Heirs’ property is property (land as well as houses and other buildings that are permanently attached to the land) that has passed down to multiple family members via inheritance, often across multiple generations. Heirs’ property impacts all racial and ethnic groups across the United States in urban, rural, and suburban areas, disproportionately occurring in low-wealth families and communities.

The fractionated and clouded nature of heirs’ property ownership makes heirs’ properties highly vulnerable to forced sales, predatory investors, and other losses. Philanthropic investments in heirs’ property interventions can help address these issues and, ultimately, help families realize the full value of their asset and preserve and build wealth from their property.

This report highlights the potential economic benefits of resolving title for residential heirs’ properties in urban areas. It presents a prospective Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis that predicts the value yielded by investments in interventions by community-based nonprofit practitioners whose people and programs specialize in heirs’ property resolution. The research finds that heirs are the main repository of benefits in the SROI with public agencies or federal, state, and local government administrations also receiving some benefit.