Heirs Property CLE: Understanding the Concept to Protect Ownership and Prevent Land Loss (Video Presentation)
Heirs property refers to land that has been passed down informally from generation-to-generation, often without written wills, which is now owned by cousins or more remote relatives, possibly of multiple generations. Heirs property creates social issues and impacts disadvantaged communities the hardest.
In 2020 Virginia adopted major provisions of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA) to help prevent involuntary loss of family land and the associated real estate wealth of that family land through a hierarchy of rights and remedies for tenant-in-common owners in a partition action.
The webinar presents Virginia’s new law and addresses Barriers to Resolving Title Problems and Preventing Heirs Property.
Video image: Signing of Virginia Heirs Property Legislation on Ralph Sampson’s family farm, July 2020
Thank you to our speakers: Ebonie Alexander, Executive Director Family Land Trust; Ryan A. Brown, Esq., Arlington Law Group; Brett Glymph, Esq., Executive Director Virginia Outdoors Foundation; and Stephen W. Lemon, Esq., Martin, Hopkins & Lemon, P.C.
If you are interested in learning more about Heirs Property or would like to be added to the Black Family Land Trust attorney referral network, please contact Ebonie Alexander, Black Family Land Trust, 434-247-9500, ebonie@bflt.org or Crista Gantz, Director of Access to Legal Services Virginia State Bar, 804-775-0522, cgantz@vsb.org.