558
Souter, J., dissenting
The "neologism," ante, at 537, "reasonably equivalent value" (read in light of the amendments confirming that fore-closures are to be judged under the same standard as are
pass a zoning rule governing (as a matter of state law) a neighboring landowner's entitlement to build a gas station. But the analogy proposed ignores the patent difference between these two aspects of the "regulatory background," ante, at 539: while the zoning ordinance would reduce the value of the property "to the world," foreclosure rules affect not the price any purchaser "would pay," ibid., but rather the means by which the mortgagee is permitted to extract its entitlement from the entire "value" of the property.
Such distinctions are a mainstay of bankruptcy law, where it is commonly said that creditors' "substantive" state-law rights "survive" in bankruptcy, while their "procedural" or "remedial" rights under state debtor-creditor law give way, see, e. g., United Sav. Assn. of Tex. v. Timbers of Inwood Forest Associates, Ltd., 484 U. S. 365, 370-371 (1988) (refusing to treat "right to immediate foreclosure" as an "interest in property" under applicable nonbankruptcy law); Owen v. Owen, 500 U. S. 305 (1991) (bankruptcy exemption does not incorporate state law with respect to liens); United States v. Whiting Pools, Inc., 462 U. S. 198, 206-207 (1983); see also Gelfert v. National City Bank of N. Y., 313 U. S., at 234 ("[T]he advantages of a forced sale" are not "a . . . property right" under the Constitution). And while state foreclosure rules reflect, inter alia, an understandable judgment that creditors should not be forced to wait indefinitely as their defaulting debtors waste the value of loan collateral, bankruptcy law affords mortgagees distinct and presumably adequate protections for their interest, see 11 U. S. C. §§ 548(c), 550(d)(1), 362(d); Wright v. Union Central Life Ins. Co., 311 U. S. 273, 278-279 (1940), along with the general promise that the debtor's estate will, effectively, be maximized in the interest of creditors.
The majority professes to be "baffled," ante, at 539, n. 5, by this commonsense distinction between state zoning laws and state foreclosure procedures. But a zoning rule is not merely "price-affecting," ante, at 539: it affects the property's value (i. e., the price for which any transferee can expect to resell). State-mandated foreclosure procedures, by contrast, might be called "price-affecting," in the sense that adherence solely to their minimal requirements will no doubt keep sale prices low. But state rules hardly forbid mortgagees to make efforts to encourage more robust bidding at foreclosure sales; they simply fail to furnish sellers any reason to do so, see infra.
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