Proper Terms

Cartoonist Mankoff has done it again! In his cartoon in the Oct. 28 edition of The Times, he means the “mortgagors,” not the “mortgagees.” The mortgagor is the payer under a mortgage, the mortgagee is the payee, or the one receiving payment.

Mankoff would do well to take a real estate course: He reveals Eastern ignorance about California real estate. There are no mortgages in California; we use trust deeds, which were invented here. Under a trust deed, the payer is called the “trustor” and the payee the “beneficiary”; the third party, the “trustee,” only reconveys or forecloses.

HENRY W. KYSTER

Los Angeles