You will learn:

Heirs property is property held as tenants in common where, generally, the owners received their interests through inheritance. The owners may number in the hundreds or more. The owners of heirs property often fail to qualify for federal assistance or leverage their ownership of the property. An increasing awareness of the difficulties faced by owners of heirs property prompted action by the Federal Emergency Management Administration and Congress through the 2018 Farm Bill to provide alternative means of proving ownership to qualify for benefits. However, these alternative means of showing title only apply in limited situations.

The National Agricultural Law Center sponsored a 50-state survey to determine what methods, short of formal suits to clear title, states offered to clear title to heirs property. The results show that few states offer cost-effective alternatives to owners of heirs property. In the presentation, the results of the survey are discussed, and best practices are highlighted.

You will hear:

Jill Apter, Research Fellow, National Agricultural Law Center

Jill Apter is a law student at Michigan State University College of Law, where she is expecting to graduate in 2025. Jill grew up in South Florida where she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in International Business & Trade. After years of international travel and immersive, hands-on development work that combined entity formation, compliance, and government program involvement with regenerative farming, Jill returned to the United States to pursue more formalized education in Colorado. With a desire to positively impact her community through her work, Jill pursued a Master of Nonprofit Management degree and a Project Management Certificate.

While working toward those degrees, Jill actively applied the knowledge by getting involved with local nonprofits in a multitude of capacities, including serving on various committees, doing policy and advocacy work at the local level, grant writing, and strategic planning. Inevitably, however, every project interacted with the law or the legal system in some facet. Ultimately, a desire to be a higher-level resource for her community and to get involved with projects that have a broader impact drove Jill to pursue a formal legal education.

Jesse J. Richardson, Jr., West Virginia University College of Law

Jesse Richardson is a Professor of Law and the Lead Land Use Attorney at the Land Use and Sustainable Development Law Clinic at the West Virginia University College of Law where his research and experience focuses on agricultural law, land use law, and water law. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from Virginia Tech and J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.  Jesse serves on the Board of the Water Well Trust, is past President of the American Agricultural Law Association and has served on the Virginia Water Policy Technical Advisory Committee and on the boards of the Universities Council on Water Resources, National Cave and Karst Research Institute, and Virginia Cave Board.

You can review:

• Heirs’ Property State Survey
• Affidavit of Heirs’ Property State Survey: Research Summary Report