Kathy Lovelace, a 50-year-old divorced mother who owns a $200,000 home in Zephyrhills, just outside Tampa, lost her job and almost lost her house but then she made a simple request to the bank: Show me the original mortgage paperwork.

And suddenly the foreclosure proceedings completely stopped.

Lovelace and other homeowners facing foreclosure procedures can score a “win” by employing a strategy that goes to the heart of the whole nationwide mess.

During the real estate and MBS fiasco, mortgages were sold and resold many times over as they were bundled and re-bundled into securities and peddled to investors. In many cases, the original note that was signed by the homeowner was lost, stored away in a distant warehouse or destroyed.

Persuading a judge to compel production of these impossible to locate or sometimes even nonexistent documents can quickly delay a foreclosure; and also turn up the pressure on the lender to renegotiate the mortgage or take a chance at a judge ruling against them and then having to spend more time and money on litigation or write the loan off totally.

"I'm going to hang on for dear life until they can prove to me it belongs to them," said Lovelace. "I'll try everything I can because it's all I have left."

In interviews with The Associated Press, lawyers, homeowners and advocates outlined the produce-the-note strategy for those hapless homeowners who find themselves out of a job and money and are finding it next to impossible to make their monthly mortgage payment but exactly how many homeowners have employed it is unknown. Nor is it clear how successful it has been; some judges are more sympathetic than others and the decision can go either way but the impact is undeniable, even the “too big to fail banks” are going to have to rethink their strategies when foreclosing, in order to save time and money, which is what they are doing when they don't really have the original mortgage and note.

I say this is one for the little guys and I’m all for it and when you decide to refi come and see me; I’ll make sure YOU get a copy of the original note.

May our friends respect us, trouble neglect us, angels protect us and heaven accept us.