New loan scheme for tribal land

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 2

New loan scheme for tribal land

PA Wellington Maori families living on multiple-owned land will be able to raise home finance from the Housing Corporation under a scheme announced yesterday by the Minister of Housing, Mr Goff. Previously, tribal land had to be partitioned to be eligible for mortgage finance because individual title was required by lending organisations as loan security. The new multiple-owner-ship housing contract will use the house itself as security. The house will therefore have to be capable of removal in the case of default on the loan. Mr Goff said there was a “widely recognised and long-standing crisis in housing in rural areas.” There was sub-standard housing with people living

“quite frankly, under appalling conditions.” “There are people living in temporary structures, people living in houses that are badly in need of renovations,” he said.

A big cause of the poor housing conditions was the

inability of Maori families on multiple-owned land to raise home finance.

“There was also a growing unwillingness to further alienate ancestral land from future generations,” he said.

The new scheme offered no special advantages to Maori families — “It simply removes a long-standing disadvantage which has prevented rural Maori families from improving their housing situation.” Under the scheme, trustees of multiple-owned land will give the applicant a licence to occupy a piece of the tribal land, defined by simple survey. The applicant would arrange a corporation loan and family benefit capitalisation in the normal way and under the usual eligibility criteria. The pilot scheme will be introduced in Northland and the East Cape.