MORTGAGORS’ REHABILITATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23109, 8 February 1937, Page 11

MORTGAGORS’ REHABILITATION

‘.O nit EDITOR

Sir,—Section 38, sub-section 2, of the Mortgagors and Lessees Rehabilitation Act, 1936, provides:—“ln determining the value of any property of any applicant other than his interest (if any) in any farm lands, the Adjustment Commission shall have regard to the values subsisting at the passing of this Act, but shall make such increases or reductions in those values as it deems necessary in order to make them fair values to serve as a basis for the adjustment of the liabilities of the applicant in accordance with this part of this Act.”

It is an extraordinary thing that, whereas private mortgagees arc bound to accept a valuation of land based on productive values calculated on prices averaged over a period of 10 years, the stock martgagees, particularly mercantile firms, are placed in the favourable position (hat they can have their particular securities based on the more satisfactory values subsisting at the passing of the Act. It is little consolation, either to mortgagees or to farmers who may be applying, that this anomalous provision should have remained in the Act. It was criticised by a letter appearing in your paper on October 22 last over the nbm de plume of “Sheep Farmer.” It seems that the private mortgagee who has had to forgo interest, sometimes for many years, is to have his security substantially reduced, whilst the stock agents who have benefited, in many cases much more than farmers, by the provisions of the various relief Acts, should still be placed in the most favourable position.—l am. etc.. Mortgagee. Oamaru, February 9.