MORTGAGE ADJUSTMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23365, 3 December 1937, Page 7

MORTGAGE ADJUSTMENT

MINISTER SURVEYS RESULTS NEARLY £1,000,000 WRITTEN OFF WORK COMPLETED IN DUNEDIN (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Dec. 2. Figures showing the progress of the work under the Government’s mortgage adjustment legislation were quoted by the Attorneygeneral (Mr H. G. R. Mason) during a debate on the Mortgagors and Lessees Rehabilitation Amendment Bill in the House of Representatives to-day. Mr Mason said that of the 34 adjustment commissions that had been appointed two had completed their work—the Dunedin City Commission and the Palmerston North Urban Commission. Mr Mason said that the number of applications filed was 34,000 and the number disposed of at October 31 was 8650. The total amount written off mortgages was £937,800 and the arrears of interest remitted amounted to £268,575. Of the mortgages extended, the first mortgages totalled 3906 and the second and subsequent mortgages numbered 1217. The number of mortgages in which the interest rates had been reduced was 3687 and arrears of rent totalling £27,495 had been remitted.

Mr G. W. Forbes (Opposition, Hurunui): Is there a fixed genera] rate of interest?

“ There is a maximum rate,” Mr Mason said. “The maximum rate for first mortgages is 4| per cent. Usually the commissions fix something less than that. On other mortgages, that is to say chattel securities and second mortgages, the maximum rate is, I think, from memory, 6 per cent.” Asked how long it would take to dispose of the business on hand, the Attorney-general said that the rate of progress hardly depended upon the commissions, because in many districts there was a scarcity of competent valuers. The commissions were doing their work as fast as they possibly could. He thought that it would be very much diminished by Easter and by the middle of next year there should be very little left. “No one is more anxious than I to see the end of the whole thing.” Mr Mason added.