I don't think any country works that way. Either you take the inheritance and that's the whole package with debts, or you get nothing.
Also, that's different for married couples. Of course that depends on countries and whether you have a prenup or not, but married couple usually share their assets and their depts. Which means that if one of the spouse take a debts, the other is responsible for it too.
Either way it's very likely his mortgage was a joint debt. In France you're forced to take a life insurance for a mortgage, so it's unlikely someone will get in his situation. Even when it's not mandatory everyone should take one, because even if dying young sucks, it can happen.
In Netherland, you can choose to refuse an inheritance. If you accept it, you get everything, including the debts; if you refuse it, you get nothing, not even small trinkets with sentimental value.
Though in the case of a mortgage, losing the debt also means losing the house. I totally understand wanting your family to be able to keep the house. Losing your dad/husband and also having to leave the house with all the memories of him, would suck double.
> you can choose to refuse an inheritance...accept [...] and get everything, including the debts...refuse [...] and get nothing, not even small trinkets
why couldn't you (as the inheritee?) "throw away" all assets prior to dying, then let your benifactors refuse the debts (which is all that's left)? Who actually enforces that you can't dispose of your assets (in a way that benefits your son/daughter/spouse), then refuse the debt?
Government enforces it. I don't know how exactly it is in the USA, but in my country there is "land registry", which is maintained and updated by legal courts. Within the registry, every land/house/flat ownership is noted and this registry is also the final instance whenever there are legal battles regarding ownership.
Whenever you take a loan for your house, a bank will want to add a note to the registry that it has first claim to your property in case of not paying, premature death, and so on. So one cannot just give his house to his relatives, as the court will block the transfer when it will see in the registry that the bank has primary claim to it. To do something like that, one must make a deal with the bank that new owner will either pay up the loan or take it on his name.
I believe there's a limit to how much you can give away to your heirs while still alive. Probably if you give more, you have to pay extra tax. And I can imagine that if you gave away a lot just before your death and ended up with a lot of debt, debt collectors may still be able to get the gifts back, but I'm not entirely sure about that; I'm no expert on this.
It seems like in the USA, gifts to a spouse are exempted from the gift tax[1]. I don't know about USA, but here (Finland) any unusually large gifts given just prior to death are considered a part of inheritance.
Not sure what the US reality on that is. In Portugal, you can and do inherit debt, though the monetary value of the inherited debt can never exceed that of the inherited assets.
In the US, debt is generally tied to an entity called your estate (your financial entity post death, basically). Debt - for example let's say you have a big credit card debt - will be paid by the assets of your estate. Different types of debt often have different priorities (when it comes time for the executor or court to decide what gets paid first or last). As your estate is settled, the debts usually get taken care of from the assets (basically a simple subtraction matter). If there aren't enough assets in the estate to pay the debts, then the creditor is almost always out of luck.
So run it all onto credit cards, by all means.