LISC Cleveland’s executive director, Kandis Williams, explains how the new Heir Property Resolution Program is helping families reclaim generational wealth. The initiative assists residents in clearing ambiguous house titles—unlocking long-held home equity—by offering legal aid, financial counseling, and estate planning support. Ultimately, the program aims to stabilize neighborhoods, protect homeowners from predatory investors, and bolster long-term financial security. Read the original Crain’s Cleveland Business article by Kim Palmer here.
The City of Cleveland hopes to unlock millions of dollars in unrealized home value and revive a section of the city’s housing market with a program that helps residents clear up house titles.
Conservative estimates found there are a half-million habitable homes in more than 40 states that need a legal, up-to-date deed, according to a study done by the Housing Assistance Council, in partnership with Fannie Mae.
In Ohio, there are nearly 9,000 of these “heirs’ properties,” a term used for a property that is informally passed down after an owner’s death without a legal will or probate hearing.
Those Ohio properties represent an estimated $313 million in equity that could be unlocked with a clear title, said Kandis Williams, executive director of Cleveland’s Local Initiatives Support Corporation, or LISC.
“For some owners, these homes have been in their family for many, many decades,” Williams said. “Their home is their largest asset, as is the case for most Americans, and it is a key source of wealth-building for the next generation.”
LISC partnered with the city in 2024 on the Heir Property Resolution Program, which is modeled after a similar pilot program that the organization’s national arm, which focuses on housing affordability, economic development, and neighborhood revitalization, launched in Jacksonville, Florida.
Williams said LISC estimates the program will identify and provide financial support to about 250 families and help those families sort out title issues related to heirs’ properties. Estate and civil attorneys will offer legal advice and services related to a property deed through the courts. LISC will provide financial counseling to deal with or avoid any future threats of foreclosure.
LISC estimates the Heir Property Resolution Program will identify and provide financial support to about 250 families.
Heirs who are left without a proper deed to the property often will continue to live and maintain the home, paying taxes and utilities like any other homeowner. Problems arise because these heir homeowners are unable to legally sell the property at market rate, acquire a mortgage or leverage any value in the home for a line of credit.
Without up-to-date property owner listings and sales records, there is no Multiple Listing service (MLS) data for banks to use to value properties, and neighborhoods become real estate deserts where it’s difficult for banks to assess value and make loans to homeowners.
“Affordable housing is a big issue, and there’s a big crisis around the country,” Williams said. “We’re launching the heirs’ property resolution program to help residents with titles and estate planning because we’re finding a lot of wealth is lost when a family member passes away, and the property is not properly inherited with a will or estate plan.”
She noted that the lack of a clear title makes the heirs, and the overall market, more vulnerable to out-of-town “investors” — legal liability corporations that buy and sell properties for cash, often below market rate with sales that are not part of the public record. The problem compounds when significant sections of neighborhoods in cities like Cleveland are made up of heirs’ properties.
Large investors use technology and all-cash offers to outcompete individual buyers. Because investors often target the same types of affordable starter homes as first-time home buyers, they push families out of the housing market.
In 2021, investors purchased 16% of homes in Cleveland. In Cincinnati, the other city in which LISC is rolling out the heirs’ property program, nearly 50% of homes in some communities are investor-owned.
Investor owners will rent the properties at the “market rate,” inflating the market or leaving the properties vacant until they become blighted, depressing the housing market in those neighborhoods even more.
“It’s a very sensitive topic, a deed. It is about loss of loved ones, the complexity of not having the home, wondering if their housing is in jeopardy, so we really want to make sure we’re working with the right partners,” Williams said.
LISC’s work in Cleveland and Cincinnati has been coupled with a home repair program, which augments the heirs’ property resolution work. The home repair program also doubles as a workforce training program for the same neighborhoods where the heirs’ program is located.
“In addition to job training, job coaching and placement, we’ve added the overlay with other income support as part of a partnership with the Rocket Community Fund and their wealth accelerator project,” Williams adds.
The wealth accelerator project helps participants by matching up to $300 in emergency savings dollar-for-dollar and up to $500 in any asset purchase, including home repair or a car purchase.