Lawyers handling foreclosures in New York state must now sign a form verifying all documents in the proceeding are accurate. The new rule, issued by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, comes as mortgage lenders are under scrutiny for taking short cuts while processing hundreds of thousands of foreclosures.

"The attorneys who are filing these foreclosures need to make sure that their clients own the debt before they file them," said Meghan Faux, the director of the foreclosure prevention project at South Brooklyn Legal Services. "I think it's unethical to file a foreclosure if you haven't yourself confirmed that your client owns the debt. But I also think there's many judges around the state who've been just signing off on papers in uncontested cases, and they shouldn't be."

The requirement will apply to new cases, as well as the 78,000 foreclosures already underway in New York courts.