The homeowner\u2019s family may have moved into the property to take care of the owner as they \u201cage in place,\u201d but the family does not have clear title to the property, says Kim Cutcher, a Toledo, Ohio-based vice president with the Local Initiatives Support Corp<\/a>. Also known as LISC, the community development support organization has studied heirs\u2019 property nationally.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bootlegger, gambler and beer company executive Joe Tito once owned this Uptown house. It began deteriorating after its Texas owner died intestate. In 2020, a community nonprofit filed this photo in its conservatorship petition. Photo courtesy Allegheny County Department of Court Records. [Editor\u2019s note: David S. Rotenstein wrote the 2021 nomination for the Tito-Mecca-Zizza House to become a City of Pittsburgh historic site.]<\/p>\n Heirs\u2019 property is a widespread issue found in rural areas and big cities from coast to coast. \u201cLong overlooked outside the rural southeastern United States, heirs\u2019 property has recently gained broader attention as a critical issue also affecting land tenure and the intergenerational transfer of wealth in urban areas across the country,\u201d wrote the authors of a 2026 study<\/a> published in Urban Affairs Review, an academic journal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see this heirs\u2019 property issue come up also in the Midwest, in many cities from Cleveland to Cincinnati to Toledo, Pittsburgh or Detroit, on and on,\u201d says Cutcher. \u201cOur Midwestern communities also are experiencing these issues and want to be advocates so that families can inherit and establish generational wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n In Pittsburgh and many other places, heirs\u2019 property situations are called by a catchier name, \u201ctangled titles.\u201d It\u2019s a term coined by Philadelphia attorney Judy Berkman.<\/p>\n \u201cI named it tangled title because not all of the issues are heirs\u2019 property,\u201d Berkman told NEXTpittsburgh.\u00a0<\/p>\n She rattled off a long list of scenarios in which people living in a home may not have title to the property, i.e., their names don\u2019t appear on deeds. They include lease purchase agreements and adverse possession<\/a> (sometimes called squatter\u2019s rights).<\/p>\n Berkman says she called it tangled titles because the situation is similar to problems she has run into when she knits. \u201cSometimes when a ball of yarn or a skein of yarn gets all tangled, it takes a fair amount of patience to unknot it and pull it apart and untangle it. \u2026 I named the problem tangled title because they\u2019re so often difficult to handle, and untangling them is like untangling a knotted ball of yarn.\u201d<\/p>\n In Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County, heirs\u2019 property and tangled titles are a real problem for families, neighborhoods and local governments. Houses that end up as heirs\u2019 property frequently become deteriorated, taxes go unpaid and the properties become abandoned. Abandoned houses diminish neighboring property values and increase the potential for criminal activities, from squatting to drugs, prostitution and arson.<\/p>\n \u201cThe majority of vacant, blighted property is created because of tangled title issues,\u201d says Catapult Greater Pittsburgh<\/a> Executive Director Tammy Thompson. \u201cOver time, it ends up on the list of properties that now need to be demolished, that they\u2019re drawing down market value for the remaining homeowners. It is a big problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Neighborhood Legal Services estimates that there are about 4,000 tangled titles in Allegheny County. People who work in the field think the number is significantly higher.<\/p>\n \u201cIt honestly might even be double that number,\u201d says Gabrielle DeMarchi, director of equity protection with Catapult Greater Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n Thompson agrees: \u201cI know in my gut that it was low because nobody really knows. \u2026 The majority of people who are in it, they don\u2019t know they\u2019re in it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n DeMarchi and Thompson are right about the numbers, says Christine Kirby, Neighborhood Legal Services director of development and communications. The figures are at least six years old, but at the time, they reflected the best known data for Allegheny County.<\/p>\n Kirby told NEXTpittsburgh that a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh\u2019s University Center for Social and Urban Research<\/a> cross-referenced data from the Social Security Death Index with Allegheny County deed records and tax delinquencies to identify heirs\u2019 property.\u00a0<\/p>\n The number quoted in the Neighborhood Legal Services website and the data need to be updated, says Kirby.\u00a0<\/p>\n Unlike places like Dallas, Texas<\/a>, and Philadelphia<\/a>, researchers haven\u2019t produced a detailed study for Pittsburgh documenting the scale and scope of heirs\u2019 property here. Attorneys and social workers have to rely on an array of data sources, including code enforcement reports, tax lien cases and outdated data like the numbers quoted by Neighborhood Legal Services. The data are so obsolete that Kirby said Pitt removed the website where the data and maps once were available to researchers and the public.<\/p>\n Likewise, there is no centralized organization or clearinghouse for tackling the problem. Neighborhood Legal Services and other organizations like Catapult, Duquesne University\u2019s Urban Development Practicum<\/a>, and the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority work collaboratively. The URA assists city residents through its Legal Assistance Program<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Six generations lived there<\/p>\n Veronica\u2019s case is typical of heirs\u2019 property cases nationwide. Her family came to Pittsburgh from Alabama and Maryland during the Great Migration<\/a>, between 1900 and 1940, and settled in the Hill District along with many other Black families. Veronica\u2019s grandparents moved into a rented two-and-a-half-story East End home in 1943. The household grew as Veronica\u2019s great-grandmother moved, along with younger generations.<\/p>\n The family home, built around the turn of the 20th century, had an earlier heirs\u2019 property case attached to it. In 1921, a married white woman bought the home. Though her husband\u2019s name appears in the deed because she was married (a typical occurrence at the time), the property\u2019s title was in her name. After she died at age 74 in 1937 without leaving a will, her husband had to go to probate court to get title to the property under Pennsylvania\u2019s 1917 Intestate Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two days after the Allegheny County Orphan\u2019s Court issued a decree vesting title to the property in the widower, he sold it to a white man who managed rental properties throughout Pittsburgh. Veronica\u2019s great-grandparents already were living in the home, along with her grandmother. Veronica\u2019s mother was born while the family lived there. She attended Westinghouse High School and Veronica attended Taylor Allderdice High School.<\/p>\n In 1958, the landlord\u2019s mortgage lender foreclosed on the property and the next year another white landlord, who also owned more than 40 Allegheny County rental properties, bought the East End house. Still living there with their growing family, Veronica\u2019s grandparents bought it in 1970.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was years of history. I mean, my great-grandmother died in that house,\u201d Veronica told NEXTpittsburgh. \u201cWe had dogs, one was buried in the front yard of that house. So there was a lot of just family history.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As family members grew up and moved away, older ones died. The house, like its occupants, was aging. It needed help that Veronica\u2019s family couldn\u2019t afford.\u00a0<\/p>\n The basement had flooded, damaging the heating system and washer and dryer area. Photos in Google Maps taken 20 years ago show boarded-up first-floor windows while the house was still occupied.<\/p>\n \u201cI tried to do what I could do to keep the house, especially when my grandmother was alive,\u201d says Veronica. \u201cMy own mother, she\u2019s in a senior high-rise that\u2019s a handicapped accessible building.\u201d<\/p>\n Veronica gave up in 2012 and abandoned the house. Fixing the title, as the previous owner had done in 1937, was financially beyond reach. \u201cAll I kept hearing from attorneys, well, it\u2019s going to cost you to do a title search. It\u2019s going to cost you to get all of your relatives, which by that time my aunt\u2019s children \u2026 would have had to sign off on it,\u201d Veronica explains.<\/p>\n After leaving the home, Veronica moved to the suburbs. By 2014, according to photos in Google Maps, the house had been demolished. In 2021, a real estate speculator petitioned to become the property\u2019s conservator under Pennsylvania\u2019s 2008 Abandoned and Blighted Property Conservatorship Act<\/a> and its later amendments. After getting control of the property, settling tax liens and cutting the grass as part of a court-approved abatement plan, the conservator sold the vacant lot in 2025.<\/p>\n Heirs\u2019 property is a suburban problem, too<\/p>\n Nichole Remmert is a white woman who was working in Washington, D.C., as a political consultant when she moved back to Moon Township in 2012 to help her widowed father, William Remmert. Nichole\u2019s mother, Mary, had died in 2003 and her father, a retired Moon Township police officer, was struggling to pay the taxes on the home he and Nichole\u2019s mother bought in 1974. According to Allegheny County land records, they were the third owners of the brick split-level home built in 1962 or 1963; the Remmerts paid $28,500 ($196,522.75 in 2026) for the home.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother was pregnant with me and it\u2019s the home that I was brought home from the hospital to,\u201d says Remmert by phone from her new home in Baltimore. \u201cThey had a mortgage, like normal people. My dad was a cop, my mom was a teacher; everything was like normal and fine.\u201d<\/p>\n After Nichole\u2019s mother died, her father got behind on the taxes and the house needed a lot of work. \u201cIt became clear that my dad was very overwhelmed,\u201d Nichole says.<\/p>\n William Remmert struggled to make ends meet, even with his pension and other benefits. Between 1992 and 2011, he had taken out several mortgages on the property. He was still paying off a $35,000 home equity loan when Nichole returned to take care of him.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad had fallen behind significantly on his property taxes,\u201d says Remmert. Allegheny County court records show multiple school district and Allegheny County tax liens filed against the property since 2014.<\/p>\n William Remmert ended up in a memory care facility, and Nichole Remmert found herself living alone in the aging house. There was roof damage from a fallen tree limb; the foundation needed to be repaired; and a retaining wall had collapsed.<\/p>\n Nichole\u2019s father died in 2018, and she found herself stuck with a money pit that she didn\u2019t have the resources to repair. As she didn\u2019t have title to the property, she couldn\u2019t even sell it to one of the area\u2019s many \u201cas-is\u201d house flippers.<\/p>\n William Remmert died intestate. \u201cHe did not have a will, and he was pretty stubborn about not doing it,\u201d Nichole Remmert says. \u201cIt was paperwork he didn\u2019t want to deal with and didn\u2019t think that it really mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n But it did matter. Without title to the property, Nichole Remmert couldn\u2019t get a loan to make the necessary repairs. Though she had been paying her father\u2019s property taxes, she still wasn\u2019t the property owner. She wanted to sell it. She was facing lots of tough choices, none of them pleasant ones. In addition, she was grieving her father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Nichole Remmert needed legal help navigating the estate process and resolving the many issues with her father\u2019s house. She turned to Catapult Greater Pittsburgh<\/a> after striking out trying to resolve all of the issues herself.<\/p>\n Her first stumbling block was hiring an attorney. She had begun dealing with her father\u2019s estate right before Covid hit. \u201cThe attorney that I hired literally disappeared during Covid,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Catapult connected her with attorney Irene Clark and with grant funds to help with estate taxes and other expenses. They helped to get the roof and foundation fixed and with replacing the hot water heater.<\/p>\n After clearing the title and completing the repairs, Nichole Remmert sold the property last November. With the house sold and legal problems untangled, Remmert was able to move to Baltimore. It\u2019s close enough to Washington for her political work and it\u2019s affordable.<\/p>\n Solutions<\/p>\n The 2016 Pittsburgh Affordable Housing Task Force report<\/a> highlighted tangled titles as a significant problem. The report recommended providing residents with tangled title interventions and prevention services.\u00a0<\/p>\n Catapult is a nonprofit dedicated to creating asset- and wealth-building opportunities for people in poverty. It tackles both ends of the heirs\u2019 property\/tangled title continuum: prevention and intervention.<\/p>\n Grants from JP Morgan Chase and MacKenzie Scott\u2019s Yield Giving<\/a> were a big help toward making Catapult\u2019s programs viable. \u201cWe want people to be responsible and sustainable homeowners,\u201d Thompson told NEXTpittsburgh.<\/p>\n Catapult fulfills its mission by providing training to prevent heirs\u2019 property scenarios and services to help people like Nichole Remmert resolve them. The organization performs pre- and post-purchase counseling. Estate planning is part of its Clinic for Legal Equity and Repairs<\/a> (also known as CLEAR) program.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe most preventative measure of tangled title and heirs\u2019 property is to have estate planning in place,\u201d says Thompson.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thompson first learned about tangled titles from Clark, the attorney now working with Catapult. A former Housing Court judge, Clark supervises attorney volunteers and manages cases for the organization.<\/p>\n Clark left the bench in 2003 and was working on a project with low-income homeowners. \u201cI realized one third of them, a solid third of about 250 households that I had connected with, did not have title in their name,\u201d Clark says.\u00a0<\/p>\n She learned from colleagues how to work through the legal processes to convey titles. Now, Clark is one of Allegheny County\u2019s resident experts on heirs\u2019 property. She and DeMarchi helped Nichole Remmert resolve her issues.<\/p>\n Unlike Veronica\u2019s family, Nichole Remmert had the resources to clear the title to her father\u2019s property. Unfortunately, for many Pittsburgh residents, that\u2019s not the case. Poverty and an aging regional population has been a persistent problem. The pandemic exacerbated things.<\/p>\n Covid was a major turning point in local tangled title cases. Nichole Remmert\u2019s situation was easily remedied: She found legal help through Catapult. But others weren\u2019t so lucky during the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cSeniors were passing away. People were realizing, oh my God, there\u2019s no will,\u201d says Thompson. \u201cThat sort of gave me the idea that we should look into building a clinic around this, especially as we were getting more and more homeowners into homeownership; we wanted to make sure that they were getting estate planning.\u201d<\/p>\n Resolving heirs\u2019 property and tangled titles takes a long time and lots of legal expertise. One of the most difficult hurdles, however, involves identifying all of the potential heirs and getting all of them onto the same page. That\u2019s harder than it may seem when siblings and cousins have conflicting interests. It\u2019s a similar obstacle that Veronica faced when she learned that the title to her home was in her grandmother\u2019s name.<\/p>\n \u201cWe work with all of the heirs of the person who has passed away to get an agreement for them to sign off,\u201d says DeMarchi. In cases with large families, that\u2019s a lot of time and legwork. \u201cWe had one participant in Duquesne and there were 12 heirs that had to sign this deed. And it was just tracking them down, finding out where they were.\u201d<\/p>\n Consequences go deeper than home ownership<\/p>\n Heirs\u2019 property is a problem that cuts across racial lines. The different outcomes for Veronica\u2019s family and for Nichole Remmert underscore tenacious legacies of poverty and housing inequities.\u00a0<\/p>\n Most of the time, heirs\u2019 property situations are resolved out of sight, in courtrooms and law offices. Sometimes, they spill out into public view. Several people interviewed for this story pointed to the 2023 deadly standoff in Garfield<\/a> involving William Hardison Jr. as an extreme tangled title outcome. Sheriff\u2019s deputies had arrived to evict Hardison, whose brother claimed their late father had vested title in him. Hardison disagreed and refused to leave after the home\u2019s sale. Hardison died in the ensuing gunfire.<\/p>\n Other, more visible examples lie in the multitudes of abandoned buildings throughout the city and its suburbs. For example, many of the homes demolished in Penn Hills\u2019 Community Development Block Grant funded demolitions program are heirs\u2019 properties. After many years of unpaid taxes and code violations, the municipality demolishes the homes<\/a> without taking title to them to mitigate the nuisances they create.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is why we see so many vacant properties. People end up walking away because either they don\u2019t know what to do or they do know what to do and they see how much it costs to resolve it and they can\u2019t afford it,\u201d says Thompson.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TMZ-Conservatorship-01.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TMZ-Conservatorship-02.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Catapult-House-01.jpg\")
A home repaired with assistance from Catapult Greater Pittsburgh. Photo courtesy of Catapult Greater Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Conservatorship-Case-File-Photo-01.jpg\")
This vacant East End lot is the site of the home where six generations of Veronica\u2019s family lived. After they abandoned the deteriorating house they couldn\u2019t afford to repair or upgrade, a real estate speculator filed a petition to become a conservator. This is one of the exhibit photos filed with the petition. Photo courtesy Allegheny County Department of Court Records.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Remmert-House-01.jpg\")
Nichole Remmert\u2019s father\u2019s house after repairs and before its 2025 sale. Photo courtesy of Nichole Remmert.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Remmert-House-02.jpg\")
Nichole Remmert\u2019s father\u2019s house after repairs and before its 2025 sale. Photo courtesy of Nichole Remmert.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Catapult-Training-01.jpg\")
Catapult of Greater Pittsburgh trains homeowners to preserve their equity in houses by educating them about estate planning and other issues. Photo courtesy of Catapult Greater Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Catapult-Training-02.jpg\")
Catapult of Greater Pittsburgh trains homeowners to preserve their equity in houses by educating them about estate planning and other issues. Photo courtesy of Catapult Greater Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n