OTAGO BUILDING AND INVESTMENT SOCIETY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20869, 8 November 1929, Page 6

OTAGO BUILDING AND INVESTMENT SOCIETY.

10 TOE EDITOR.

, Sir, —In the commercial column of your issue to-day you have been good enough to comment on the balance sheet of the Otago Building and Investment .Society and Bank of Deposit. VVo thank you for the very able review, but desire to point out that, in your criticism of the amount standing to mortgage reserve account—the_ only item in _ the balance sheet on which you offer criticism—you have quite justifiably, formed your opinion upou the figures disclosed by the balance sheet m consequence of your not being fully conversant with the system upon which the society operates. The advances on mortgage were £66,806 and the mortgage reserve totals* £I2OO. -this equals a little over 13 per cent,, or in other words 3 per cent, short of the maximum allowed under the Building Societies Act. 1908. Mortgage repayments amounting to £16,299 are included iu the liabilities under the heading of members’ shares. Consequently the net actually owing on mortgage is £00,597, and the reserve of £I2OO is just £65 short of 2} per cent, on the net mortgages. The maximum of 2J per cent, allowed under the Act is obviously to prevent too large an accumulation of reserves, thereby penalising unduly the earlier shareholders and. unduly benefiting those who come in later in what are co-operative building societies. A maximum of 75 per cent, of the valuations is advanced and repayments of principal against mortgages according to the different tables work out as follows: ,

Fourteen-year mortgages: 5 per cent, capital repayments per annum. Averise annual reduction with profits added, < z-3 per cent. Ten-yeai mortgages: 7i per cent, capital repayments per annum. Average annual reduction with profits added. 101 per cent. „,Si e 'i ,t ’ year roofages: 10 per cent, capital repayments per annum. Average annual reduction with profits added, 131 pop cent Six-year mortgages: 15 per cent, capital repayments per annum. Average percent " Wlth profils aided, 18

ci F \.^ y r n > orl eagcs: 20 per cent, caplal repayments per annum. Average annual reduction with profits added, 23* per cent. ' •*

lb* means that :l , niort fiagc for £IOOO is VI th profits reduced as followsy f f n r r - m 13s 4d Por annum; m* in ’ £lo ° por nilnuln : eight years, fid- 10s per annum: six years. £IBO per annuni: (,v C years £235 per annum. The full scc.ntv is held throughout the whole term of the mortgage.—l am. etc.,

if- F. Sincock, * r, minf U R W aw B . ui l din K and Invest- •' Number 0 ? Ut>d B ° l>k ° f Dcpwit ‘ |

It was recently amiounccn that the I oldest residence in England was for sale. This was Minster Abbey, in the Isle of Thanct, which has been lived in without a break since 740, dose on 1200 years aso. Minster Abbey was occupied bv the Benedictine monks for five centuries and was a nunnery for over 'OO yea There are very few buildings of similar antiquity m the country, though some of the old Saxon churches—or parts of them—still remain. One of the few complete examples of a Saxon church is that at Bradford-on-Avon. But there is Saxon furniture actually in existence, A chair, which is even older than Minster Abbey, is still preserved at Jnrrow in Durham. It is said to have belonged to the Venerable Bede. 1