Fifteen years after one family's $98,000 second mortgage was canceled, a debt collector showed up demanding nearly $200,000. 

When the family couldn’t pay, they foreclosed. 

It wasn't a mistake. It's a business model.

Companies are reviving long-forgotten "zombie" mortgages from the subprime era – loans that had been written off or cancelled by banks years ago – and insisting that homeowners pay up. Bloomberg reviewed more than 140 lawsuits that alleged several companies violated consumer-protection laws in the process. 

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners could be at risk. Here’s what experts say about protecting yourself from one of these mortgages.

This is Part One in our series on “zombie” mortgages. Become a Bloomberg.com subscriber to read the above – and our reporting in the days to come.

Listen to today’s Big Take podcast, where host Sarah Holder and Bloomberg data journalist Noah Buhayar dive into how “zombie” mortgages have become big business.

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