Lawmakers from the Georgian Dream parliamentary majority decided to delay discussion of a controversial bill on temporary suspension of mortgage foreclosures after PM Ivanishvili spoke out against the proposal.

The Parliament was initially planning discussion of the bill with its second reading at a session on Saturday, two days after the bill was passed with its first reading on July 25.

On July 26 PM Ivanishvili said it was “irresponsible” on the part of the Parliament to pass “hastily” this bill, which envisages suspending foreclosures of homes of individuals with defaulted mortgage loans till February 1, 2014.

Decision to postpone discussion of the bill was announced after Parliamentary Chairman Davit Usupashvili met on July 27 in Kutaisi representatives of commercial banks, who have warned the authorities that adoption of the bill would worsen investment climate and negatively affect banking and financial sector of the country.
 
“We’ve been promised that this issue would be decided by taking into consideration consequences that this bill will have on country’s economy, but also by taking into account the social issues related to this matter,” Zurab Gvasalia, president of the Association of Banks of Georgia, said after the meeting.

When adopting the bill with its first reading GD lawmakers were mainly citing the need to address the problem of “tens of thousands” of those citizens who were facing imminent eviction from their homes because of their defaulted mortgage loans. A group of defaulted borrowers were also in the Parliament in Kutaisi on July 27, complaining before some GD lawmakers about the decision to postpone adoption of the bill.

GD MP Gedevan Popkhadze, who spearheaded the bill, asked the lawmaker to postpone discussion of the proposal for Monday; he said that consultations would continue on how to proceed further with this bill.