SOLDIERS’ HOUSES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20418, 26 May 1928, Page 14

SOLDIERS’ HOUSES.

CONDITIONS OF MORTGAGE. (Pee United Pbess Association.) BLENHEIM, May 25. A curious disability under which returned soldiers are placed if it should become necessary for them to dispose of houses subject to soldiers’ mortgages was referred to at the annual meeting of the Marlborough Patriotic Association by Mr W. J. Girling. M.P. He said that if a soldier desired to sell his house he had first to endeavour to find another soldier as a purchaser, and, failing that, he could sell to an ordinary civilian; but the department raised the rate of interest from the 4J per cent, paid by soldiers to the current advances rates of per cent. The result was that as plenty of houses carrying an ordinary State Advances mortgage at 4i per cent, were on the market soldiers were being unduly penalised and naturally had extreme difficulty in finding a purchaser for their homes. He had taken the matter up with the department, but had received no satisfaction so far. The association decided to write to the Minister of Lands (Mr A. D. hTLeod), pointing out the injustice of the system from the discharged soldiers’ point of view.