Bills introduced to untangle tangled titles

A pair of similarly named bills were introduced in the House of Representatives this week looking to resolve issues around home titles that are clouded because the original owner died without a will.

Both bills share three sponsors or co-sponsors, Democratic Reps. Nikema Williams of Georgia, Lizzie Fletcher of Texas and Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri. Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida is the fourth sponsor of the Heirs' Estate Inheritance Resolution and Succession (HEIRS) Act of 2024 only.

Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-California, will introduce companion legislation in that body, a press release on the HEIRS Act from Rep. Williams' office said.

This bill, if enacted, incentivizes states to adopt the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which was passed in 2010 and as of 2022 was legislated in some form by 22 states. It provides grant funds for legal assistance for heirs' property owners to clear title.

The related legislation is known as the Heirs Empowerment and Inheritance Rights (HEIR) Act. If this bill becomes law, it would permit the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to assist heirs' property owners by allowing them to provide alternate forms of ownership documentation when applying for Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery and Mitigation assistance. The text of either bill had not been posted on Congress.gov as of April 26.

The situation has been referred to as heirs' property or tangled titles and it comes about when the property passes through several generations, but the current occupants do not appear on the deed.

As a result, the property is considered owned by all the heirs, whether or not they have lived in or paid taxes on the home.

A Pew Charitable Trust study found that more than 10,400 homes have unclear legal ownership in Philadelphia alone, with a collective value of more $1.1 billion.

More recently, the Federal Housing Finance Agency published a blog on the problem, which cited one estimate from the Journal of Rural Social Sciences using 2021 data, which identified 444,172 heirs' parcels in the U.S., totaling approximately 9 million acres of land worth over $41 billion.

The FHFA does not take a position on pending legislation but stands ready to provide technical assistance to Congress on such bills that affect it and the entities it regulates.

A paper from Fannie Mae and the Housing Assistance Council cites estimates from research on heirs' property, which found that over 40 years the share of affected homes ranges from a very small 0.03% to a more significant 9.6%.

Not only can't these owners obtain financing for repairs, they are also vulnerable to tax foreclosures, a paper from the National Consumer Law Center said. The NCLC has been identified as a supporter of this bill, as well as the American Land Title Association, which has worked with families affected by the heirs' property/tangled title problem.

"Too many families across the country are harmed by the issue of heirs' property, threatened with the possibility of losing their home and the wealth that it represents," Diane Tomb, ALTA's chief executive, said in a press release. "We look forward to working with Congress to pass this legislation and continuing the fight to protect homeownership for all communities and households nationwide."

Other HEIRS Act supporters are the National Fair Housing Alliance, National Association of Real Estate Brokers, National Low Income Housing Coalition, National Housing Resource Center, National Association of Realtors and Urban League of Greater Atlanta.

"Black families face numerous barriers that are intentionally designed to make transferring heirs' property difficult," Rep. Williams said in her own press release, pointing to her own example of her family's property in rural Alabama.

"After our property taxes increased, we had to plan how to protect our land and eventually we made it work," Williams said. "For far too many Black families, their story doesn't end that way."

Rebuilding Together Philadelphia is one organization that works with consumers in that city who have a tangled title. It primarily works with people looking to fix their homes. The organization has companion groups in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Kent County, Maryland, and gets support from the Wells Fargo Foundation.

"I wholeheartedly support both the HEIR Act and the HEIRS Act," said Stefanie Seldin, CEO of Rebuilding Together Philadelphia in an emailed comment. "The HEIRS Act would provide funding for outreach and legal assistance, which are critical to resolving existing tangled titles as well as generating awareness to prevent them in the future."

The HEIRS Act will give grants to families, especially Black landowners, stuck with a tangled title, said Urban League of Greater Atlanta President Nancy Flake Johnson, in the release from Rep. Williams. It "will reverse a practice that has been perpetuated for centuries against families who did not have the means or knowledge of how to obtain deeds or other legal documents to prove ownership and were forced to give up property their parents and grandparents left to them upon their passing."

In addition, the bill will help to educate families on ways to avoid the pitfalls associated with heirs' properties, Johnson said.

This bill is an important step towards building sustainability and access to property wealth in communities where many are already heirs' property owners, said Amalie Zinn, a research analyst with the Urban Institute, who authored a December post on the topic.

"In work that has examined the efficacy of the Uniform Partition of Heirs' Property Act in several places where it has been passed so far, one of the key barriers identified to the UPHPA's success is that people who want to use their rights under the act to clear their title often lack the resources to afford the legal services needed," Zinn said in an emailed comment. "Providing financial assistance for those that could otherwise not afford the legal services needed to clear their title is a first step, but there is clearly more work to be done, including financial assistance for UPHPA buyouts and actions to prevent heirs' property in the future." 

Rep. Cleaver said in a statement he was proud to be able to join with Williams and Fletcher in this effort to allow families to have the legal authority to manage their property for their own benefit.

"Property ownership is one of the best tools we have to close the racial wealth gap, build generational wealth, and provide economic justice to underserved communities," said Cleaver, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance. "But far too often, heirs' property owners are excluded from accessing equity, financing, or government programs due to land or real estate that was historically inherited without clear title or documentation."