Auctions - finding amount owed & what banks will accept

[Jonathan Johnson]

Hello BP,

Looking at auctions and seeing the titles, often I can find out how much the loan was originally financed for and when it matures. I can estimate how much is still left with a few mortgage calculators, but do banks accept less than what's owed?

Say in this situation:

There's probably 63-65k still left on the mortgage if it was a 30 year. Would the bank accept half of that at auction? I'm not sure if every bank is different here or not.