The content of the mortgage guarantee in housing credit. A comparative analysis
Keywords:
Mortgage, Housing credit, Property liability, Real guarantees, Non-recourse mortgage, Comparative analysisAbstract
Throughout this study, it was possible to analyze the evolution of the mortgage, determine what it effectively guarantees and how it operates in different legal systems, in particular in Portugal, Spain and the United States, especially when there is default on housing loans.
The essential issue is that the mortgage, at its base, does not change much and remains the same right in rem of guarantee. What changes, and quite evidently, is the way in which this guarantee is articulated with the debtor's liability.
In practice, in systems such as the Portuguese and Spanish, the mortgage does not exhaust the debtor's liability, but rather adds to his universal patrimonial liability. This means that, in the case of housing loans, if the property is not enough to pay the debt in full, the creditor can proceed with the enforcement for the rest of the estate. In some North American states, with non-recourse loans, the logic is different, given that the liability is, as a rule, limited to the mortgaged property itself.
Basically, we are not dealing with a change in the nature of the mortgage, but rather with a change in its function. The figure retains its essence, however, the role it plays fits the way each system distributes risk in credit.
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