"Does anyone out there know what the new bk legislation says about mortgage defaults?"
There's not a great deal of info that I've been able to find. As best I can tell, in the event of foreclosure, mortgagee will be on the hook for the difference between foreclosure sale price and the original note that was defaulted upon.
Which of course they are never going to have. So the law only makes things worse, really. The lenders can't get blood from a turnip and now in addition the borrower's life is hell, or moreso that what it already would be.