Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
Land lease
I received a 30 year loan which is
correct. However the problem is the
land lease. At the time the lease was
for 28 years. Is this correct? are the
loan companies allowed to give you a
loan for a longer period than the land
lease. Or is this a mistake?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Land lease
Loan companies are allowed to make mistakes.
Re: Land lease
There is no prohibition that I am aware of which would prevent a lender from making a loan where the collateral may not exist at the end of the loan. We see this frequently in manufactured home communities where the park is operated under a ground lease. In theory, at the end of the ground lease, the park may no longer exist, but the lender's loan continues for another two years (in the example you gave). This may have been a mistake in that nobody at the mortgage lender reviewed the ground lease to determine its remaining term, or it may be that they were willing to accept the fact that their loan will be unsecured for the last two years. In those last two years, the remaining principle balance will be fairly minimal (assuming it is a fully amortizing loan), and so they may have deemed the risk to be minimal. In either case, it does not modify your obligation to repay the entire loan.
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