The statute of limitations on debt in the UK is six years after the last contact. If someone dies with no assets, then their debts die with them. In general, administrators are advised to allow three months for any creditors to come forward.
The company that held my mortgage went out of business. I certainly didn’t panic, but I was a little worried there might be adminstrative hiccups, payments not being reported promptly, bills being lost in the mail, that sort of thing. I certainly didn’t think I was at risk of losing my home, but I worried I might have to clean up other people’s mistakes.
In fact, it was a total non-event.
Northern Rock, thanks. Let’s not start a run on Northern Trust.
But there were certainly some people, even small property investors who you might expect to be a little more savvy, who didn’t seem too clear on the difference between borrowing and lending money. To give more credit maybe they thought the rules might be that they have to find another mortgage, which I suppose is plausible (but still wrong). The regulators would never allow a lender to include terms that allow a retail mortgage debt to be called.
" had owned mobile homes"
Loans on mobile homes are hard to foreclose with a return… junk land, needs to be worked for a different home… the mobile home is missing or gutted by the time its foreclosed on… its just throwing good money after bad. Its high risk … subprime. yeah the whole pile of loans for mobile homes may have been ignored. Can’t sell them …
I’m not sure how it is in the USA typically, but most “trailer parks” (small subdivision full of mobile homes) are often leased land. The land owner provides a bunch of lots with services (water, sewer, electricity…) and the paved common roads etc. They lease a small plot to the owner of the trailer. The trailer owner makes an arrangement with the bank on how to pay for the trailer. Many trailers are moved to the spot and then never move from there, so moving them at a later date is a difficult proposition.
So yes, they are a very different kind of loan from a house with land, unless the title to the land is included. Repossession would be more complex, as the road access is private land and the home’s wheels may be less than functional.
Also, foreclosing in less than amicable situations - is not limited to mobile homes. I recall that in the early 1980’s when the economy went bad, a large number of people lost their homes in Alberta, and it was not unusual for a foreclosed house to have been as badly trashed as the ex-occupants could make it. One fellow I knew had a “job” at the time where he could live in damaged homes free while for doing the basic repairs to get them working - repair fixtures, replace the damaged drywall, windows, plumbing, electrical, etc.
In the USA the “trailer park” model is just as you describe in suburbia and in / very near small towns.
But another common use case for mobile homes is cheap rural housing on cheap marginal land. Somebody buys a small fraction of an acre someplace along a road, even a dirt road, drops a mobile home on it and lives real cheaply. In areas where the population density is low enough, the land is essentially unsaleable. Nobody else will want to live on that spot; or at least not any time real soon. Which makes the the owner sort of foreclosure-proof. The bank will do a lot of looking the other way before they take on the problem of foreclosure of unsaleable property.
Of course this is similar to that happened in 2008 all over North America at every level of real estate. And in Alberta in the 1980s as you described. In the face of rising delinquencies the banks were torn between the deterrent value of being seen to foreclose on delinquent properties, and not wanting to be lumbered with large numbers of unsaleable properties to repair, maintain, and pay taxes on. While also having to recognize for accounting purposes that the “asset” of the mortgage was a mirage.