What happens to things like mortgages? Are foreclosures forced? Or do banks just have “write them off” and prefer an occupied property to an abandoned one subject to vandalization or destruction?
Thats a good question.
Something that comes to mind is this; if the currency collapses in value, then a thousand "old" dollars are suddenly not worth much. Once past the crash, as people adjust to the new reality, your old mortgage is suddenly very affordable. Minimum wage might be $50 an hour (in "new" dollars) or $500 an hour. I think this is what the muckty-mucks are thinking, that the only way out of our current mess is to inflate our way out of it. A thousand dollars is a lot of money now, but by the time they collapse the currency it won't be much money at all.
In a real hard crash you might see a mortgage amnesty, but who knows. Hard to imagine them countenancing mass evictions in an already collapsed economy. We're in a slow-motion collapse now, and we're seeing some evictions, and others being allowed to stay in their homes. They are limiting the numbers of evictions to the numbers of properties that can be discounted and absorbed by the market, I guess.
More than likely in a hard crash scenario the old currency is worth 20% of what it was, so your mortgage is 20% of what it was (while your house is worth 5 times what it was). If you don't lose your house along the way, if you are able to hang on to it.