Cal. CIV § 2920

This is the official text of Cal. CIV § 2920, part of California’s Civil Code — covers contracts, property ownership, personal rights, and other general civil obligations between private parties.

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Official statutory text

(a) A mortgage is a contract by which specific property, including an estate for years in real property, is hypothecated for the performance of an act, without the necessity of a change of possession.

(b) For purposes of Sections 2924 to 2924h, inclusive, “mortgage” also means any security device or instrument, other than a deed of trust, that confers a power of sale affecting real property or an estate for years therein, to be exercised after breach of the obligation so secured, including a real property sales contract, as defined in Section 2985, which contains such a provision.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.