Riviera Beach, a historically Black coastal city in Palm Beach County, Florida, received a $90,000 grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta to help residents resolve the legal tangles around heirs' property. The award was part of FHLBank Atlanta's broader Heirs' Property Prevention and Resolution Grant Initiative, which distributed $1 million across organizations addressing one of the most persistent barriers to generational wealth in Southern Black communities.

What Heirs' Property Is

Heirs' property is real estate that passes to descendants without a will or clear legal transfer. When a homeowner dies without a will, ownership splits automatically among all legal heirs under state law. Over a few generations, a single family home can end up technically owned by dozens of distant cousins, some of whom may not even know they hold an interest. Without clear title, the property cannot be sold, refinanced, or used as collateral without every heir agreeing, which becomes nearly impossible as the heir list grows.

The issue is widespread among Black families in the South, where decades of segregation restricted access to lawyers and estate planning. Many homes passed down informally, with families living on property for generations without a recorded deed update. The result today is often a home owned by a family that cannot access its equity, cannot insure it properly, cannot qualify for home repair grants, and cannot sell it without a costly legal process.

Why Heirs' Property Is a Policy Problem

Heirs' property has been identified as a barrier to the accumulation of generational wealth, a cause of neighborhood blight, and a driver of involuntary land loss. Without clear title, families cannot qualify for many federal disaster assistance programs, weatherization grants, or home repair funds. A storm can damage a property and the family may have no route to FEMA help because they cannot prove ownership in a way the agency requires.

The problem disproportionately impacts racial and ethnic minority, low-wealth, and distressed urban and rural communities. According to legal aid groups in Florida, heirs' property issues keep thousands of families in Palm Beach County from fully accessing their homes as wealth-building assets.

What Riviera Beach Plans to Do

The city's grant funds a focused effort to help residents sort through tax and title issues tied to heirs' property. The work typically involves several steps for each affected family:

Identifying heirs. Researching family trees and locating all legal heirs, sometimes across multiple states.
Clearing title. Filing probate, quieting title, or pursuing partition actions under the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which Florida has adopted.
Recording the resolution. Getting a clean deed on file with the county so the property can be sold, refinanced, or insured.
Estate planning going forward. Helping current owners write wills, transfer-on-death deeds, or set up family trusts to prevent the same problem from returning in the next generation.

The Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County has administered similar work through its Heir's Property Project, which provides free legal services to low- and moderate-income residents navigating probate, estate planning, and title clearing.

How the FHLBank Atlanta Initiative Started

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta launched its heirs' property work after a 2021 forum that brought together advocates, researchers, and lenders to map out a coordinated response. In 2022, FHLBank Atlanta announced $1 million in initial grants to cities and nonprofits piloting resolution efforts. Riviera Beach's award came as part of that initial round. The bank later expanded the commitment significantly, and by 2023 it had announced a $5 million Heirs' Property Family Wealth Protection Fund to scale the work across the Southeast.

Why This Kind of Grant Matters

Money spent resolving a single heirs' property issue can unlock ownership and value that has been frozen for generations. Once a title is cleared, a family can:

Insure the home fully against storm and flood damage
Access FEMA Individual Assistance and state disaster recovery funds after a declared event
Apply for weatherization, solar, or accessibility retrofit programs that require proof of ownership
Take out home equity or refinance debt at better rates
Sell the property, keep it in the family with a clear succession plan, or pass it on with a valid will

For Riviera Beach specifically, where many properties sit in flood-prone zones, resolving title issues is not only a wealth matter but a disaster preparedness issue. A family that cannot prove legal ownership cannot access federal aid when their home floods.

Broader Implications

The initiative underscores that legal infrastructure, not just capital, is a key piece of housing equity. A family can live on the same land for a hundred years and still be unable to access most of the benefits that come with homeownership if the title is not clear. Grants like the one Riviera Beach received aim to rebuild that legal infrastructure family by family, and then to put estate planning practices in place so the problem does not recur.

For residents who suspect they may be dealing with heirs' property, the first step is usually a free legal aid consultation. Local bar associations, legal services nonprofits, and land-grant university extension programs often have intake lines specifically for these cases, and the cost of resolving the issue is often far lower than many owners expect, especially when grant-funded services cover most of the legal work.

Riviera Beach Grant Tackles Heirs' Property Ownership Challenges