This is a public service announcement - Three simple words that may buy you some much needed time if you are facing a home foreclosure: Produce the Note
A University of Iowa study last year suggested that companies servicing mortgages are often negligent when it comes to producing the documentation to support foreclosure. In the study of more than 1,700 bankruptcy cases stemming from home foreclosures, the original note was missing more than 40 percent of the time, and other pieces of required documentation also were routinely left out.
The first big success of the produce-the-note movement came in 2007 when a federal judge in Cleveland threw out 14 foreclosures by Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. because the bank failed to produce the original notes.
Follow beneath the fold for the rest of the story.
Now this is clearly a foreclosure delaying tactic and not ultimately a solution, but it appears that it is somewhat effective in giving some distressed homeowners a little bit of breathing room.
A clearinghouse with regards to the "Produce the Note" strategy is the Consumer Warning Network (The site appears to be temporarily down).
The video below has a discussion on "Produce the Note" -
Major props to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio's 9th district as she took to the House floor a couple weeks ago and advised that distressed homeowners tell the foreclosing entity to "Produce the Note".