Help when behind on the mortgage or taxes in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County
Missing mortgage payments does not mean losing the house, and in Allegheny County the time between those two things is longer than most homeowners realize. Different agencies, including nonprofits, the court and city offer different ways to pause or prevent a foreclosure, and nearly all of them are free.
What matters most is seeking help before a sheriff sale date gets close. Every option below works better early, and some of them stop working entirely once a sale is scheduled.
This page walks through each option for homeowners in the city of Pittsburgh and the rest of Allegheny County: free counseling, the county court's program, the state's emergency loan, your mortgage company's own review, legal help, and what to do when the problem is property taxes rather than the mortgage.
Free counseling comes first
A housing counselor is the one call that touches everything else on this page. Counselors at HUD approved agencies review your loan, your income, and your options at no charge, and they are the same people who prepare applications for the state and county programs described below.
To find one, call the HUD counseling line at 800-569-4287, where a live operator can connect you with an agency in many languages, or use the housing counselor lookup tool at https://www.consumerfinance.gov/find-a-housing-counselor/ that runs on HUD's official list. The NHPB guide Pennsylvania HUD approved housing counseling agencies covers how these agencies work across the state.
Several Pittsburgh agencies do this work every day. NeighborWorks Western Pennsylvania offers free foreclosure prevention counseling to homeowners across Allegheny County and the surrounding region at 412-281-9773, and the NHPB guide to NeighborWorks foreclosure prevention explains their process. Advantage Credit Counseling Service, the nonprofit that has operated in Pittsburgh for decades under its earlier name of Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Western PA, handles mortgage delinquency counseling along with budget and debt help at 866-699-2227. ACTION-Housing, one of the city's oldest housing nonprofits, provides mortgage default counseling downtown at 412-281-2102.
The Save Your Home program at the county court
Allegheny County runs its foreclosure cases through a court program built to keep people in their houses. When a lender files a foreclosure complaint, the Sheriff serves the paperwork along with an urgent notice describing the program and the number to call.
That call goes to the Save Your Home Hotline at 1-866-298-8020, run by the county's economic development department. Hotline staff set you up with one of the court's partner counseling agencies — currently the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and WAVE — and a counselor contacts you within a few days to start gathering your paperwork.
The county then asks the court to schedule a conciliation conference, a supervised meeting between you and the lender in front of the judge who handles these cases. The court order that schedules the conference also puts a hold on the foreclosure while the counselor works with both sides toward an agreement, which is often a loan modification. Homes must be owner occupied to qualify, and homeowners who skip their counseling appointments lose the program's protection.
The Sheriff's office also staffs its own Mortgage Foreclosure Hotline at 412-350-4704 during limited weekday hours. They also have a website at https://sheriffalleghenycounty.com/foreclosure-assistance/ listing resources. Staff there can explain where your specific case stands and point you toward local counseling agencies, though they cannot give legal advice.
Your mortgage company has options too
Before and during all of this, the company that takes your payment has its own menu: repayment plans that spread the missed amount over future months, temporary forbearance during a short hardship, and loan modifications that change the terms for good. Servicers generally must review a completed application for this kind of help before pushing a foreclosure forward.
Call the number on your statement, ask for the loss mitigation department, and put the request in writing when they tell you what to send. A housing counselor can prepare that application with you at no cost, which matters because incomplete paperwork is one of the most common reasons this help falls through. The NHPB guide to mortgage help programs explains these options in plain terms.
Free legal help
Neighborhood Legal Services provides free civil legal help to lower income residents of Allegheny County, and mortgage foreclosure defense is one of its core practice areas. Their lawyers can review whether the foreclosure was filed properly, raise defenses, and deal with the lender's attorneys, and applications start at https://nlsa.us//
Volunteer lawyers arranged through the county bar association may also provide limited representation at Save Your Home conciliation conferences for homeowners with lower incomes. Ask about this when you call the Save Your Home Hotline or meet with your counselor.
When property taxes are the problem
Houses in Allegheny County are also lost over unpaid property taxes, through a separate process with its own fixes. The Sheriff sells properties for delinquent county, municipal, and school district taxes, while the City of Pittsburgh runs its own treasurer's sales for city tax debts, so a Pittsburgh homeowner can owe on either track or both.
The county treasurer's office at 412-350-4100 handles current year county taxes, and once taxes go delinquent the account moves to Jordan Tax Service at 412-835-5243, where payment plans may be available to stop a sale. For city taxes, the City of Pittsburgh's real estate division at 412-255-2300 can explain what is owed and how to get onto a plan before a treasurer's sale is scheduled.
Longtime older homeowners should also ask the county treasurer about senior tax relief, which may lower the county bill going forward if age, residency, and income requirements are met. Neighborhood Legal Services handles sheriff and property tax sale cases as well as mortgage ones, so the free legal route above applies here too.
HEMAP, the state's emergency mortgage loan
Pennsylvania has a program most states do not: the Homeowners' Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program, known as HEMAP, run by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. It is a loan that brings a delinquent mortgage current, and in some cases it also helps with the monthly payments going forward for a period of time.
HEMAP is built for people whose hardship came from something outside their control, such as a layoff or a medical problem, and who can show a reasonable path back to making full payments. Details and current rules are on the PHFA foreclosure prevention page at https://www.phfa.org/homeowners/foreclosure.aspx. The NHPB guide to the Pennsylvania emergency mortgage assistance program covers how the application works, and the NHPB guide to mortgage help in Pennsylvania covers the rest of the state's options.
Watch for foreclosure rescue scams
A foreclosure filing is a public court record, and companies mine those records to send official looking letters and make phone calls to people on the list. Anyone who wants money up front to negotiate with your lender, tells you to stop talking to your mortgage company, or asks you to sign the deed over as part of a rescue plan is describing a scam, not a service.
The tell is simple: every legitimate option on this page is free. The court program, HEMAP applications, HUD counseling, and legal aid all cost nothing, so a stranger charging hundreds of dollars for the same help is taking money you need for the mortgage. The NHPB guide to avoiding financial assistance scams covers the warning signs in more detail, and suspected scams can be reported to the state attorney general.
Program rules, phone numbers, and court procedures in Allegheny County change over time, and nothing here replaces advice about your specific case. Confirm current details with the agency or office involved, and treat every deadline printed on a notice you receive as the one that counts.
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