At a meeting of the Law Amendment Society, on Monday,
Mr. Neale read the report of the Society's Committee on the Law of Property upon the subject of increasing the facilities for raising loans by the pledge of land.
While the Public Funds are nearly at par on an amount of interest yielding only three or three-and-a-quarter per cent of interest, money cannot be raised on the security of land at less than four per cent. As this discrepancy is chiefly due to the habit of excessive caution where there is the least uncertainty of titles, the report proposes the organization oe a society which shall stand between the lender and borrower ; giving its substantial guarantee to the former, and charging the borrower in average cases a quarter per cent for risk and the general cost of investigating the title. rhus the borrower will get loans in general at three-and-a-quarter, instead of four or more per cent. Where the title is more doubtful, higher interest may be charged. Mr. Stewart mentioned that he had investigated the Prussian system when he was in that country, and he found that it worked extremely well and was simple ; and what was remarkable, he found that almost every house in Berlin was mortgaged to considerably more than half its value.
Mr. Webster said, that something of the same kind existed in Rumble and in Norway. In Scotland, too, the banks were in the habit of advancing money upon land.
Previous page
