Heir’s property is property that has passed to family members by inheritance without a will or an estate planning strategy. A clouded title exists because the land remains deeded to the estate of the original deceased owner. As tenants in common, each heir has equal rights to use and occupy the land. Without a clear title, heirs can have legal and financial issues managing the property. They may have issues selling the property, using it as collateral for financing and be at greater risk of losing the property through a partition action. In 2019 Kentucky had over 23,000 heirs' property parcels, comprising over 490,000 acres worth an estimated $4.1 billion. (C. Johnson,2019) Kentucky's geographic and historic role as a southern border state document heirs' property occurrence in all five regions of the state including a large population of parcels in the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky. Knowledge of heirs’ property issues and estate planning strategies is important because without a clear title, heirs property owners in Kentucky cannot access the full wealth-building benefits of homeownership.

Navigating Kentucky’s Heirs Property Training on a Regional Level is a funded grant from Alcorn State University. This proposal was submitted after attending a Train the Trainer conference in Washington, DC entitled, Understanding Heirs Property at the Community Level.  It offered three areas of training: overview, prevention, and resolution of heirs’ property issues. My position as the state specialist for Family Assets at Kentucky State University and part-time real estate agent for over twenty years, underscores my concerns dealing with the impact that heirs’ property has on Kentucky communities. The co-director of this project is Kendal Bowman, an ANR agent with the University of Kentucky.  Seminar presenters include an estate planning attorney, a real estate title attorney, a Realtor, an ANR agent, and a researcher with Liken Knowledge specializing in heirs’ property occurrence in Eastern Kentucky.

 Extension specialists, educators, and agents attending one of these six-hour training seminars can apply for $2200 in the form of a stipend to host community workshops, clinics, webinars, and meetings on estate planning and other heirs’ property issues in their locality.  

During the fall of 2023, three training seminars were held at cooperative extension offices in Warren, Hardin, and Breathitt counties. Fifty-one extension personnel and nine community members signed the attendance forms at these training events, but over seventy-seven participants were present for two or more sessions. Pre-surveys determined baseline knowledge of participant’s familiarity and understanding of heir’s property and post-tests with questionnaires measuring changes in confidence and knowledge as well as program effectiveness for assessment purposes were completed. The assessment results were sent to John Green from Mississippi State University for analysis by the Southern Rural Development Center.

The fifty-one extension attendees represent extension offices from counties in eastern, western, northern, and western regions of the state.  Participants were from the following counties:  Hickman McCracken, Lyon, Crittenden, Trigg, Christian, Hopkins, Logan, Warren, Edmonson, Larue, Hardin, Monroe, Metcalfe, Boyle, Henry, Frankfort, Owen, Scott, Fayette, Laurel, Bell, Harlan, Leslie, Perry, Knott, Letcher, Johnson, Martin, and Greenup. Some of these counties have high occurrences of heirs’ property as reported by the University of Kentucky.  For instance, Leslie County has over 1,528 documented heirs’ parcels which is believed to be some of the highest in the Southeastern region of the United States.  Gaither, Zarnoch in 2017, concluded that 67% of residential parcels in Leslie County are heir’s parcels.  McCracken County 

has over 994 heir parcels, Floyd County has around 905 heir parcels and Perry County has approximately 757 documented parcels of heir property. The extension attendees who attended the six-hour seminar were encouraged to disseminate this information in their communities.   

To date, six extension offices are actively planning workshops dealing with estate planning and heirs property issues and intend to submit proposals for the $2200 stipend offered in the training seminar.  Some extension agents are planning multiple workshops throughout the summer. 

Four (4) additional training seminars and a webinar are planned for the spring and summer of 2024 in Rowan, Laurel, Davies, Jefferson, and Franklin Counties.  It’s important that heirs’ property and estate planning information is circulated by extension personnel into their respective communities because the remedies can be complex and require legal support by attorneys specializing in succession planning and real estate law and the stipend offered with this training will fund expenses for technical support at community workshops.

The common denominator associated with the prevalence of heirs’ property is the marginal status of the owners and a historical lack of access to trusted legal services (Bailey and Thomson 2022). The absence of clear title limits the ability of heirs’ property owners to obtain commercial loans, and until very recently has disqualified them from obtaining access to government loans and disaster assistance programs. Consequently, heirs’ property has consistently been found to limit the generation and transmission of intergenerational wealth and to be a contributing factor to persistent rural poverty (Bailey et al. 2019; Deaton 2007). 

One of the most cost-effective solutions to heirs’ property is knowledge and prevention strategies such as proper succession planning.  Creating a will and making sure your family understands the probate laws in their state will ensure a clear title is conveyed.  Navigating Kentucky’s Heirs Property Training on a Regional Level will empower extension personnel to deliver quality, data-driven training to community stakeholders throughout the state. 

References

1.  Gaither, Cassandra J; 2019. Heirs Property and Land Fractionation, Atlanta GA
2. Johnson, Gaither Cassandra; Zarnoth, Stanley J. 2017, Unearthing Dead Capital; Heirs Property Prediction in Two U.S. Southern Counties
3. Bailey, Conner, and Ryan Thomson. 2022. “Heirs Property, Critical Race Theory, and Reparations.” Rural Sociology 87(4):1219-1243. https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12455
4. Deaton, B. James. 2007. “Intestate Succession and Heir Property: Implications for Future Research on the Persistence of Poverty