Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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146. To ask the Minister for Finance if the National Asset Management Agency will allow individual potential home buyers an opportunity to purchase units it is selling rather than disposing of them to investors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1883/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that NAMA does not own residential property and therefore it not itself in a position to sell such property. Rather NAMA has acquired loans and its role is that of a lender with claims over security for its loans, like a bank, rather than a property owner or lessor.  The sale of properties securing NAMA's loans is managed directly by the property owners or, where the property is the subject of enforcement, by the appointed receiver/administrator.

NAMA debtors and receivers, who do control residential property, offer such property for open market sale and, in the majority of cases, potential homebuyers may bid for individual residential units. These are advertised in the normal way in newspapers and estate agent websites throughout the country. A selling agent, who advertises a property on behalf of a debtor, would not generally refer to specific properties as being affiliated to the secured lender. This is no different in the sale of property securing NAMA's loans than it would be for the sale of properties securing a bank's loans.

The NAMA website () includes a list of residential properties to which receivers have been appointed and which are either for sale or are likely to be offered for sale through receivers in the near future.  The NAMA website does not include properties being sold by NAMA debtors or their agents, as to do so would identify such debtors as NAMA debtors.  NAMA is legally precluded from identifying its debtors under the NAMA Act 2009.  As explained, these properties are openly marketed by the debtor or appointed receiver, rather than NAMA, and are open to bids from individual buyers in the majority of cases.

In certain cases, NAMA debtors and receivers have offered residential units for sale as part of multi-unit sales transactions where this was the most efficient means of managing and completing transactions. However, in such cases, the units concerned are usually occupied by tenants under letting agreements and the option of sale by individual unit may not necessarily be available.  A tenant's statutory rights are unaffected by any such sale.  As the Deputy will be aware, the decision on sales strategy is made based on the maximisation of value in all instances.