Heirship History Form

							African American Land Loss
  The Challenge and Promise of Land
             Title Projects
    Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
        Community Development Project


• The committee was formed in 1963 – at the request of President
  Kennedy

• Voting Rights, Fair Housing, Employment Discrimination,
  Environmental Justice, Community Economic Development

• Located in Washington DC, but first office was in Jackson MS

• The Community Development Project - 2007
       The Community Development Project


The Community Development Project mobilizes the skills of transactional lawyers in the private
bar to serve historically disadvantaged minority communities to promote racial, social and
economic justice:
         1. Brick and Mortar Development
                          CHDOs
                          Land trusts
                          Health Clinics
          2. Asset Development
                          Heir Property-Title Clearing
        “land ownership by multiple heirs as tenants in common”


Would like to hear from groups in the Delta that are working on housing and homeownership, individual asset
building, or wealth building strategies, including small business development. Welcome calls from DCA non profit
members and affiliates that need transactional or business law services.
Community Development Project

 We welcome requests for service from groups in the
 Delta that are working on housing and homeownership,
 individual asset building, or wealth building strategies,
 including small business development. Welcome calls
 from DCA non profit members and affiliates that need
 transactional or business law services.

               (202)662-8303
            Why Is Heir Property A Civil Rights Issue?
             Status of Black Land Ownership -1865

Source: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction by Prof. Thomas W. Mitchell Univ. of Wisconsin Law
School –Land Tenure Center


• Freedmen’s bureau sells land owned by ex-confederates to freed slaves

• Tens of thousands of blacks own land for the first time

• President Johnson’s order granting amnesty to confederates leads to the ouster of
    blacks from land which had been purchased

• Despite this set back, between 1865 and 1915, African Americans purchased 15
    million acres of land, most of it in the rural south.

• The decline of black land ownership in the 20th Century is the story of the decline of
    the black farmer

• Today black farmers own less than 2 million acres
            Why is this a civil rights issue?
     Black Land Tenure: A System Under Stress
• The seeds for this century’s rapid decline of black land ownership in the south were
    probably planted in the 19th century
•    Enforcement of Jim Crow, political disenfranchisement and violence from 1863-1900
    set the stage for massive outmigration to the north
•   Stable black communities in the south were fractured and traumatized by racial
    violence, and the lack of legal protection against violence
•    Dramatic examples of community destabilization, criminal and civil rights violations
                        1866 – Black homesteaders ousted by Ex-confederates
                      1898 – Black citizens murdered and businesses burned in
                        Wilmington North Carolina
                      1920-23 – Black citizens murdered and community members flee
                        their community for safety from lynch mobs in and around south
                        Florida
                      Research is needed to trace the impact of these and less well
                        known incidents of racial violence on the orderly transfer of land
                        from one generation of African Americans to the next
Other Factors Contributing to the Major Diminution of Land

                    Ownership In the South

• Crop Failures
      natural disaster
      boweevil infestation

• Voluntary Transfers

• Systematic discriminatory denial of farm credit
• Foreclosure, tax sales
• Partition suits
              Dimensions of the Problem Today
   *African American Rural Land Wealth: The Crisis and the Opportunities”, Prof. Thomas Mitchell, Univ.
   of Wisconsin Law School




1997 Agric. Census – 16,560 Black farm owner/operators owned 1.49
  million acres of land (down from 15 million acres in 1920s)
* Most black owned land in the South owned by African Americans
  outside of the South

* Lack of Access to credit or access to predatory high cost loans
  remains a problem

* Insecure and problematic ownership structures

* Full extent of heirship property and title problems is not known
              What is Heirship Property?



• The ownership of property by virtue heir status
• This is the default form of ownership that is
    created when a property owner dies without a
    will
•   The ownership interest is determined by statute
•   If the estate is never probated, those ownership
    interests are never confirmed and title is never
    documented in the surviving heirs
•   This is an unstable form of ownership
What is the relevance of this form of land ownership to the problem of
African American land loss?


*Heirs own as tenants in common.
*They hold an undivided interest in the entire property.
*The undivided interest can be transferred but cannot be physically
   distinguished.
*All owners are equally responsible for the stewardship of the land
  (payment of any mortgage or taxes)
* Living on the land or paying all of the taxes does not vest any greater rests
   in the tenant
 *Absent owners have the same rights as active owners and owners in
   possession
 * Heir ownership becomes fractionated into smaller and smaller interests as
   the size of the heirship group expands
  *Any owner has the right to partition the court to partition their interest and
   cash out
Ownership is fractionated as size of family grows



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               In Possessn
       Problems with Heir Property Ownership


• As time passes, breaks or legal defects in the chain of
    title is common
•   Very difficult to borrow against the property
•   It is dead capital for the family group, the equity is
    trapped
•   Landowners lack access to the benefits of landownership
•   This problem is widespread in the south
•   Failure to communicate often leads to involuntary loss
    through foreclosure, tax sale or partition
Solutions
• Use a will                          • Lawyers Committee, DLA Piper
• Get the estate probated and            Mississippi Center for Justice:
    heirship interest documented        100 families received
•   Set up a family dialogue – use      assistance to obtain clear title
    family reunions to have a           and draw down grants to
    communication about the             rehab storm damaged
    status of family land               dwellings, team moving to the
•   Set up a family tree                Delta
•   Obtain legal services to clear      Lawyers Committee assisting
    and confirm title in the family     families through the Heirs
    group                               Property Retention Coalition in
•   Create a written Tenants In         North Carolina
    Common agreement                    Lawyers Committee
                                        investigating title problems on
                                        Eastern Shore of Maryland
Challenges

• Land records in rural area incomplete not
  consistently indexed
• Title services to document land holdings
  can be expensive
• Family group dynamics can be difficult to
  manage
• Partition laws vary from state to state
Opportunities

• Preserving family asset   • Removing barriers to
    and history               community economic
•   Building equity           development
•   Residential
•   Farming                 • Addressing blighted and
                              vacant properties
•   Tourism
•   Cultural space
•   Open space for
    recreational use
Important Partners and Resources

• Mississippi Center for Justice
• Land Tenure Center, Univ of Wisconsin Law
    School
•   Black Family Land Trust
•   Black Land Loss Prevention Project
•   Southern Federation of Cooperatives
•   Alabama Appleseed Center
•   Center for Heir Property Preservation
•   Heirs Property Retention Coalition