Foreclosure

==Further borrower's obligations==
The mortgagor may be required to pay for [[Private Mortgage Insurance]], or PMI, for as long as the principal of his or her primary mortgage is above 80% of the value of his or her property. In most situations, insurance requirements guarantee that the lender gets back some pre-defined proportion of the loan value, either from foreclosure auction proceeds or from PMI or a combination of those.

Nevertheless, in an illiquid real estate market or if real estate prices drop, the property being foreclosed could be sold for less than the remaining balance on the primary mortgage loan, and there may be no insurance to cover the loss. In this case, the court overseeing the foreclosure process may enter a [[deficiency judgment]] against the mortgagor. Deficiency judgments can be used to place a lien on the borrower's other property that obligates the mortgagor to repay the difference. It gives lender a legal right to collect the remainder of debt out of mortgagor's other assets (if any).

There are exceptions to this rule. If the mortgage is a [[non-recourse debt]] (which is often the case with owner-occupied residential mortgages in the U.S.), lender may not go after borrower's assets to recoup his losses. Lender's ability to pursue deficiency judgment may be restricted by state laws. In California and some other US states, original mortgages (the ones taken out at the time of purchase) are typically non-recourse loans; however, refinanced loans and home equity lines of credit are not.

If the lender chooses not to pursue deficiency judgment—or cannot because the mortgage is non-recourse—and accepts the loss, the borrower may have to pay income taxes on the unrepaid amount if it can be considered "forgiven debt". However, recent changes in tax laws may change the way these amounts are reported.{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}}

Any liens resulting from other loans against the property being foreclosed ([[second mortgage]]s, [[HELOC]]s) are "wiped out" by foreclosure.{{cn|date=April 2020}}