A mortgage is the relocate of an interest in property to a lender as a security for a debt - usually a loan of money. While a mortgage in itself is not money owing, it is the lender's security for a debt. It is a transfer of an interest in land from the landlord to the mortgage lender, on the condition that this interest will be come back to the landlord when the terms of the mortgage have been pleased or performed. In other words, the mortgage is a security for the loan that the lenders make to the borrower.

In most authorities mortgages are muscularly associated with loans secured on real estate rather than on other property and in some jurisdictions only ground may be mortgaged. A mortgage is the normal method by which individuals and businesses can buy real estate without the want to pay the full value immediately from their own resources.