Hotels are among the most expensive properties auctioned off by banks

Banks now foreclose and put up for sale houses and plots worth two-three million RON, although they barely manage to sell apartments worth tens of thousands of RON.

There are instances where bankers auction off goods whose value is twenty or thirty times higher than the debt they are owed, as well as instances where, after selling the property, the bank fails to recover even 10% of the receivable.

Bank bailiffs say demand for foreclosed properties is low and that, whatever their price, it usually takes several auctions to sell a property. In addition to low demand, the process is slow - the staging of the first auction takes as long as 90 days, and goes from notifying the client, to evaluating the property, and to publishing the sales ad.

"Whether we are talking about a property worth tens of thousands of euros or a million euros, the procedure is the same. The most expensive property we have sold so far is a plant for which we collected one million RON," says Cosmin Soames, bank bailiff of Leumi Bank.

Leumi has recently organised an auction to sell a hotel in Paraul Rece resort in Brasov county for 2.7 million RON, which had initially been valued at over 3.5 million RON, but which had not found a buyer at the first auction.