Heirs Property and Foreclosure: How LISC is Helping Solve the “Biggest Problem Most People Have Never Heard Of”
A deeply reported article in the Miami Herald highlights LISC Jacksonville’s crucial role in supporting Black families with heirs’ property problems, helping them sort out titling issues, avoid the threat of foreclosure and find home maintenance resources. As Dr. Irvin Cohen, executive director of LISC Jax, describes it, for many Black families, solving heirs property issues is a key means to “prop up family wealth creation…and avert a homelessness situation.”
The excerpt below was originally published by Miami Herald
Heirs to Black-owned homes face ramped-up foreclosures. Here’s who’s pushing back
By Amelia Winger
Above Photo Credit: Courtesy of Miami Herald
When Henry Scott’s mother died two years ago, there was never a doubt he’d want to keep her home. He most definitely did.
“It just has a lot of memories for me,” said Scott, 61.
But a title issue — tied to the lack of a will — put a smooth inheritance at risk. Such problems can result in unclear ownership, simmering family feuds and properties falling into disrepair. That can put family homes such as Scott’s at risk of being lost to unscrupulous developers or — as the Miami Herald showed earlier this year — cities seizing them over property violations and selling them to boost municipal revenue.
Black neighborhoods have borne the brunt of these efforts.
But now community organizations in Jacksonville, which is 30% Black, are fighting back, banding together under the banner of a community redevelopment organization called Local Initiatives Support Corporation to help families struggling with what are known as “heirs’ property” issues.
So far this year, the program has resolved 180 such cases across Jacksonville, according to the executive director of the group’s Jacksonville branch, Irvin Cohen. He estimates that this amounts to helping residents preserve $11 million in debt equity.
The Jacksonville program might be a preview of what’s coming to Miami — and an antidote to what has occurred in cities like St. Petersburg, which has foreclosed on hundreds of homes, most in largely Black neighborhoods, and Bradenton.
The Scott family home is just a stone’s throw from McCoys Creek Boulevard Park on Jacksonville’s west side. First purchased by his grandparents in the 1960s, the teal, one-story house still glows with the ghosts of his family’s memories: the lingering scent of his mother’s perfume, the booming peals of his cousins’ laughter, even the bittersweet memory of his grandfather’s “horrible” casserole.
Back in the ‘60s when his grandparents bought the dwelling, Black families faced imposing obstacles to home ownership, often involving “redlining” — where banks refused to make loans in certain neighborhoods, often majority Black ones. That practice cemented patterns of blight and segregation.
Scott’s mother did not create a will before her death, leaving him and his two brothers entangled in an “heirs’ property” dilemma, what can happen when a homeowner dies without an estate plan.
Scott, who is vice president of the community revitalization group North Riverside Community Development Corporation, attended a workshop put on by Cohen’s organization. The group is working to identify potential cases of heirs’ property across Jacksonville and — in conjunction with legal groups like Three Rivers Legal Services and Jacksonville Area Legal Aid — helping residents learn the risks, resolve title issues and minimize the possibility of losing their homes.
“We’re really leaning into heirs’ property as a way to prop up family wealth creation,” Cohen said. “On the other end of the pendulum, I would like to think of it as we are averting a homeless situation.”