I have no life, I have a house with a mortgage

Es curioso si buscas el significado etimológico de hipoteca in Inglis.
Es algo así como promesa o acuerdo de muerte.
Si no pagabas supongo.

Mortgage
The great jurist Sir Edward Coke, who lived from 1552 to 1634, has explained why the term mortgage comes from the Old French words mort, "dead," and gage, "pledge." It seemed to him that it had to do with the doubtfulness of whether or not the mortgagor will pay the debt. If the mortgagor does not, then the land pledged to the mortgagee as security for the debt "is taken from him for ever, and so dead to him upon condition, &c. And if he doth pay the money, then the pledge is dead as to the [mortgagee]."
Fuente: Dictionary.com