Lawyers ‘not reluctant’ to drop interest rates

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 2

Lawyers ‘not reluctant’ to drop interest rates

Suggestions that lawyers were reluctant to drop interest rates were dismissed as nonsensical by the president of the Canterbury District Law Society, Mr C. E. W. Averill, yesterday.

He had inquired into the rates being charged by solicitors and was “quite satisfied” that they were reducing them to comply with the Government’s requirements, he said.

Mr Averill predicted that the downward trend would continue over the next three

months but said that it remained to be seen whether the rates would fall to the 14 per cent mark that the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, had suggested. “The current rate appears to be in the 15-to-16 per cent range,” he said. “I regard this as in line with the Government’s wishes.” Both borrowers and lenders were taking heed of the Government’s policy and solicitors’ rates were now “comparable to other forms of fixed interest securities,” Mr Averill said.

He also said that the drop was “in general, welcomed by the legal profession as being in the interests not only of the community but also of their clients.”

Referring to Mr Muldoon’s recently repeated threat to force lawyers to toe the line, he said that he hoped that the Government would not see fit to introduce regulations which might fix mortgage rates at “an artificial level.” That would interfere with the forces of supply and demand, he said.