This is the latest scam by lawyers taking advantage of debt-ridden homwowners facing foreclosure:

....While a foreclosure may seem straightforward -- a borrower doesn't pay and the bank takes back the home -- lawyers say there are numerous ways to fight. One way is forcing the lender to prove it owns the debt behind the mortgage by producing a promissory note. A mortgage is a security instrument pledging property as collateral for a loan if a borrower defaults, but it is not the promissory note itself. As mortgages were bought, bundled and sold off to investors, notes got lost in the shuffle, landing in vaults or warehouses around the country. Physically retrieving them can be difficult and sometimes impossible. About 80 percent of the time, lenders fail to attach a copy to the lawsuit, Kingcade and others said. When lenders can't prove they own the loan, lawyers can get cases dismissed, said Peter Ticktin of the Ticktin Law Group in Deerfield Beach, whose firm has advertised foreclosure defense services on television. He began taking foreclosure clients about eight months ago. So far, none of his cases have gone to trial. His clients are still in their homes. Some lawyers also ask lenders to produce all the documents in a loan file, transcripts of phone conversations with the borrower and copies of written correspondence, which can take up to a year or more to compile. Several businesses are involved, and some may have gone out of business. Kingcade said requesting and reviewing a complete file could turn up fraud or other inconsistencies leading to a successful defense, though ``the bank may be entitled to its money, and 99.9 percent of the time the bank is absolutely right.'' Neither Kingcade nor other attorneys interviewed said seeking out such documents was intended only to stall the process, which could be considered unethical....

Yeah, right.... And of course here's the catch:

....Marc Ben-Ezra, who also files foreclosures statewide for lenders, said the borrower who seeks to delay the inevitable can face consequences. Interest rates and other costs continue to pile up as the process drags on. Borrowers could be liable for the difference between what the lender recoups from the eventual home sale and the amount owed on the loan. Plus, homeowner and condo fees aren't being paid, which places hardships on people who are paying their debts. ''With every single day that goes by, they could be helping their clients get into bigger and bigger debt, rather than if they face the problems head on and resolve them as quickly as possible,'' Ben-Ezra said.