The Foreclosure Crisis and the Antifragmentation Principle in State Property Law

This Article explains how excessive fragmentation of property interests in mortgages has prevented reasonable modifications in loan terms and helped to create the current foreclosure crisis. The Article argues that Anglo-American property law reflects an antifragmentation principle. This principle offers historical grounding for and constitutional legitimacy to proposals to restructure the servicing of troubled loans so as to produce loan modifications when doing so would produce more net economic value than foreclosure. The Article also considers some reforms that could be adopted to prevent future cycles of excessive fragmentation of property interests in mortgages.