In another foreclosure being defended by Ms. Tirelli, a lawyer for the bank told the court that the Baum firm had filed inaccurate documents as it sought to take over a borrower's property.
The City Council is moving to break the city's business relations with financial institutions that practice what is known as predatory lending, or attempting to take over a borrower's assets rather than providing a good-faith loan.
Just as inflation favors borrowers over lenders, deflation favors lenders over borrowers.
Moreover, lenders know they have a certain power over borrowers and have turned it into a mystique.
Last week, The New York Times reported that regulators were close to settling with 14 banks whose foreclosure practices had ridden roughshod over borrowers and the rule of law.
The possibility that some lenders and their representatives are running roughshod over borrowers is of increasing concern to bankruptcy judges overseeing Chapter 13 cases across the country.
But some mediators who have participated in the Nevada program and some lawyers who represent borrowers in it say it has flaws that may give the banks an advantage over borrowers.
Democrats at both state and federal level have tried to cast themselves as friends to struggling homeowners, voting for various measures to encourage forbearance by banks and tide over borrowers in arrears.
The bill's proponents will have to allay concerns that a one-year moratorium might make mortgage lenders less inclined to extend loans to New York home buyers, by reducing their leverage over borrowers who do not keep up with payments.
If borrower resistance grows, creditors would find it ever more difficult to assert control over borrowers' economic policies.
