Well, not quite. The principal is not that you CANNOT inherit debts; it's that you have THE CHOICE to not inherit debts. For secured debts, it often makes sense

Well, not quite. The principal is not that you CANNOT inherit debts; it's that you have THE CHOICE to not inherit debts. For secured debts, it often makes sense to inherit the debt rather than to lose whatever is securing it (in this case, a home). Indeed, for mortgages, it's common to have laws which explicitly allow them to be inherited. Otherwise, a death could be a goldmine for creditors and a crisis for people living in relatives' homes. In most cases, so long as the child continues coming up with mortgage payments on their parent's home, they're safe, even if they might not qualify for that loan on their own. A 50-year loan has upsides and downsides. One of the major downsides is that even with tiny additional payments, a loan would typically be paid off in less than 50 years. It's not clear why someone would choose to have an eternal loan, when it can be made less than eternal for not much less. Even with a 30 year loan at 5%, early payments are about 1/5 principal and 4/5 interest. The flip side is that with reasonable inflation, effective payments will still become trivial after a few decades. And interest rates have recently been closer to zero. The calculus is different for a 2.5% interest loan.