mortgage
/ˈmɔːɡɪdʒ
/noun
1A legal agreement by which a bank, building society, etc. lends money at interest in exchange for taking title of the debtor’s property, with the condition that the conveyance of title becomes void upon the payment of the debt: I put down a hundred thousand in cash and took out a mortgage for the rest...
- Last month the building society launched a mortgage with an interest rate capped at 4.99% until May 2009.
- Surely the interest paid over the life of the mortgage is enough for banks and building societies to absorb the costs themselves?
- They take out mortgages and life insurance policies.
1.1The amount of money borrowed in a mortgage: a £60,000 mortgage...
- I own my home with a small amount outstanding on the mortgage.
- The standard policy reduces the amount covered as the mortgage is paid off so it is cheaper than a level term, which is one constant sum assured for the life of the policy.
- Much of the sharp rise is being driven by rising house prices, with more than €1 billion in mortgages borrowed each month.
1.2A deed effecting a mortgage.The piece of paper that documents this pledge is usually called a mortgage or a deed of trust....
- Correspondence, deeds, mortgages, and business papers document the Burnett Family of Marshall County, Illinois.
- It had won its case in 1994, when a French court decided that Windsor had signed a mortgage deed.
verb [with object]
1Convey (a property) to a creditor as security on a loan: the estate was mortgaged up to the hilt (as adjective, with submodifier mortgaged) a heavily mortgaged farm...
- During this time her brother-in-law mortgaged the property, without her knowledge, as security for his own debts, and when he defaulted on the repayments, the bank sought possession of the property.
- Hjorten and Fuller went without salaries for the project's first year and financed the company by mortgaging their property and by taking on credit-card debt.
- Mr. Aarts mortgaged this property to provide part of the funds used to purchase the home.
1.1Expose to future risk or constraint for the sake of immediate advantage: some people worry that selling off state assets mortgages the country’s future...
- Middle-class British parents, meanwhile, are mortgaging their futures to keep their children out of state schools, or to buy homes in areas where the local state school has a civilized reputation.
- They are wasting their youth and mortgaging their future.
- We are on a spending spree that's mortgaging our children's futures, and I feel very strongly about that.
Derivatives
mortgageable
- The only solution we could find was to turn it into living accommodation, because this would allow the property to become mortgageable.
- He is eminently employable - if not employed - and mortgageable, though it was submitted on his behalf that it was not so.
- Unless the loan is reinvested in the home, borrowing against the free mortgageable value makes households more vulnerable to falling property prices.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French, literally 'dead pledge', from mort (from Latin mortuus 'dead') + gage 'pledge'.