When weighed against the vital public purposes sought to be achieved, the interference with the mortgagee’s rights resulting from the present law may not be said to be so unreasonable or oppressive as to preclude the State’s exercise of its police power. It is worth remarking that, if the mortgagee’s lien may not be subordinated to the extent provided—that is, by postponing his right to collect rents from the property or to effect a discharge of the receiver until the cost incurred by the receiver (on behalf of the municipality) in removing the dangerous conditions has been repaid—the result would be that the State must permit slum conditions to continue unabated or, alternatively, either condemn unsafe buildings and thereby aggravate the acute housing shortage or continue making improvements with, however, only a lien subordinate to previously recorded mortgages. To insist upon the last course not only would result in a gratuitous addition to the security of prior encumbrancers but would undoubtedly render the operation financially impossible.
The measures taken by the Legislature in its 1962 enactment to combat the emergency found to exist may well be the only ones feasible but, whether or not such is the case, there can be no doubt that they are reasonable and appropriate to the end in view. The same public interest which supports the statute when directed against an owner, even though it impinges on his right to deal freely with his property, equally justifies the legislation as a reasonable exercise of the police power insofar as it affects the rights of the mortgagee.
Concluding, as we do, that the statute is constitutional, we turn briefly to the appellants’ further plaints.