Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Mis padres tienen una hipoteca sobre la casa en la que vivimos. - My parents have a mortgage on the house in which we live.

In modern everyday Spanish, padres almost always means “parents” when it’s used in the plural with a possessive (mis padres, tus padres, sus padres, etc.).

If you specifically want to say “fathers”, you’d usually need extra context (for example talking about two fathers in a same‑sex couple) and you’d probably say something like mis dos padres varones to make it explicit.

Why is it una hipoteca and not un hipoteca?

Because hipoteca is a feminine noun in Spanish.

Feminine singular nouns generally take la / una.
Masculine singular nouns take el / un.

So you must say:

la / una hipoteca ✅
el / un hipoteca ❌

The ending -a often signals feminine gender in Spanish (though there are exceptions like el día, el problema). Here, hipoteca follows the usual pattern and is feminine.

What does the expression tener una hipoteca really mean? Could I also say pagar una hipoteca or deber una hipoteca?

Tener una hipoteca literally means “to have a mortgage”, in the sense of there exists an active mortgage on the property. It focuses on the legal/financial situation, not on the monthly payment itself.

You can also say:

pagar una hipoteca – “to pay a mortgage” (emphasises the act of paying, e.g. the monthly instalments).
deber una hipoteca – understandable, but much less common; people would more naturally say deber dinero al banco (“owe money to the bank”) or tener pendiente la hipoteca.

For the neutral idea “My parents have a mortgage…”, tener una hipoteca is the standard, natural choice.

Why do we say sobre la casa? Could I also say de la casa or en la casa with a mortgage?

With hipoteca, Spanish commonly uses sobre or de to link it to the property:

tener una hipoteca sobre la casa – very natural, especially in a more formal or legal style.
tener una hipoteca de la casa – also used, and very common in everyday speech.

Both are correct; sobre tends to sound a bit more like “on / over / against” in the legal sense (a charge on the house), while de is more like “of / on the house” in general language.

En la casa does not normally work for mortgages (tener una hipoteca en la casa sounds wrong or at least odd). You use en to talk about being in or at somewhere, not to link a mortgage to a property.

Why is it la casa en la que vivimos instead of la casa donde vivimos? Are both correct?

Both are correct and mean the same: “the house we live in”.

la casa en la que vivimos – literally “the house in which we live”, slightly more formal or explicit.
la casa donde vivimos – “the house where we live”, very natural and common in everyday speech.

In Spain, you will hear donde a lot in spoken language. En la que is completely normal too and is often preferred in more formal writing because it makes the preposition en visible and keeps the grammar very clear.

What does en la que literally mean, word by word? Why can’t it just be en que?

Literally, en la que is:

en = “in”
la = “the” (feminine singular article)
que = relative pronoun “which / that”

So en la que = “in the which” = “in which”.

In Spanish, after a preposition like en, que usually cannot stand alone when it refers to a specific noun. You need a form like el que, la que, los que, las que (or el cual, la cual, etc.) that agrees in gender and number with the noun.

That’s why en que on its own is generally avoided in this structure, and you say en la que to refer back to la casa.

Why is it la que and not el que or lo que?

Because the relative pronoun must agree with the noun it refers to.

The antecedent is la casa (feminine, singular), so the matching form is:

la que (feminine singular)

If the noun were masculine singular, you’d use el que:

el piso en el que vivimos – “the flat in which we live”

Lo que is different: it does not refer to a specific noun but to an idea or whole clause (“what / that which”). For example:

Lo que dices es verdad – “What you say is true.”

Here we’re talking about a specific house, so la que is required.

Why do we use the simple present vivimos and not estamos viviendo for “we live”?

In Spanish, the simple present is normally used for permanent or long‑term situations, including where someone lives:

Vivimos en esta casa. – “We live in this house.”

The present progressive (estamos viviendo) is used mainly for temporary ongoing actions, like “we are (currently) living / staying” somewhere only for a short time:

Ahora estamos viviendo con mis suegros. – “Right now we are (temporarily) living with my in‑laws.”

Since the sentence talks about our regular, established home, vivimos is the natural choice.

Could I drop the article and say Mis padres tienen una hipoteca sobre casa en la que vivimos?

No. In this sentence you cannot drop la.

You need la casa because you’re talking about a specific, identifiable house (the one we live in). Spanish normally requires the definite article here:

sobre la casa en la que vivimos ✅
sobre casa en la que vivimos ❌

The article can be dropped in some fixed expressions like en casa (“at home”), but that’s a special idiomatic case. When specifying which house, you keep the article.

Could I add nosotros and say la casa en la que nosotros vivimos?

Yes, grammatically you can say la casa en la que nosotros vivimos, and it’s correct.

However, in Spanish the subject pronoun (nosotros) is usually omitted unless you want to:

add emphasis: la casa en la que nosotros vivimos (y no ellos) – “the house we live in (and not them)”, or
contrast subjects: Nosotros vivimos aquí, ellos viven allí.

In a neutral sentence with no special emphasis, vivimos already tells you the subject is “we”, so nosotros is unnecessary.

Can I say Mis padres tienen una hipoteca sobre la casa donde vivimos instead? Does that change anything?

Yes, you can say Mis padres tienen una hipoteca sobre la casa donde vivimos. It is fully correct and very natural.

It doesn’t change the meaning; you’re just using donde (“where”) instead of en la que (“in which”). The important point is that the clause donde vivimos / en la que vivimos comes immediately after la casa, because it describes that noun.

So these are all acceptable with the same basic meaning:

la casa en la que vivimos
la casa donde vivimos

How would the sentence change if I wanted to say “My parents had a mortgage…” or “My parents will have a mortgage…”?

You mainly change the tense of tienen:

Present (given sentence):
- Mis padres tienen una hipoteca sobre la casa en la que vivimos.
- “My parents have a mortgage on the house we live in.”
Simple past (completed fact, e.g. they had one but not anymore) – preterite:
- Mis padres tuvieron una hipoteca sobre la casa en la que vivimos.
- “My parents had a mortgage on the house we live in.”
Past ongoing / background (“they used to have / had for some time”) – imperfect:
- Mis padres tenían una hipoteca sobre la casa en la que vivíamos.
- “My parents used to have / had a mortgage on the house we lived in.”
Future:
- Mis padres tendrán una hipoteca sobre la casa en la que viviremos.
- “My parents will have a mortgage on the house we will live in.”

Notice that when you change the time of tienen, you often also change the tense of vivimos to keep the time reference consistent.