Helping Clients Navigate Heirs’ Property: Challenges and Opportunities

Heirs’ property is real estate that is passed down to multiple family members via informal inheritance, often across multiple generations. Due to its complex and unstable ownership structure, families with heirs property can struggle to retain their asset and maximize
and transfer its economic value. Heirs’ property is disproportionately owned by low-wealth families and families of color and impacts generational wealth transfers, housing, and community and neighborhood resilience. Given this, financial planners and coaches should understand what heirs’ property is and be able to share with their clients how heirs’ property should be considered in their personal financial guidance and strategy.