MORTGAGE LAWS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 205, 12 June 1933, Page 3

MORTGAGE LAWS

AMENDMENT CRITICISED.

MR DOWNIE STEWART'S VIEWS.

(Special to the " Guardian.")

DUNEDIN, June 10

At the annual meeting of the. Perpetual Trustees Estate and Agency Company, Mr W. Downic Stewart said that he was surprised when he • returned from England to learn that the legislation had been amended to include contracts and mortgages entered into after the date of the previous Act, and there was no doubt that investors had been led to believe that the legislation would apply only to those mortgages then in existence, and that as little as possible would be done to discourage future investment in land. The wisdom of the alteration was more than questionable. It created a fooling of insecurity in the minds of people willing to invest in mortgages. The effect of the legislation had been to discourage investment in mortgages, and, of course, there was also a further factor at work: that it was very difficut to persuade people to invest money on security where there would be no clear evidence, owing to the enormous drop in the national income and the prices of farm products, that the security would be safe. That factor, as well as the legislation, had undoubtedly helped to dry up the sources of mortgage money.