One way to avert foreclosure is through loan modification, an interest-rate cut that makes a mortgage more affordable for the borrower.

Sounds easier than it is.

Wilma Ervin of Delaware County filled out a ton of paperwork, waited four months, and was denied a loan modification. She was told to try again, using recent financial data. She is.

Krystyna Buonchristiano of the Northeast was approved, then denied. Now, she's been told she's approved again.

Nicholas Illich of Mayfair was denied because his income was too high, then rejected again because it was too low. He's in limbo.

The government is trying to inject sanity into this process, offering carrots to mortgage servicers, who handle 81 percent of U.S. home loans.

But one problem is that loans often are bundled as securities and bought by investors, meaning that a single mortgage may be owned by several people or institutions.

Loan servicers say the permission of every investor in a mortgage must be sought before it can be modified, because the return on the investment could be altered.

That argument has been turned on lenders lately - foreclosures challenged via demands that servicers identify the investors in question.

Last month, an Atlantic County judge dismissed a foreclosure action by Deutsche Bank AG because the lender declined to identify the owner of the promissory note.

Vincent G. Tecchio of Red Bank followed this ruling, and rulings in other states, with great interest. In the late 1990s, Tecchio, a chiropractor, was disabled and could not practice. He lost his house in 2000.

"I hooked up with some people who suggested that for a better understanding of the process, I needed to spend time in a law library."

Which he did. What Tecchio concluded is that a mortgage simply secures the promissory note, which is owned not by the servicer, but by the investors.

Meaning, Tecchio says, that unless the servicer produces the promissory note in court, the servicer has no legal standing.

"We are guaranteed the right to face our accuser in court," Tecchio said. "If the accuser is not there, then foreclosure cannot proceed." Using this argument, Tecchio tried in 2005 to have his foreclosure order vacated. The judge refused.

In states with judicial foreclosure processes, "this has become a pretty popular tactic for foreclosure-prevention attorneys, and not without some merit," said RealtyTrac Inc. chief economist Rick Sharga.

Chain-of-ownership documentation often lags and sometimes is full of errors and omissions, making it unclear who has what rights, Sharga said.

Demanding proof of ownership - and, therefore, the legal standing needed to file a foreclosure claim - may slow the process for a while and in a few cases stop it.

However, the tactic also has led lawyers representing lenders to do far more due diligence, Sharga said. So "if the question is whether identifying the investor will somehow embarrass or shame the investor into not foreclosing," he said, "the answer is, 'Not a chance.' "

Inquirer real estate writer Alan J. Heavens is the author of "Remodeling on the Money" (Kaplan Publishing). His home-improvement columns appear Fridays in Home & Design.

Contact him at 215-854-2472 or aheavens@phillynews.com.