If you're not paying your second mortgage, and your home is upside down (combined balance on 1st and 2nd loan exceeds the home value), the lender may not file a foreclosure. That's because he'll have to pay off the first loan before he intends to retrieve the money he has invested on the 2nd loan.

However, even if the second lender forecloses and sells the home for less than the balance on 1st and 2nd loans, the law may not require you to pay the difference or deficiency balance provided the second mortgage is a non-recourse loan. Moreover, certain states have anti-deficiency laws which prevent one from paying the deficient amount provided the second mortgage (such as the 20% of an 80/20 loan) is used to purchase a primary residence.

However, if the second mortgage is a recourse loan, and your state doesn't follow the anti-deficiency laws, the deficiency balance needs to be paid off. In case you don't pay the deficiency or if the lender doesn't foreclose at all, here's what may happen:

• Judgment/garnishment: The lender may file a lawsuit in the local court and get a judgment order to collect the unpaid balance. He can come after your assets such as bank account funds. The lender may have your wages garnished. Wage garnishment is a legal process in which an individual's earnings are partly or wholly withheld by the employer (as per court order) for repayment of debt.


• Charge-off: The lender may issue a second mortgage charge off and assign or sell off your debt to a collection agency (CA). The agency will then try to collect the loan payments by all means. If you don't make any payment, here's what the CA can do:
  
  1. Harassing calls/letters: The collection agency is likely to harass you with repeated phone calls or payment notices/letters. They may even call you at odd hours and disturb you at your workplace, though such practices are against the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (law which governs the practices of CAs).
  
  
  2. CA may file lawsuit: The CA may even sue you thereby leading you to legal hassles. They may even get a judgment order from the court and go for wage garnishment or seize your bank accounts.
     
     However, if your second mortgage debt is well past the Statute of Limitation (SOL), the collection agency cannot file a lawsuit. Even if they threaten to sue you after the SOL is over, send a cease and desist letter stating that your debt has crossed the SOL, so they shouldn't contact you any more. Still if they harass you for payments, file a complaint with the FTC or State Attorney General.

Once your home is sold off at a foreclosure auction, the second mortgage debt or the deficiency balance on it will be considered as an unsecured loan which you can pay off in monthly installments. In case you can't afford to pay the deficiency balance in full, you may negotiate a settlement with the lender or the collection agency to whom the lender may have assigned/sold off your debt.

Paying your second mortgage will help you minimize the chances of getting hit with negative remarks on your credit report. You can thus avoid trashing your credit score and improve your chances of getting loans in future.