Foreclosure fightin' attorney to banks: Show me the paperwork

NBC Nightly News reports on a Rhode Island lawyer who says he's helped 100% of his clients avoid having their homes repossessed. He says he calls his practice "foreclosure stoppage" or "produce the note."

Here's how it works: When you get a mortgage, you sign a promissory note. As mortgages were bundled into securities and then sold and resold, many of those promissory notes were lost or misplaced -- giving the lender questionable legal standing in foreclosing on the house.

Some banking experts say that lenders with legal standing will, except in rare cases, be able to locate the promissory note if they look hard enough.

But for distressed homeowners, the video below is still worth watching because it's a strategy that might be able to buy time -- and send the lender on a wild goose chase for paperwork.