Any building association incorporated or unincorporated, organized and existing under the laws of the District of Columbia, to do or now doing, in the District of Columbia, a building association business, is authorized and empowered to exchange mortgages or deeds of trust or the notes or bonds secured thereby or other obligations and liens secured on real estate or any real estate which it may have or hold, for the bonds of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation created pursuant to the authority of the Home Owners' Loan Act of 1933, approved June 13, 1933, and said association is hereby authorized to carry said bonds as an asset at the par value of said bonds.
D.C. Code § 26-232