If you are planning to buy a residential or commercial property, here is a new avenue. To recover bad loans, banks are now increasingly taking the e-auction route.

State Bank of India (SBI) will be conducting a mega e-auction of over 300 properties most of which have been seized under the Sarfaesi Act (Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002) on March 14.

Prime commercial and residential properties such as offices, shops, apartments and factory buildings spread over 26 cities/towns, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune, will be auctioned.

“While auctioning of mortgaged assets is not new, it is the first time in the country that we are able to pool in prime assets in many locations to take up simultaneous e-auction,” a senior SBI official told BusinessLine .

The bidders need to register themselves on a dedicated website on SBI’s portal and will have to find the security deposit needed for the particular property in a specific city. There is also a call-back facility for the registered bidders.

Varying prices

The prices are highly varied. For example, a two BHK flat in Mumbai’s Santacruz East costs ₹1.77 crore, and a 6,782 sq.ft residential property in Vashi, Navi Mumbai, is priced at ₹8.50 crore. Some of the commercial complexes and factory buildings are priced much higher.

Other banks, such as Punjab National Bank, are also taking the e-auction route to sell mortgaged properties and these are detailed on the portals of many public sector banks under a separate head.

A dedicated portal on bank e-auctions is also being operated by Noida-based C-1 India Pvt Ltd, which has tied-up over 15 public sector banks for the purpose.

In fact, many banks have stepped up invoking the Sarfaesi Act to recover bad loans. “Unlike earlier, most of the banks are not waiting to hear from the defaulters after standard assets become non-performing assets. We are directly serving demand notice. We are keen on taking the promoters of big companies to task,” said a Canara Bank official.

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