Detroit program highlights issues with heirs’ properties in specific neighborhoods

DETROIT – Owning a home can be life-changing not only for the homeowner but also for their descendants.

Homes can be a mechanism to build generational wealth.

“This is just not a home to lay your head down,” said Jeanine W., who has a home on Detroit’s east side that has been in her family for generations. “My daughter is now residing in her great-great grandmother’s bedroom. Who can say that.”

Her great-grandmother, Jesse, bought the home sometime in the late 40s or early 50s.

Jeanine became the latest owner following the passing of her grandmother, Virginia.

“She knew the importance of going down, deed work,” Jeanine said.

However, many Detroit homeowners don’t take the necessary steps to keep their homes in the family.

According to a report released this year by the think tank Detroit Future City, about 5,500 family-owned properties inherited through generations have unclear ownership.

They’re known as heirs’ properties.

“They believe that they are in the property because it was inherited. But there’s no will. There’s no trust. And their name is not actually on the deed,” Detroit Future City CEO Anika Goss said.

Although heirs’ properties are all over Detroit, the report found the neighborhoods with the highest concentration of them are Schaefer 7/8 Lodge, Schulze, and Bagley on the west side, Airport Sub, Hawthorne Park, and Cadillac Heights on the east side, and Boynton in Southwest Detroit.

“It’s a significant problem that can really detract from the growth and opportunity in our neighborhoods,” Goss said.

Heirs’ properties are more at risk of falling into disrepair.

Heirs may be unable to get homeowners insurance or access home loans or grants for home repairs.

“If you have a succession plan for the house where there’s a clear, owner and successor identified, it is more likely that house will remain occupied, that it will remain intact,” The Villages CDC Executive Director Mac Farr said.

That’s the focus of The Villages CDC’s Keep It In the Family program.

“We make sure that folks actually own their homes. And if they don’t, then we’ll put them on the legal track in order to get them set up,” Farr said.

Jeanine knows the payoff of doing so and said her daughter will, too, one day.

“My great grandmother, I hope she is smiling down,” Jeanine said.