Using Alternative Dispute Resolution to Address Racial, Ethnic & Socio-Economic – Video Replay

THIS PROGRAM IS A VIRTUAL VIDEO REPLAY.

Using Alternative Dispute Resolution to Address Racial, Ethnic and Socio-Economic Disparities in Heirs' Property Ownership. A roundtable.

Panelists:

Alfreida B. Kenny, Esq., mediator, real property and trusts & estates lawyer, New York, NY

 — and heirs' property heir

K. Scott Kohanowski, Esq., Director of Homeowner Stability and LGBT Advocacy Projects, City Bar Justice Center, New York, NY — and chapter author

Joshua F. Walden, Esq., real property and estate planning lawyer, Chief Operating Officer, Center for Heirs' Property Preservation, Charleston, South Carolina — and chapter author

Conner Bailey, PhD., Emeritus Professor of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL

Moderator: Erica Levine Powers, Esq., transactional lawyer and mediator, Albany, NY — and co-editor, with Thomas W. Mitchell, of Heirs' Property and the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act: Challenges, Solutions and Historic Reform (ABA, 2022)

This program encourages alternative dispute resolution for property owners unable to agree on how to manage jointly held real estate and explains New York’s now mandatory ADR process once an heirs' property partition action has commenced. The program will focus on the benefits of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, adopted in 21 jurisdictions comprising a majority of the population of the United States, and the 2019 New York-specific modifications to the Uniform Act. The Uniform Act is designed to protect legacy family land and home ownership within communities struggling with systemic socioeconomic barriers. Black heirs have been disproportionately subject to predatory action by developers and speculators to acquire such property, displacing families and appropriating significant intergenerational wealth and historic legacies. For example, it is estimated that in 14 states in the Deep South and Southeast, rural and urban land in heirs' property ownership currently has a value in excess of $47 billion. Lack of access to quality legal counsel and lack of estate planning often results in intestacy and tangled title problems, aggravated by disputes among family members that can result in an individual filing a partition action or selling a small interest to a predator. The default tenancy in common co-ownership with many potential heirs exacerbates attendant difficulties such as borrowing money, paying real property tax and making necessary repairs and makes such properties particularly vulnerable to such predatory practices.

The target audience includes specialists in alternative dispute resolution; the diverse and specialty bar associations, with a particular focus on diverse young lawyers and law students to meet the needs of affected heirs; specialists in real property, trusts and estates, family law, disabled and elder law; the courts; state and local governments; legal services lawyers; and non-profit institutions.