When a house fire tore through the Cox family home in Powelton Village last Christmas Eve, displacing 97-year-old Elizabeth Cox and her 71-year-old son, Warren, it seemed like the worst that could happen. Then three months later, while repairs at the house were still in early stages, the family got a notice in the mail: A nonprofit group had filed a petition in court to seize control of their home as a conservator, claiming that it was blighted and abandoned.

“They were devastated,” said Pilla Parker, Cox’s granddaughter, who found herself in charge of fighting the petition. “They just lost everything. … My grandmother on the coldest day of the year was carried outside with nothing but the clothes on her back.”

Parker learned that the petition for property conservatorship was made possible by a Pennsylvania law known as Act 135, which enables nonprofit organizations to take over abandoned properties, bring them up to code, and sell them, taking a substantial fee.

Nonprofits have filed more than 570 such petitions just in Philadelphia. A new analysis by the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania’s law school concludes that the conservatorships have come at the expense of vulnerable property owners. The researchers found that petitions were disproportionately filed against Black and Asian American property owners, and in areas at high risk of displacement due to rising real estate values. .... The law was passed in 2008, but usage took off in Philadelphia after it was revised in 2014.