer moved 80million of assets to his wife, 17 million in cash alone and Nama on our behalf has offered to allow her to keep 7million (which she politiely declined). How come in the US David Drumm, whose own arrogance made him believe he was invincible, so much so that he tried to take on the US legal system, to which I might add he is spectacularily failing so far. How come there they say his transfers to his wife are a fraud etc. But developers in Ireland with debt can transfer the whole cobuddle. And Nama to treat them gently, and offer sweetners to wives and even to pay the developers so they continue to live as they always have and they get their debts written off.

I'm trying to be careful in naming and saying. But there are others walking around (Malahide) who defrauded and nothing happens.

Bronte said:

We see today a developer moved 80million of assets to his wife, 17 million in cash alone and Nama on our behalf has offered to allow her to keep 7K (which she politiely declined).
.

Click to expand...

I wish it was only 7K, Bronte. It was 7 million euro.

And her husband is getting 200K a year.

[broken link removed]

It's easy to get lost Shawady with the figures these days. But there are some plain facts in that story. Greed, sense of entitlement, no moral fibre to pay back one's debts, arrogance. Because at the end of the day it is us tax payers who are paying for them. A bit of gratitude and willingness to engage would go a long way.

That story was a bit of sickener alright - but what I found strange was that they seemed to be 'asking' her nicely to give the money back and, surprise surprise, she declined... Do they not have powers to compel the undoing of spouse transfers? I thought they could go back something like 5 years and undo transfers that were done to put money out of reach.

Bronte said:

I'll read that another time. Actually people go to jail for minor criminal offences but if you commit major white collar crime nothing happens to you. Whose done the most damage, the person who robs your TV or your purse or those responsible for what went on in banking.

Click to expand...

I think there is plenty of appetite to pursue those responsible (not least because politicians know it would go down very well with the electorate) but the problem is pinning down exactly what law was broken, when, by whom and proving a case. I think an awful lot of developers were greedy and stupid, not necessarily criminal. I hope that the ongoing investigations into actual criminal acts will see some jailtime for some of the most prominent (allegedly) guilty parties.

I think it's frustrating that legal loopholes exist that allow all these guys off the hook. However, what is far more infuriating is the fact that we have learn't nothing - that there doesn't seem to be the political will to change this. Why are these loopholes not being closed down? If they really want to - they can do this. They were given the mandate to do it by the people. Can we not govern ourselves? One good thing I notice from the orders we are taking from the IMF now is that they have identified that we need water charges and property tax (sure - nobody likes paying bills - but is this not standard practice practically everywhere except ireland). Also, they have identified the legal profession and medical/pharmacy sector as in need of regulation and reform.

Brendan Burgess said:

Some peple think that every transaction should be public. Which buildings they have bought and how much the loan was and how much they paid for the loan. They also want to know who bought the building from the receiver and how much they paid. I think that NAMA is a commercial body and should not be disclosing all of this information.

The Chairman said that they will be publishing a list of all buildings for sale by NAMA receivers in the next few weeks.

Click to expand...

Why shouldn't it be public. These are exceptional times. We the public are paying for it. If it was open and transparent we would certainly then know what was really going on. Surely it's a democracy, the governent set up Nama and we who are paying for it should know exactly what is going on. We only find out when we have court cases as outlined in the papers today. That's not good enough. What is the reason for secrecy?

In relation to the Nama list of properties, I thought a list (not very easy to read) of Nama properties was already in the public domain.

orka said:

Do they not have powers to compel the undoing of spouse transfers? I thought they could go back something like 5 years and undo transfers that were done to put money out of reach.

.

Click to expand...

If they don't have the powers then then should have changed the laws, that's what legislators are for. Over in the US with David Drumm we can see that their are moves afoot to over turn all his transfers to his wife. How come they can do that and in Ireland it can't be done.

It's simple. Our government wants to talk about being tough, and not having a two or three tier society,.. but the reality doesn't lie. We don't prosecute fraud at high levels, and we reward failure and incompetence. We certainly don't punish failure, or law breaking. Perhaps law breaking doesn't happen, .. because the laws are in-sufficient.

Of course moving money around balance sheets is a crime,.. but there will be no prosecutions because the government don't want to send their buddies to prison.

I have already pretty much passed the point of no return, and will never again respect, or comply willingly with the government, while they continue to enrich themselves, protect their friends and an elite class.

JoeBallantin said:

It's simple. Our government wants to talk about being tough, and not having a two or three tier society,.. but the reality doesn't lie. We don't prosecute fraud at high levels, and we reward failure and incompetence. We certainly don't punish failure, or law breaking. Perhaps law breaking doesn't happen, .. because the laws are in-sufficient.

Of course moving money around balance sheets is a crime,.. but there will be no prosecutions because the government don't want to send their buddies to prison.

I have already pretty much passed the point of no return, and will never again respect, or comply willingly with the government, while they continue to enrich themselves, protect their friends and an elite class.

Click to expand...

If that was the problem then the fix would be easy. Unfortunately the cause is far harder to fix; staggering levels of endemic incompetence at all levels of government, both elected (Dail) and permanent (Civil Service).

And today we have another celtic hero Sean Quinn blaming Anglo for his failings. Is he for real. He is a gambler and he gambled with his families money and the livelhoods of his staff and lost. And we the tax payers have to pay for him and he thinks Anglo has a vendetta against his family because Anglo want him to pay back HIS debts. What is wrong with Irish men who get extraordinarily wealthy. They all seem to live in some kind of parallel universe. I wish one of them had the gumption to hold up their hands to what they have done. They have no back bone.

While NAMA may not sell to the developers, there's nothing to stop a third party purchasing the property and then selling it onto the original owner at a later date.

Why ban selling to developers anyway?

If they have money, and have paid off their loans, then they can buy anything with the remaining money. Why shouldn't they be allowed?

If they cannot pay off their loans, then where are they supposed to be getting money from to pay for these properties?


So it is inconsistent. There are no developers in NAMA who have spare cash to purchase property. So why the rule banning it?

And why prevent a son of a NAMA developer from purchasing his fathers property?

Why is it supposed that developers would rather buy their ex-properties at market rates, as opposed to buying some other property at market rates? (with money they don't have anyway)

As long as the selling prices are fair, and are advertised on an open market, and are available to all comers, .. , and the developers have money left after paying off all loans, .. then what's the problem?

JoeBallantin said:

As long as the selling prices are fair, and are advertised on an open market, and are available to all comers, .. , and the developers have money left after paying off all loans, .. then what's the problem?

Click to expand...

I think that's the issue. Should developers be allowed to buy back these properties if the original loans they had on them were written off?

Of course not!!!, that's obvious.

The plan is to chase developers for every penny owed, apparently.


The only way for a developer to have loans written off is if they declare themselves bankrupt, otherwise they should remain on the hook. So I don't get where these developers would be getting the money for purchases, as they haven't been able to pay their loans, and they should be penniless until they are discharged from bankruptcy.

Now I know that the whole NAMA plan may be a gimmick to transfer 40 billion of failed developer bank loans to the state, and then to write off the 40 billion., and have the Irish public pay it back, at 4%, over 30 years. But that's not what Gov.ie are saying.


I believe an elite class, of less than 1,000 developers, will cost our country close to 40 billion in the end,.. amounting to approx 50 million for each of the 850 or so developers.


Our government is out of touch, and should never have protected those people. If developers don't end up penniless then corruption will have taken place.

I hope 70% to 90% of the 200K salaries are used to pay off loans.


edited to add:
My point is that all developers in NAMA are bankrupt by definition, so why have a rule detailing what they can and can't do with money that they, by definition, don't have?