Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan.
House in Salinas, California, under foreclosure, following the bursting of the U.S. real estate bubble
Notices accumulate on the door and window of a foreclosed, unoccupied house.
In lending agreements, collateral is a borrower's pledge of specific property to a lender, to secure repayment of a loan. The collateral serves as a lender's protection against a borrower's default and so can be used to offset the loan if the borrower fails to pay the principal and interest satisfactorily under the terms of the lending agreement.
Pawning is an example of a common type of loan secured with collateral