Chch luck in loans

Press, 20 September 1978, Page 1

Chch luck in loans

Hundreds who have applied to capitalise their family benefit to obtain Housing Corporation mortgages will be disappointed because of a tightening of the coloration’s rules on capitalisation.

But, because of the local office’s interpretation of instruction from the corporation’s head office, Christchurch applicants have been luckier than some others. The Christchurch office says the head-office instruction meant that house-loan applications in the mail to the corporation or in its office before August 17, had to be processed. The Auckland office, on the other hand, says the head-office instruction meant applications were to be processed by the Housing Corporation only if the Social Welfare Department had approved capitalisation of the family benefit before August 17.

Mr C. Moore, deputy manager of lending in the Housing Corporation’s Auckland office, said yesterday that he had checked his interpretation with the head office, and had been told it was correct. “There are about 1500 people in the country — a third of them in Auckland — who lost out when the new provision came in because their capitalisation applications to the Social Welfare Department had not been authorised by the department,” said Mr Moore,

Before August 17, a couple with two children who had capitalised the family benefit, qualified for a Housing Corporation loan for an existing house., After August 17, couples with two children no longer qualified. The change was made after the corporation made more money available for loans, and could not match the demand.