INTEREST RATES ON MORTGAGES

Southland Times, Issue 23332, 16 October 1937, Page 8

INTEREST RATES ON MORTGAGES

AMOUNTS ALLOWED BY COMMISSIONS CRITICISM OF SMALLNESS OF SUM (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, October 15. Criticism of various points of Government policy affecting the farmer was expressed by Mr H. G. Dickie (Nat., Patea) during the financial debate in the House of Representatives today. Referring to the working of the Mortgagors and Lessees Rehabilitation Act, Mr Dickie said that in many cases commissions fixed the rate of interest at ig per cent. No money was being lent at that rate in mortgage securities today and although the State Advances Corporation lent at that figure there were all sorts of conditions attached to the loans. He did not think it was fair to bring mortgagees down to that rate. Depreciation was allowed by commissions on farm buildings, but no provision was made for investing the depreciation fund and the farmer could go to the races or do anything he pleased with it. That was a definite weakness in the Act. “There are two kinds of commissions,” Mr Dickie added. “Some are very good and some are very bad. In a case where I was interested as first mortgagee the commission decided to put me on a 30 years’ table at £4 2/6 per cent. I would only have been 93 years old when that ran out, so T appealed and won the appeal. That shows some of the absurd things that are done.”

Mr Dickie referred to the complaint made by land-owners of cases where Public Works Department surveyors had gone on to their land without first seeking permission. He had had experience himself where his permission had not been sought until a fortnight after the public works men had knocked a hole in his hedge and dumped material on the land, he said. He had found out afterwards that the man who was supposed to have notified him had been sent away to another job, but if that was the way things were done there was probably a good deal of truth in the complaints that had been made.