Here’s what the law says, California Civil Code… I hate trying to read the law, the laywer-worded laws are so difficult to interpret sometimes. From what I can tell, it says “balance of the purchase price” under a deed of trust. That means, even if you refinance, if they do it as a dead of trust again, and you don’t finance a penny over the original purchase price, you might be protected, but I’m NOT A LAWYER SO DO NOT TAKE THIS AS LEGAL ADVICE, it’s just my interpretation by reading. Perhaps a lawyer could clarify this for all of us?
580b. No deficiency judgment shall lie in any event after a sale of
real property or an estate for years therein for failure of the
purchaser to complete his or her contract of sale, or under a deed of
trust or mortgage given to the vendor to secure payment of the
balance of the purchase price of that real property or estate for
years therein, or under a deed of trust or mortgage on a dwelling for
not more than four families given to a lender to secure repayment of
a loan which was in fact used to pay all or part of the purchase
price of that dwelling occupied, entirely or in part, by the
purchaser.
Where both a chattel mortgage and a deed of trust or mortgage have
been given to secure payment of the balance of the combined purchase
price of both real and personal property, no deficiency judgment
shall lie at any time under any one thereof if no deficiency judgment
would lie under the deed of trust or mortgage on the real property
or estate for years therein.
580c. In all cases where existing deeds of trust or mortgages are
judicially foreclosed, unless a different amount is set up in the
mortgage or deed of trust, and in all cases of mortgages and deeds of
trust executed after this act takes effect, the mortgagor or trustor
may be required to pay only such amount as trustee’s or attorney’s
fees for processing the judicial foreclosure as the court may find
reasonable and also the actual cost of publishing, recording, mailing
and posting notices, litigation guarantee, and litigation cost of
suit.
580d. No judgment shall be rendered for any deficiency upon a note
secured by a deed of trust or mortgage upon real property or an
estate for years therein hereafter executed in any case in which the
real property or estate for years therein has been sold by the
mortgagee or trustee under power of sale contained in the mortgage or
deed of trust.
This section does not apply to any deed of trust, mortgage or
other lien given to secure the payment of bonds or other evidences of
indebtedness authorized or permitted to be issued by the
Commissioner of Corporations, or which is made by a public utility
subject to the Public Utilities Act (Part 1 (commencing with Section
201) of Division 1 of the Public Utilities Code).
