But recently a practice has grown up among some societies of also taking security from the builder. This enables the society to advance a much bigger loan (in some instances the purchaser has only to put down as little as 5 per cent. instead of the 25 or 30 which the best so-cities think necessary to induce in him a proper sense of responsibility) while the builders are enabled to sell many more houses. Indirectly, too, the society becomes in some sort a builder of the house. Preliminary inspection has come to be very much scamped, and many purchasers have found themselves saddled with rotten stuff, The famous Mrs. Borders, "the modern Portia," fought her building society partly on the ground that it had no legal right to take security from the builders. The judge decided against her on this point, but the question was manifestly one which called for fresh legislation to define what sort of security the building society may take and, as Sir John Simon said, to ensure that the functions of lender and of builder are kept perfectly distinct.
The Labour Party attacked the Bill for failing to give any protection to the house-purchaser. Pathetic stories were told of the jerry-built houses which young couples have been cajoled into buying by tempting terms. One speaker declared that these tales were much exaggerated and that only one per cent. of the 4,000,000 houses built in recent years is jerry-built. But even 40,000 jerry. built houses are a pretty bad disgrace. The fact is there are far too many building societies, competition among them is acute, and some of them will do almost anything to get business.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.