HR-1640-119
Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 693.
Sponsored by Nikema Williams (D-GA)
What it does
This bill would authorize HUD to create a grant program for states, local governments, territories, and tribal governments that adopt the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, with funds used to help residents cover costs like title reports, land surveys, estate planning, and legal fees. It would also authorize a separate HUD grant program for housing counseling agencies, legal clinics, and nonprofits to provide counseling, legal assistance, and financial help to owners of "heirs' property" (property passed through intestacy and held by multiple heirs as tenants in common), and require HUD-funded housing counselors to explain heirs' property risks to clients. Both grant programs would sunset seven years after enactment.
Who benefits
Heirs' property owners, particularly in rural and historically underserved communities (heirs' property loss has disproportionately affected Black landowning families in the rural South) who could receive help clearing title and avoiding forced property sales; states and localities that adopt the uniform law and receive federal grants; HUD-approved housing counseling agencies, legal clinics at universities, and nonprofits that would receive new grant funding; low- and moderate-income homeowners facing title-clearing costs.
Who is hurt
Federal taxpayers who would fund the new grant programs; states that do not adopt the uniform law and would be ineligible for grants, potentially disadvantaging their residents relative to adopting states; investors or third parties who currently benefit from partition sales of heirs' property under existing state laws that lack the uniform act's protections, since wider adoption of the act could make forced sales harder or less profitable for them.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that heirs' property, where land passes informally through intestacy without clear title, has led to the loss of billions of dollars in family wealth, particularly for Black landowners in the South, through forced partition sales at below-market prices. They contend that funding title-clearing assistance and encouraging states to adopt the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which already requires courts to consider alternatives to forced sale and provide co-owners a right of first refusal, would preserve generational wealth and reduce unnecessary displacement.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue that land use and property succession law is traditionally a state matter, and that conditioning federal grants on adoption of a specific model law amounts to Congress using funding incentives to nudge states toward a particular legal framework rather than letting states adapt heirs' property rules to local conditions. They contend that the program adds new federal spending and administrative rulemaking by HUD without guaranteed measurable reduction in property loss, and that some co-owners seeking a partition sale for legitimate reasons could face added delay or complexity under the uniform act's alternative-to-sale procedures.