Heirs' property can leave family members with 'tangled titles' that limit wealth and contribute to rural housing shortages

A home, right, Rural Studio helped build on heirs’ property 
in Ala. (Photo by Timothy Hursley, Auburn University, CC BY-SA)

Imagine being born into a family that had settled land and passed it down from generation to generation for the past few decades. “Several of your relatives already live on the land, and you’d like to do the same, but you can’t get a loan to build or renovate a home without permission from all the relatives who also share ownership,” write Jennifer Pindyck, Christian Ayala Lopez and Rusty Smith for The Conversation. “At any moment, another heir could sell their share, triggering a court-ordered sale that could force you off the land.”

This shared ownership is an example of “heirs’ property: land passed down informally, without clear wills or deeds, which results in a ‘tangled’ or ‘clouded’ title,” researchers Pindyck, Lopez and Smith explain. “It’s more common than you might think in the U.S., especially in rural areas, and it presents significant challenges to long-term housing stability.”

Historically, property owners would leave their lands without “clear will or deed” because their region lacked legal services or the original owners didn’t trust the legal system. “Once the land is passed down to the next generation, the heirs are known as ‘tenants in common,’ meaning they own an undivided interest in the entire property,” they write, “As the property continues to pass down from generation to generation, the number of tenants in common increases exponentially.”

When a couple passes down land to their children – and then those people pass it down to their kids – the number of heirs dramatically increases. (Illustration by Auburn University, CC BY-SA)

After decades of sharing, property ownership can become a complex arrangement that opens all its tenants to potential homelessness. “Any tenant in common can sell their share to an outside party. These outside parties – either individuals or companies – can then request a court to order what’s called a partition by sale, which can push every other owner off the land,” Pindyck, Lopez and Smith explain. Some family members have sold their share of a property to real estate developers, unaware that their sale could trigger the loss of the entire estate.

Several organizations are working on heirs’ property resolutions, which can include “clearing titles, establishing shared land agreements and teaching landowners how to avoid having their property fall into a tangled title situation,” Pindyck, Lopez and Smith write. “The Florida Housing Coalition, Housing Assistance Council and the Alabama Heirs Property Alliance are actively engaged in community education, legal support, data mapping and policy advocacy.”

The Rural Studio assists heirs’ property tenants by using a “build first strategy,” they write. “Using funds from research grants and donations, we simply start building on heirs’ properties with the permission of families. In the process, we show that if tangled titles were no longer an obstacle, much more housing could be built. . . . One of our recent Rural Studio projects is the 18x18 House, a compact, multistory home built for a young man living on heirs’ property in Alabama.”

Pindyck, Lopez and Smith are Auburn University researchers and Rural Studio collaborators who study heirs’ property and “its role in shaping housing access. Based in Hale County, Alabama, Rural Studio has completed more than 200 projects – many of them homes built on heirs’ property – providing critical housing for families facing complex land ownership challenges.” 

Policy director for Rural Democracy Initiative warns of budget bill’s ‘devastating’ impacts

Members of the 119th House applaud the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (The Hill video reel photo)

After weeks of wrangling, the U.S. House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump's "one big, beautiful bill" on May 22. The bill, which has moved to the U.S. Senate, includes massive spending cuts to support tax cut extensions and additional tax cuts.

Michael Chameides, the communications and policy director for the Rural Democracy Initiative, in an opinion piece published in Iowa's Times-Republican, points out six ways the bill could hurt rural residents. He writes, "I’ve been hearing from rural leaders across the country about the devastating impacts this bill would have. . . .The good news is it’s not too late. But there’s little time to spare." 

Here are the six concerns Chameides cited:

1. The bill "guts" rural health care. "It would take health care away from 13.8 million Americans and increase the cost for millions more. In some states, 50% of rural children get healthcare from Medicaid. Millions more rely on access to clinics and hospitals that would likely close because of these cuts."

2. It cuts federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending. "More than 15% of families in small towns and rural areas rely on this support to feed their families."

(The Department of Agriculture canceled "about $660 million in funding this year for the Local Food for Schools program, which is active in 40 U.S. states," reports Aimee Picchi of CBS News. The cuts were announced in March and have left schools and farmers scrambling.)

3. The bill shifts more costs onto state and local governments. "Slashing federal funding to states would create new burdens for rural states that are already struggling to provide critical public services like health care, transportation, and emergency response services to local communities."

4. It takes away local land control. "Landowners have fought to stop the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines by passing bans and moratoria. . . .This bill would overrule state and local laws and ordinances. . . and deprive residents of a fair opportunity to evaluate the adverse impacts of pipelines."

5. The bill phases out clean energy and infrastructure spending, including tax credits. "It would also take away $262 million in funding for energy efficiency and conservation grants as well as transportation infrastructure. . . .Ending these tax credits will increase household energy costs, which are already higher in many rural communities."

6. The bill favors bigger agribusiness companies and mega-farms. "Leaders in Congress are using the budget reconciliation process to give big farms a $50 billion windfall. Add the heightened pressures and instability caused by the Trump administration’s erratic trade policy and more family farmers would lose their farms — while Big Ag consolidates more of the market."

Chameides calls on rural residents and businesses to speak up: “Lawmakers have already heard from the giant corporations who helped write the bill. Now they need to hear from the rest of us. It’s up to us to alert our communities and tell our lawmakers: Don’t sell rural America out to big corporations and the wealthy.”

A longer version of the Times-Republican op-ed was originally published by Barn Raiser. To learn more about what could happen to the bill in the Senate, click here. 

Opinion: Backcountry access is a tangle of public lands, private property and people treading all over the place

Runners on the Gateway Loop Trail at the McDowell Sonoran
Preserve in Ariz. (Photo by Caitlin O'Hara, The Washington Post) 

America’s backcountry is a tangled mix of public lands and private property, and access battles over where one ends and another begins are "wildly complex," Maddy Butcher of Colorado writes in her opinion for The Washington Post.

The "this land is your land; this land is my land" ideal does not apply to private property, and violators who purposely or accidentally tread on private lands have faced criminal charges and civil suits. "Across the West, courts are reflecting the struggles that residents and visitors face in trying to balance public trust and private land ownership. Some cast it as simple battles of rich vs. poor, or of locals vs. out-of-towners." But an "us" vs. "them" approach is an oversimplification of a dynamic web.

"As outdoor recreation increasingly fuels economies here and as landowners assert their rights, the clashes — not just in courts but also across streams, fence lines and dirt paths — will continue. . . . Many of us here struggle to roll with the triple influx of transplants, second-home owners and visitors. Like the courts, when we consider the multifaceted impact of this population flow, we’re conflicted."

Having so many visitors can lead communities feeling "loved to death. . . . Cluelessness abounds. . . . I’ve seen young hikers in the woods, dressed in tan during hunting season, looking more like deer than they realize and unaware that hunting season is a thing. I’ve seen private lands treated like public lands and public lands treated like gift shops, with visitors taking home artifacts, plants and animals."

Western state laws vary widely, and visitors and new residents best learn about theirs. "When I moved to Colorado from Utah several years ago, someone handed me The Good Neighbor Guidebook for Colorado. Edited by two lawyers, the book helps readers navigate the laws and customs around fencing, water use, wildlife and livestock. In this state, your dogs can legally be shot for chasing deer; you can’t divert a stream even a little bit; you must mitigate your noxious weeds; and if you don’t want cattle grazing your land, you’ll have to fence them out."

Nature is also feeling the squeeze. "As we twist and turn around boundaries and rights, we might pause to consider also doing some problem-grappling on an ecosystem level: Elk, bear, marmots and coyotes move to places where there is less pressure from human presence. But lately, that pressure is coming at them from all sides."

Landowners fight law enforcers' authority to enter rural properties without warrant; in Tenn. they need one now

Hunter Hollingsworth stands on his property in Benton
County, Tennessee. (Photo from Institute for Justice)

Should game wardens and other law-enforcement agents be allowed to enter private property and even install cameras without a warrant? The longstanding open fields doctrine says "Yes." Some property owners are saying, "No way." And they are suing, reports Carey L. Biron of Context, a publication of the Reuters news service.

Biron provides an example from a state where game wardens now have to get warrants: "Hunter Hollingsworth, a railroad technician, lives about 10 minutes from the family-owned 93-acre property in Benton County . . . . He was driving through his rural Tennessee property one morning when he saw something sparkle." Hollingsworth told Biron, "I thought it was a raccoon or a possum, shining in a tree. Then I realized it was a camera with an antenna."

Benton County, Tennessee (Wikipedia)

Biron explains, "It turned out state and federal wildlife agencies had hung the camera on his property, Hollingsworth said, seeking evidence that he was breaking conservation laws. . . . Though he acknowledged breaking one such rule, Hollingsworth said the camera was an invasion of privacy. Experts say the legalities involved go beyond wildlife conservation, touching on policing, online privacy and more." Hollingsworth told Biron, "They were surveilling every time I came and left, so they could come and check me every time I hunted."

Biron outlines the history: "The U.S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches of 'persons, houses, papers, and effects.' but the Supreme Court has interpreted that to mean that while officers require a warrant or just cause to search a home, legal protection does not extend beyond the house's immediate vicinity. This is called the open-fields doctrine. Barry Friedman, a law professor at the New York University School of Law, told Biron, "The doctrine is in serious need of attention as it gives license to law enforcement that is inconsistent with constitutional guarantees."

Hollingsworth sued to protect his privacy, and a state judge last ruled that "game wardens could not enter private land without a warrant. . . . Now the lawyer who spearheaded the case is trying to push other states with similar provisions and has begun another lawsuit in Pennsylvania." Joshua Windham, the attorney behind the cases for the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit, libertarian law firm, told Biron, "This is police state-style tactics, treating people's private spaces as presumptively open to prying eyes and surveillance."

Citing Carrie Leonetti, a professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, Biron notes that the open-fields doctrine "arose at a time when most Americans lived in rural areas." Leonetti told Biron, "It's when the average person stopped living on farms and moved into suburban areas that this got really baffling. . . . The framework just doesn't fit with the vast majority of the ways that people live now." Biron adds, "Courts have had to wrestle with how these powers apply to suburban yards, apartment buildings and even homeless encampments." Hollingsworth sees it this way: "If I'm on a road on my property, I wouldn't expect privacy. But if I'm in the woods or in a field that you'd have to be on my property to see, I would expect that to be private."

This land is your land, this land is my land: who owns the most U.S. real estate, and big sales and transfers in 2022

The Emmerson family's timberland in Northern California
(Photo by Katie Luther, Sierra Pacific Industries)

When it comes to land purchases and transfers, 2022 was a big year. "From strategic acquisitions to out-and-out buyouts, America’s largest landowners bought and sold millions of acres all year long in 2022, acquiring inholdings, selling nonessential acreage, and delving into new markets," reports Eric O'Keefe of Successful Farming. "That information is included in the 2022 Land Report 100, which is compiled each year by The Land Report magazine."

O'Keefe provides a highlighted listing:

Emmerson Family - The nation’s largest private landowners, California’s Emmerson family, are a prime example of this trend. Through their Sierra Pacific Industries, the Emmersons increased their landholdings by more than 100 square miles to over 2.4 million acres. The bulk of that growth was nearly 78,000 acres of Northern California timberland acquired from the descendants of Thomas Barlow “T.B.” Walker.

Four Sixes Ranch - For sheer size, no transaction compares to the sale of Texas’s Four Sixes Ranch. Taylor Sheridan, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind "Yellowstone", "1883," and "1923," led an investment group that acquired the legendary landmark. The sale marked the first time in more than 150 years that the iconic outfit had changed hands.

John Malone - The Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation has partnered with The Nature Conservancy and Colorado State University to study the impact of virtual fencing on California’s Red Top Ranch.

East Foundation - In 2022, Texas’s East Foundation completed the 60-month transition process to convert from a private foundation to an agricultural research organization. This process had long been in the works. The ARO designation is similar in many ways to the long-established medical research organization (MRO) status, which dates back to the 1950s.

Top Ten Largest Private Landowners:
Emmerson family 2.411 million acres
John Malone, 2.2 million acres
Ted Turner, 2 million acres
Reed family, 1.661 million acres
Stan Kroenke, 1.627 million acres
Irving family, 1.267 million acres
Buck family, 1.236 million acres
Singleton family, 1.1 million acres
Brad Kelley, 1 million acres
King Ranch Heirs, 911,215 acres

Showdown in Wyoming may define the rights of public access to checkerboarded public lands in the Western U.S.

Elk Mountain is a hunter's paradise. The 11,000-foot peak in southern Wyoming is home to hundreds of elk, deer and antelope. But there's a catch: "You can't get there from here," writes Michael Allen of The Wall Street Journal. "The sprawling mountain is surrounded by private ranchland. While the prime hunting ground is checkerboarded with federal and state property, a pattern created when railroads and settlers came, access is limited by an age-old Western doctrine. Ranchers consider it unneighborly for outsiders to hopscotch through their land by crossing over public sections that meet only at a corner."

Allen writes about four hunters from Missouri who got inventive. "Using a special stepladder, they climbed between two parcels owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management, taking care not to set foot on the private property on either side," reports Allen. But then things got sticky. "The local sheriff got involved, and before long the four hunters found themselves facing criminal-trespassing charges in state court. The prosecutor argued that it wasn’t enough that the defendants didn’t physically touch the private property," because they were in its airspace, Allen explains. The case is still in litigation.

"The courtroom clash is drawing attention to an anomaly of Western land ownership dating back to the 19th century," Allen said. "The digital navigation company onX says it has identified more than 8 million acres of state and federal land in Western states that are blocked from public access due to the legal gray area around corner-crossing. . . .That doesn’t stop some eager hunters, who are resorting to ever-more-exotic lengths to get past the legal barriers."

Black-owned acreage has fallen by almost half since 1900, partly because whites exploited informal land ownership

A map based on the 1910 census shows farms owned by African Americans; a dot represents 50 farms.
(Image from Ag Census Library at Cornell University; for a larger version or to download, click on it)

Black-owned acreage fell from 15 million acres in 1900 to 8 million acres in 2017. "Black Americans lost land in the 20th century for a variety of reasons, including violence, intimidation, immigration to the North, and discrimination by the USDA. But legal experts also blame vulnerable forms of land ownership, such as heirs’ property," Sarah Melotte reports for The Daily Yonder. 

About one-third of Black-owned land in the South is considered heirs' property, in which each heir owns an interest in the entire property and any one of them can force a sale. It "leaves the heirs more susceptible to losing the land and to not realizing its full economic potential," Melotte reports. "Heirs’ property rights are one way developers walked away with some of the region’s most desirable and profitable land at bargain-basement prices."

Legal snarls from heirs' property still prevent many rural Black landowners from accessing government programs today. "Organizations are trying to fix that problem. The Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention Network, for example, supports Black landowners with the goal of keeping land in the family and increasing wealth through forestry. But there are still pressures that threaten land ownership for Black Americans," Melotte reports. "As development sprawls from an urban center, adjacent rural areas face higher demand for housing and other resources."

Black farm owners in the southeastern Black Belt and the Gullah Geechee Corridor from North Carolina to Florida have been particularly vulnerable to the heirs' property problem.

Landowners' growing interest in conserving their land ignites debate over property rights of heirs who might want to sell

Conservation land-trust groups across the U.S. have seen a spike in interest from landowners who want to preserve their farms and other lands from development, "but the growing interest in preserving privately held land has sparked a fierce debate between supporters who say such efforts guarantee environmental protections and critics who say they take away individual property rights," Alex Brown reports for Stateline. "A handful of states are considering expanding their conservation easement programs, which offer tax breaks to landowners in exchange for giving up development rights to their farms and natural lands. In many cases, those easements last in perpetuity, offering durable protection even when the property changes ownership."

However, "Lawmakers in several states have pushed to give officials veto power over conservation easements or to require expiration dates for the agreements. They argue that the contracts block future generations from making their own decisions about the land," Brown reports. "Other opponents argue that public money should not be used to fund conservation on private land. They claim that efforts to protect natural spaces will cause housing shortages in fast-growing communities and limit tax revenues for local governments. Both sides see the others’ efforts as something of a land grab. How states respond could determine the fate of tens of millions of acres."

Landowners' and environmentalists' objections to CO2 pipelines test future viability of carbon-capture programs

Navigator CO2 Ventures' proposed Heartland Greenway System
would store liquified carbon dioxide underground in Illinois

Heavy opposition to two proposed carbon-dioxide pipelines in the Midwest throws the future of carbon-capture programs into question. The pipelines would collect and liquefy carbon dioxide from Midwestern ethanol, fertilizer and other industrial-agriculture plants, then carry it thousands of miles and store it deep underground. But dozens of farmers are refusing to sell and other organizations are also rallying opposition, Leah Douglas reports for Reuters.

If the companies—Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions and Texas-based Navigator CO2 Ventures—are forced to resort to eminent domain to get the land, the pipelines could remain in limbo for years while messy courtroom battles play out, Donnelle Eller reports for the Des Moines Register. In Iowa alone, more than 400 people "have filed objections with the state's regulatory agency, questioning whether the pipelines are needed, safe and should be allowed to cross valuable farmland that's been passed down through multiple generations."

The technology is relatively untested, and landowners worry that it could damage crops or harm people. Douglas notes, "A 2020 liquid CO2 pipeline rupture in Yazoo County, Mississippi, for example, sickened dozens of people."

Summit Carbon Solutions' pipeline would store CO2 in North Dakota.

Iowa's Sierra Club chapter and other environmental groups think carbon capture and sequestration are "a lifeline to carbon-based industries, at a time when the world needs to be ending its dependence on fossil fuels in order to stave off the worst impacts of climate change," Kate Payne reports for Iowa Public Radio.

"The companies say the projects would help ethanol and other energy-intensive ag industries remain viable as the nation seeks to cut net greenhouse emissions in half by 2030 to address climate change. Summit says carbon sequestration would lower ethanol's carbon footprint to net zero by 2030 and allow it to be sold into California and other states with low carbon fuel standards," Eller reports. "Summit says it has the capacity to capture up to 12 million metric tons of carbon annually, an amount equal to removing 2.6 million vehicles from the road each year. Navigator says its pipeline has the capacity to capture about 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, the equivalent of removing 3.2 million vehicles from the road."

Atlantic Coast Pipeline was canceled, but landowners still unsure what will happen to easements on their property

Atlantic Coast Pipeline proposed route (Associated Press map)

Atlantic Coast Pipeline developers used eminent domain to force thousands of landowners to sell them narrow strips of land to bury the pipeline. But in July 2020, Dominion Energy and Duke Energy canceled the project. Over a year later, those landowners still don't know what will happen to the easements crossing their property.

"Some landowners have miles of the pipeline already installed on their properties. Contractors for Duke and Dominion also cleared trees along more than 110 miles across West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, leaving about half of the felled trees on the property," Emily Allen reports for Mountain State Spotlight. From West Virginia to North Carolina, "The proposed pipeline would’ve crossed more than 2,600 easements, covering nearly 4,300 acres of land — all of which Duke and Dominion now own the rights to," according to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Dominion spokesperson Christine Mitchell told Allen in an email that the company will hang onto the easements for the next few years to "develop the most responsible approach" for restoration. "We plan to keep the easements until all restoration and monitoring are complete," she wrote. "However, we will evaluate individual landowner requests on a case-by-case basis."

Landowners fear the easements could be sold to another pipeline developer after the land is restored in one to two years, said Isak Howell, a Roanoke-based lawyer with Appalachian Mountain Advocates, which represents dozens of landowners in ACP cases. FERC hasn’t addressed the relinquishment of easements, Allen reports.

Spending bill would waive loans of limited-resource farmers, fund climate mitigation, extend nutrition programs and more

The $1.75 trillion spending bill House Democrats proposed Thursday has much for farmers, reports Chuck Abbott of the Food & Environment Reporting Network. It includes:

• A program that seeks to mitigate climate change by paying farmers up to $25 an acre to grow cover crops during fallow seasons.
• $22.3 billion in additional funding for four U.S. Department of Agriculture land-stewardship programs, "with an emphasis on building soil carbon, reducing nitrogen loss, and limiting or capturing greenhouse gas emissions, according to a summary of the legislation."
• "$960 million in grants for equipment to dispense biofuels, a four-year extension of the biodiesel tax credit, and a new tax credit for developing sustainable aviation fuel."
• The current summer nutrition program for children would continue until September 2024.
• The Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools to serve free meals to all students, would not end until October 2026.
• The wildly popular expansion of the child tax credit would be extended for another year. "In addition, full refundability — a recent change to the credit that allows children in the poorest families to get the money — will be made permanent," says CNBC. 
• "Stymied by lawsuits that contend USDA debt relief for farmers of color is actually reverse discrimination, House Democrats proposed an alternative: full or partial forgiveness of USDA loans to limited-resource farmers. The multi-billion-dollar proposal, which does not mention race, is directed toward economically distressed farmers and ranchers in high-poverty areas," Abbott writes. The $6 billion fund "also allows payments of up to $500,000 apiece to farmers, ranchers, and forest owners who were victims of bias in USDA lending programs, as well as allotting funds to resolve heirs’ property issues and for equity commissions to explore racial equity at USDA and in its programs."

Drought has put U.S. forests into a 'state of emergency,' chief of the Forest Service tells Congress

"The government needs to quicken the pace of its fuel reduction work in public forests at the same time that it marshals enough crews to fight wildfires, said Forest Service Chief Randy Moore at a House hearing on Wednesday," the Food and Environment Reporting Network reports. "So far this year, nearly 46,000 wildfires have burned 5.9 million acres and more than 4,500 homes, commercial properties, and outbuildings."

About 63 million acres in national forests are rated at high hazard or very high hazard for wildfires that would be difficult to contain, he said. That represents a third of national forest land, and includes communities in the forests' proclamation boundaries, where the Forest Service can buy land.

"This is in part a result of 110 years of overly aggressive fire suppression policies as well as climate change," Moore said. "The sobering takeaway: America’s forests are in a state of emergency, and it’s time to treat them like one."

One problem with protecting forests and communities against firefighters: sometimes property owners and agricultural interests are fighting back against proposed wildfire mitigation policies. That's what's happening in Oregon, Cassandra Profita reports for NPR.

Another problem: Moore said firefighters often aren't paid enough, and the turnover rate is high, the FERN reports. "We must ensure a stable, resilient firefighting force," Moore said. "We are in a constant mode of training new employees." The Biden administration gave many full-time federal firefighters a 10% pay bonus this year and tried to ensure all federal firefighters make at least $15 an hour.

Loan program to help Black farmers keep land they inherited informally, authorized in 2018 Farm Bill, is finally starting

The Agriculture Department will implement a loan program for farmers who inherited their land informally to resolve ownership issues so they can hold onto their land. Heirs' property issues have particularly threatened Black farmers in the South.

"The Heirs’ Property Relending Program will provide $67 million for loans to resolve property issues that have long kept some producers and landowners from being able to access USDA programs and services," Ximena Bustillo reports for Politico. "The program’s provisions were included in the 2018 Farm Bill, but it wasn’t implemented during the Trump administration."

Under the program, landowners can borrow up to $600,000 to "buy out other people with claims to land, consolidate a title and clear the titles on the ground. Those farms would then become eligible for other USDA agricultural programs as well," Chris Clayton reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer. "Lenders such as cooperatives and credit unions can apply for up to $5 million at 1 percent interest when a two-month sign up window begins in late August. USDA will loan the money to those intermediate lenders who will then loan out the funds to the farmers."

About one-third of Black-owned land in the South is considered "heirs' property," or property passed down without a will or other clear documentation. Black families have often lost land to speculators and developers because they couldn't prove ownership, Clayton reports.

"The rising frequency and severity of natural disasters also poses a threat to heirs’ farms and other rural property. The Federal Emergency Management Agency more commonly denies disaster aid requests because of title issues in the South in counties that are majority Black," Bustillo reports.

Rural Black homeowners denied FEMA aid because of informal inheritance; FEMA is less likely to help the poor

Many rural Black homeowners are denied federal disaster relief because of an informal system of property inheritance common in the South, reports Hannah Dreier of The Washington Post.

Under the "heirs' property" system, land is passed down to descendants without a will or deed, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency requires proof of ownership for relief. There's no legal basis for the policy, but FEMA began requiring it to stave off scammers.

"In 2018, under pressure to resolve the crisis in Puerto Rico, the agency created a process for people to self-certify homeownership," Dreier reports. "But the fix applied only to islands and tribal areas, and it was not extended to the Deep South, where in internal correspondence, FEMA has recognized heirs’ property as 'a perennial issue.' A FEMA spokesperson said the agency still requires most disaster survivors to prove ownership because 'land ownership is recorded as a standard practice' in all of the continental United States and 'self-certification of ownership increases the agency’s vulnerability' to fraud and improper payments."

And if that wasn't bad enough, FEMA aid is, in general, more often denied to those in poverty, Rebecca Hersher reports for NPR: "FEMA's own analyses show that low-income survivors are less likely than more affluent people to get crucial federal emergency assistance, according to internal documents NPR obtained through a public records request."

NPR's investigation found that impoverished renters were 23% less likely than higher-income renters to get housing aid, and that the poorest homeowners got about half as much money to rebuild their homes as higher-income homeowners; that disparity can't be explained by relative repair costs, researchers said. Also, "FEMA was about twice as likely to deny housing assistance to lower-income disaster survivors because the agency judged the damage to their home to be 'insufficient,'" Hersher reports.

Nov. 18 workshop to explore issues with heirs' property, a leading cause of land loss among many rural Blacks

A Nov. 18 virtual workshop will explore heirs' property and the critical role it plays in wealth inequality. Heir's property is land informally passed down to heirs from those without a will, and it is a leading cause of land loss among many rural Blacks, especially in South Carolina. 

The Aspen Institute's Community Strategies Group and the Center for Heirs' Property Preservation will present the workshop. The schedule is as follows:

Plenary session from 1-3 p.m. ET, in which participants can learn the context of heir's property and the Center's work.

Breakout discussions from 3:30-5:30 p.m. ET; you may choose two from the following topics: 

• Legal and Policy Approaches to Resolving Heirs’ Property
• The Opportunity for the Conservation Sector: Engaging People of Color and Their Land
• Building a Movement of Landowner Advocates
• Heirs’ Property Across Race and Place
• Forestry and Wealth Creation in the American Black Belt

A screening of America's Forests with Chuck Leavell of the Rolling Stones from 6-7 p.m. ET.

 Click here for more information or to register.

6.35 million acres of Western public lands surrounded by private land; report suggests ways to make it accessible

Total landlocked acreage in each state
(Map by TRCP; click on it to enlarge)

"More than 6 million acres of state-owned lands in the rural West are inaccessible because they are surrounded by private land with no easements, according to a new report," Bryce Oates reports for The Daily Yonder. "The study found that nearly 13 percent of state recreational land in 11 Western states was unavailable for public use because it is landlocked." The study was conducted by the nonpartisan Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and outdoor recreation mapping company onX.

The study report says access to public land is a critical factor in the growing outdoor-recreation economy, driving more than $887 billion annually in consumer spending, and that three-fourths of Western hunters depend on public lands for some or all of their access. Almost all of the landlocked acres are state trust lands.

In a report last year, TRCP found that about 9.5 million acres of federal public forest and rangeland are similarly inaccessible; Oates notes that the combined area of inaccessible state and federal land covers about as much acreage as the state of West Virginia.

The study suggests some ideas for making the landlocked acres publicly accessible. For instance, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which pays for local parks and recreation areas across the U.S., could purchase easements to provide access. LWCF is funded by proceeds from fossil fuel extraction on public lands, and though it can get up to $900 million a year for spending, Congress usually appropriates less than half of those proceeds to LWCF, and in some years provides zero funding, Oates reports.

Other solutions include encouraging states to form offices of outdoor recreation, create programs that seek short-term contracts with private landowners to allow the public access to landlocked acres for hunting and fishing, and consolidate their trust-land holdings through land acquisitions and exchanges to make them more manageable and profitable, Oates writes.

Montana sportsmen, conservationists oppose appointment of public-lands opponent as co-director of BLM

This week’s appointment of William Perry Pendley as co-director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has drawn fire from Montana conservationists and sportsmen who see Perry as an opponent of public ownership of land.

William Perry Pendley
(Missoula Current photo)

A coalition including Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, the Montana Wilderness Association, the Montana Wildlife Federation, Montana Trout Unlimited and Montana Conservation Voters voice strong opposition to Pendley’s appointment, the Missoula Current reports.

“The BLM manages some of the most revered places in Montana, and we now have someone in charge of the BLM who would prefer to sell those places off rather than do the job of caring for them on behalf of all Americans,” said Kayje Booker, Montana Wilderness Association policy and advocacy director. “It’s hard to imagine anyone in this position more dangerous than William Perry Pendley.”

Pendley, of Colorado, was lead counsel for a Louisiana oil company that is suing the federal government for oil-drilling rights in the Badger-Two Medicine National Monument. He was also president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a property-rights group.

“On July 15, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt hired Pendley as the BLM’s deputy director of policy and programs, a position newly created for him. A week later, Bernhardt moved Pendley into a co-leadership spot with Michael Nedd after the previous acting director, Casey Hammond, stepped down,” Missoula Current staff writer Laura Lundquist reports.

“Pendley now oversees the management of 250 million acres of public land and 700 million acres of subsurface mineral rights throughout the nation. In Montana, the BLM manages approximately 8 million acres of public land, including a region just east of Missoula where conservation groups are opposing a recent draft management plan that emphasizes extractive activities.”

Farm Bill, new state laws may ease burdens and pitfalls for owners of property left by ancestors who didn't write a will

New laws are making it easier for heirs of undivided property to hold onto it and make something of it, April Simpson reports for Stateline. The campaign has mainly been pushed by African Americans, many of whose ancestors died without wills, but the issue affects "a range of people and communities, from whites in Appalachia, to Native Hawaiians in Hawaii, to Latinos along the New Mexico-Texas border, to middle-income white families with poor estate planning, according to Thomas Mitchell, a law professor at Texas A&M University in College Station."

Simpson explains the background: "When property owners die without a will, their descendants, or heirs, share a claim to the estate — a situation known as heirs' property. But it takes only one heir who wants out of the arrangement to sell their share. They may need the money or no longer want to share in the responsibility of property ownership. Sometimes, there are so many heirs, dividing up the property into separate tracts isn’t feasible. An heir may force a partition sale, which means the entire property is sold. Oftentimes, a predatory developer scoops it up at a deep discount. Poor and disadvantaged communities have been the primary victims of partition sales," the “most unstable form of common, real property ownership,” according to the American Bar Association.

The 2018 Farm Bill made it easier for heirs' farmland to be returned to production, with "provisions for heirs to qualify for a USDA Farm Service Agency farm number — akin to a driver’s license for agriculture — which unlocks key programs and enables participation in local FSA elections," Simpson reports. But to make full use of those provision in a state, it must have enacted a Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which "gives co-owners the opportunity to buy out heirs who want to sell their share. ... If a buyout doesn’t resolve the issue, a court may consider dividing the property between the owners or selling the property and dividing the proceeds equitably between the owners. . . . Open market sales, rather than auctions, are preferred to ensure a higher sale price."

The laws are not a panacea. In Mississippi, where a bill failed this year, Rep. Mark Baker, chair of the state House Judiciary Committee, told Simpson, “You’d always bring yourself back full circle to, what is the state of title? And, in whom are we going to confirm ownership so that we can begin the process in making a partition determination in kind or by sale?" He said few people want to buy an interest in undivided property unless they’re related to other owners.

But in some cases, the new laws have resolved untenable situations created by old laws, Simson reports: "Iowa had one of the country’s worst partition laws because these laws made a partition sale the preferred remedy even when the court could have ordered property physically divided, Mitchell said. But a dispute between two siblings who had inherited a nearly 500-acre family farm prompted a public outcry. The case went to the state Supreme Court, which affirmed a lower court decision that upheld the law by forcing a partition sale."

The laws come too late for most African Americans. "The changes came after roughly 85 percent of black-owned land with active farm operations already had been lost, in part because of laws negatively affecting owners of heirs' property," Simpson reports.

W.Va. Supreme Court says landowners can keep drillers from using their land to frack on other properties

David Wentz looks at an EQT gas well site on his property. (ProPublica photo by Raymond Thompson Jr.)

Last Wednesday, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled unanimously that oil and gas companies are trespassing if they enter private land to use it for something the owners have not agreed to.

"Companies must obtain permission from surface owners in order to use their land to reach reserves under other properties, Justice John Hutchison wrote for the court," report Kate Mishkin and Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette-Mail and ProPublica's Local Reporting Network.

The problem that led to the lawsuit began more than seven years ago. EQT Corp. owned the mineral rights on Beth Crowder and David Wentz's farm, and was allowed to use a 20-acre well pad on their property to drill for natural gas under their property. But EQT also owned drilling rights to about 3,000 acres nearby, and wanted to use the Wentz well pad to drill horizontal hydraulic fracturing wells to reach those tracts. Crowder and Wentz told EQT it could not do that, but EQT ignored them and drilled nine wells, causing considerable noise and traffic on the farm, Mishkin and Ward report.

The ruling "represents a rare victory for residents in a state where economics and politics are increasingly controlled by the natural gas business after decades of domination by the coal industry. Making it more gratifying for Crowder and Wentz, the court that ruled in their favor has been under the microscope because of connections to the gas industry," Mishkin and Ward report.

Industry officials say fracking limits environmental harm by drilling multiple wells from one pad, but that practice has increased the nuisance for nearby residents, many of whom didn't own their surface tracts when the mineral rights under them were sold. The sellers could not have anticipated the advent of fracking, which critics say is sometimes more of a nuisance than traditional drilling. "Though bills have been introduced year after year that are designed to mitigate the impacts on residents, West Virginia lawmakers have repeatedly refused to act," Mishkin and Ward report.

Blight is a problem for rural towns, too; some fight back

A home in Marianna slated for demolition. (Observer-Reporter photo by Holly Tonini)

Blight is a well-known term, conjuring images of crumbling urban buildings and roads, but many rural areas suffer from it too, especially those with economies that depend on declining industries.

That's the case in Washington County, in rural southwestern Pennsylvania: it and neighboring counties were once prosperous from coal, depending on jobs form the Marianna Mine. But these days many towns in those counties are "dealing with dozens of abandoned and neglected properties, absentee landlords, crime and safety concerns, a diminished tax base and a heap of filth," Rick Shrum reports for the Observer-Reporter in Washington, Pa.

Marianna, a borough of 475 just south of Pittsburgh, is working hard to fight back blight. Washington County recently awarded the borough $100,000 to address blight. The borough is clearing 21 blighted properties and has already completed work on, Shrum reports.

It's an important task for several reasons, Marianna leaders told Shrum. It clears the way for properties to get back on the tax rolls, beautifies the community and makes it safer; Councilman Wes Silva recalled an incident a few years ago in which falling bricks from a dilapidated building almost hit a young child. He said about six homeowners living adjacent to the blighted buildings have expressed interest in buying the cleared lots to expand their property.