Heirs' Property
 

Heirs’ Property in Jacksonville: Information & Resources
According to Auburn University, Jacksonville, one of the largest urban areas in the country, is significantly affected by heirs’ property that causes wealth deterioration among vulnerable citizens, particularlyBlack, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) families.

LISC Jacksonville has been on the forefront of addressing the issue of heirs’ property in Duval County for the past two years.  In 2022 - 2023, we have been able to have a positive economic impact of preserving more than $18.1 million in preserved or stabilized tax-assessed home value.  LISC has completed 147 litigation cases and 185 estate planning cases. 

While the economics are important, what’s most important to us – as it is with all our work at LISC Jacksonville – is the tangible impact that our work is having on our most under-resourced citizens and communities.

What is Heirs’ Property?
Heirs’ property is passed down to family members by inheritance without a will or court document, causing fragmented, unclear title ownership. Unclear legal title leads to households’ exclusion from the ability to access home equity loans, tax rebates, and disaster recovery programs – without which a property’s condition and value are much harder to maintain. This creates a highly vulnerable housing and ownership situation, particularly if the inheritor(s) is still residing in the home, which is often the case. Because heirs’ properties are concentrated in Black neighborhoods, unclear ownership and preservation challenges can also affect neighbors’ property values, already driven lower by appraisal practices. Therefore, both at the household and the community level, the thousands of heirs’ properties in Jacksonville pose a major threat to the affordable housing supply. 

Heirs’ property is a pervasive issue that prevents the accumulation of generational wealth and that disproportionately impacts BIPOC and distressed urban and rural communities. It also compounds the effects of other financial and economic challenges already experienced by these individuals and communities.

To create generational family wealth, it is critical to address the vicious cycle of: 

  • Challenged ownership, or the ability of households to acquire clear title and maintain homes, and pass them to their heirs; 
  • Challenged conditions, threatening owners’ health and quality-of-life in the short-term and their ability to maintain the property in the long-term; and 
  • Challenged valuation, or the undervaluing of a property’s stated worth by appraisers. 

LISC seeks to turn this vicious cycle into a virtuous one – where ownership is preserved, homes are safe and resilient, and BIPOC homes and communities are appropriately valued.

How does Heirs’ Property impact Jacksonville? 
Duval County has the densest concentration of heirs’ property parcels anywhere in the United States, impacting thousands of our neighbors in Jacksonville. In Duval County alone, there is approximately $2.5 billion in housing market value that is stuck in legal limbo as heirs’ property. Rather than be accessible as a means to build generational wealth, which is historically done through homeownership and the passing down of property from generation to generation, that market value is completely inaccessible to the families who are the rightful, if not yet legal, heirs.

Instead, that value and equity could be leveraged by families to pursue educational, entrepreneurial, or a myriad of other opportunities that ultimately improve their lives and the lives of their loved ones. However, currently, that generational equity is left highly vulnerable to seizure by real estate investors and others who are purchasing heirs’ property homes and driving residents out of the communities they have called home for generations. We are seeing the effects of heirs’ property in numerous communities across Jacksonville, with high concentrations of heirs’ property in several areas.  

What is LISC Jacksonville doing about Heirs’ Property?  
In 2021, LISC Jacksonville began assembling a coalition of partners to address the issue of heirs’ property. With the support of local legal organizations, community development corporations, funders, and others, LISC Jacksonville has engaged in a three-prong approach to solving this issue locally:

  • Find. Finding or identifying the homes that are heirs’ property using a data-driven research process and using a community engagement team to confirm the data.
  • Preserve. Preserving the homes identified by connecting individuals with legal and housing resources and support to keep them in their homes.
  • Support. Once preserved, the focus turns to supporting and educating these households on how to avert potential future home loss. It also includes engaging the broader community overall in prevention efforts by connecting individuals needing estate planning support to available resources.


​​​​​LISC Jacksonville has taken a grassroots approach to addressing heirs’ property in Duval County by convening community-based organizations to build relationships with residents and provide a framework of support for heirs’ property owners. 

“Establishing trust with the people we are working to support is essential to the success of this initiative,” said Kristopher Smith, community development program officer for LISC Jacksonville. “The issue of heirs’ property affects people from birth to death. Heir’s property leads to housing insecurity, which is proven to decrease child economic mobility and creates more trauma in the home. The learning loss associated with housing insecurity can contribute to a lessening of life-long earnings. Heirs’ property further compounds the effects of other financial and economic challenges, which is exactly why we got involved in this work.”

LISC has plans to develop an accessible online resource that includes a neighborhood-level housing market analysis to help residents make informed decisions related to affordable housing options.

These interventions are assisting households that effectively act as owners but cannot access the full benefits of ownership. There is a direct correlation between resolving and preventing heirs’ property and increasing homeownership opportunities and bringing more households into the housing market. The potential impact of these coordinated services is profound, for both individuals and neighborhoods.

Additional Information and Resources
•    Heirs' Property Toolkit: Click here

Recent stories about heir’s property: 

Other resources about heirs' property:
Alachua County Heirs' Property and Estate Planning Overview
American Bar Association: New guide addresses origins of and solutions to heirs' property land loss
Florida Attorney's Real Estate Council (ARECS): Article by Jacksonville attorney Brenda Ezell - Whose Land Is It Anyway? Heirs' Property and Its Impact on Underserved Communities
NC State Extension: Heirs' Property Resources (English and Spanish)
Georgia Heirs' Property Law Center: Building Generational Wealth and Strengthening Communities by Securing adn Preserving Property Rights
Arkansas Journal of Social Change and Public Service: Heirs' Property: The Importance of Access to Prevenative and Remedial Tools in Order to Preserve Generational Wealth

LaTonya Lipscomb Smith, Staff Attorney with Three Rivers Legal Services. Three Rivers Legal Services is a non-profit law firm serving Northeast Florida in partnership with LISC Jacksonville to provide legal assistance to vulernable family households in Jacksonville.
LaTonya Lipscomb Smith, Staff Attorney with Three Rivers Legal Services. Three Rivers Legal Services is a non-profit law firm serving Northeast Florida in partnership with LISC Jacksonville to provide legal assistance to vulernable family households in Jacksonville.

Contact

If you are interested in joining our partnership collaborative, please contact Kristopher Smith, Community Development Program Officer
Email