Mortgage, in Anglo-American law, any of a number of related devices in which a debtor (mortgagor) conveys an interest in property to a creditor (mortgagee) as security for the payment of a money debt. The Anglo-American mortgage roughly corresponds to the hypothec in civil-law systems.
A brief treatment of mortgage follows. For full treatment, see property law.
The modern Anglo-American mortgage is the direct descendant of a form of transaction that emerged in England in the later Middle Ages. The mortgagor (debtor) conveyed the ownership of land to the mortgagee subject to the condition that, if the mortgagor repaid a debt he owed the mortgagee by a certain time, the mortgagee would reconvey the land to the mortgagor. If the mortgagor failed to repay the debt by the time that was specified in the mortgage, the land became the mortgagee's absolutely. This form of transaction was known, under different names, throughout the ancient world and throughout medieval Europe. It is to be distinguished from types of security devices (also known both anciently and today) in which the debtor gives the creditor possession but not ownership of the property (the pledge in civil-law systems and the gage of land in the early English common law) or in which the debtor does not even give the creditor possession of the property but simply a right to satisfy the debt out of the property if the debtor fails to pay (the lien or hypothec).
The common-law mortgage of the late Middle Ages was thus a strong form of security. The history of its development is one of progressive loosening in favour of the mortgagor. Already at the end of the Middle Ages, it had become the practice for the mortgagee to allow the mortgagor to remain in possession of the land, and this practice developed into a right in the mortgagor to remain in possession of the land so long as he was not in default on the debt.
Initially, the common-law courts interpreted the conditions in mortgages strictly. In the 16th and 17th centuries, however, the English equity courts intervened on the side of the mortgagor. Equity first gave the mortgagor a right to redeem the land by paying the amount that was owing, even after he had defaulted on the debt, so long as he did so within a "reasonable time." In order to clear their title to the land after the mortgagor had defaulted, mortgagees brought actions in equity to foreclose the mortgagor's "equity of redemption." As a condition of granting the foreclosure, equity gave the mortgagor a right to the proceeds of the sale of the land to the extent that the sale realized more than the outstanding amount of the debt. In most Anglo-American jurisdictions, legislation in the 19th century extended the mortgagor's right to redeem to a fixed period after the mortgagee had foreclosed. Finally, in many Anglo-American jurisdictions, legislation required that the mortgagee sell the land at public sale after he had foreclosed, and in some of these jurisdictions the sale had to be conducted by a public official.
In the early modern period, security devices similar to mortgages of land were used with personal property, particularly by merchants, and in the 19th century use of this so-called "chattel mortgage" was common throughout the Anglo-American world. The development of the law of chattel mortgages has followed a course different from that of mortgages of land, but in most jurisdictions the end result today is similar. The creditor's rights normally do not come into play unless and until the debtor defaults. Because the chattel mortgage was typically a device used by merchants, rather than ordinary citizens, there were, until quite recently, fewer protections for the debtor in such transactions (typically, for example, there was no statutory right to redeem). Recently, however, the extensive use of chattel mortgage and similar security devices in consumer credit transactions has led to an extensive body of regulatory law protecting the consumer's interest.
The mortgage is still the most widely used form of security device in transactions involving land in Anglo-American jurisdictions. Alternative devices, such as the deed of trust (whereby a trustee holds title to the property and conveys it to the debtor if he pays the debt or sells the property and divides the proceeds if the debtor defaults) or the long-term land contract (whereby the seller of the land retains title to the land until the purchaser has paid off the amount owed), are used in some jurisdictions, but they are increasingly subject to regulations that make them operate more like mortgages.
The mortgage serves as a means of promoting the best use of society's finite resources: people and land. It provides for the ready transferability of land and for the improvement or working of that land by those unable to buy the property with their current resources. An elderly farmer wishing to retire can sell the farm to a younger farmer; the latter can mortgage the property in order to pay the seller full value and obtain sufficient monies to carry out personal plans for the farm.
Mortgages play an even more important role in maintaining the market in residential housing, since they permit individuals with relatively little personal credit to purchase a house by offering the house itself as security for the loan. In the United States, the federal government has supported this type of transaction by developing a secondary market in mortgages. Banks that have placed residential mortgages can sell them in the secondary market in order to raise capital to make further loans. The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) were established in 1938 and 1970, respectively, to purchase residential mortgages from banks and to hold or resell them as securities to other investors. The operations of the secondary market have tended to make the law and practice of the various U.S. states more uniform, since the secondary market operates more efficiently if it is dealing with a standardized product. In 2007–08 the secondary market was threatened by drastic declines in the value of securities backed by subprime mortgage loans, resulting in a severe contraction in liquidity in credit markets worldwide.