A LAW SCHOOL CLINIC helping mainly minority and low-income North Carolinians who have inherited property without formal legal documents has received a boost from the Wells Fargo Foundation.

The one-year foundation grant of $300,000 will support Wake Forest’s Heirs’ Property Project, which is part of the University’s Environmental Law & Policy Clinic. The project, which partners with several community organizations, launched in 2022 to give students hands-on experience practicing law to address what law professor and clinic director Scott Schang calls a “classic environmental justice issue.”

Schang co-leads the Heirs’ Property Project with law fellow Miles Malbrough and supervises students doing the pro bono work for clients who otherwise couldn’t afford representation. The project helps North Carolina residents to preserve their homes and family legacies as well as advance state and national policy solutions to tangled titles.

On “The Legal Deac” podcast, Schang outlined the issue:

“Heirs’ property is property that’s passed to family members by inheritance either without a will or through a will leaving the property to multiple family members. Oftentimes, these family groups tend to continue to own the land over time with informal understandings about who has the right to use it, and when people hold land this way as what’s called tenants in common, each person has the right to use the land. In addition, each owner can sell their portion of the land or their ownership in the land to someone else. Each person also has a duty to help with the upkeep of the land like paying the taxes. So, over time, this can result in what we refer to as ‘tangled title.’”

In those cases, according to the podcast, the living heirs’ names don’t appear on any deed, leaving heirs without clear proof of ownership rights. That, in turn, makes it hard to get a mortgage or use the land as collateral. The tangled titles also create barriers to getting federal assistance after a natural disaster or for obtaining federal farming aid.

More than 70,000 properties valued at $5.5 billion in North Carolina are held as heirs’ property, according to the project. Heirs’ property owners, who are predominantly Black or Native American and low-income, often struggle with access to capital, government assistance and expertise. They also frequently suffer predatory dispossession, according to the podcast.

Through their work for heirs’ property owners, Wake Forest law students gain significant experience in the law, building relationships and thinking creatively about how to meet a client’s needs. Project work has been labor intensive, requiring deep engagement with heirs often across multiple generations and a collaborative, cross-disciplinary approach.

Jay Everette, Wells Fargo’s national director of community relations, praised the project as a means to preserve homeownership and build generational wealth.

“As the Bank of Doing, we believe everyone should have access to a quality, affordable home,” he said. “More than ever, we need to be intentional about scaling solutions for addressing heirs’ property issues and empowering people to maintain home ownership from one generation to the next.”

The Wells Fargo Foundation grant will empower the clinic to serve as a hub for clinical legal and academic research on heirs’ property issues, help similar clinical efforts take root across the United States and train the next generation of heirs’ property experts and practicing lawyers. It also will support the project’s ongoing work to directly assist North Carolina heirs embroiled in legal challenges.

“Heirs’ property issues disproportionately affect rural communities of color and low-income families,” said Provost Michele Gillespie. “Wake Forest Law students are doing path-breaking work to help people hold onto their land. I am grateful for the Wells Fargo Foundation’s support of the project and for their investment in North Carolina communities.”

To learn more about the Heirs’ Property Project visit go.wfu.edu/heirs or listen to the Heirs’ Property Project episode of “The Legal Deac” podcast.