Gullah Geechee people offered chance to save family properties passed down through generations

In a move that protects vulnerable people from forced property sales, South Carolina recently enacted an act that could help families keep land that has been passed down for generations. The Heirs’ Property Tax Relief Act, signed into law by Henry McMaster, the state’s governor, on 15 May, prevents counties from reassessing property values when heirs clear their property titles, or resolve disputes about the ownership.The act allows families with heirs’ properties – land inherited by multiple owners who are not listed on the title – to transfer the title between family members without their real estate taxes increasing. Gullah Geechee people, the descendants of formerly enslaved west Africans who retained their culture and customs, are especially vulnerable to heirs’ property issues. They can lead to their homes being sold at annual auctions for delinquent tax payments, predatory development and interfamily fighting.The legislation originated through a collaboration between the advocacy groups Lowcountry Gullah Foundation, the Center for Heirs’ Property, and Habitat for Humanity. Luana Graves Sellars, founder of Lowcountry Gullah Foundation, convened a working group of attorneys and elected officials to craft bills that addressed heirs’ property issues. Since it launched in 2019, the Hilton Head Island-based Lowcountry Gullah Foundation has helped families with heirs’ properties pay off their property taxes and hosted workshops on writing wills.“The Center for Heirs’ Property, the [Lowcountry Gullah] Foundation and Habitat for Humanity – we’re all walking in the same direction with heirs’ property,” Graves Sellars said. “The collaboration of us coming together and using our collective strengths and voices is what made this bill possible.”Graves Sellars’s organization also helped South Carolina lawmakers in the heirs’ property study committee produce a list of suggestions to improve heirs’ property issues in 2022. At the time, the now-deceased committee chair, Senator John L Scott, told Graves Sellars that she was “bringing up a lot of low-hanging fruit that we can just take care of”, Graves Sellars recalled. His words remained in her mind as she convened the working group, with the goal of chipping away at the issue one problem at a time.“It’s really heartwarming to know that families who are struggling with the financial burdens that come with heirs’ property will get some relief,” Graves Sellars said. “Most people don’t understand the toll that heirs’ property takes on families from the family structure, but also financially … Unfortunately, that’s why a lot of people throw their hands up in the air and walk away from the property.”Anita Singleton-Prather’s family nearly lost their ancestral land in Beaufort twice when her cousin who lived on the heirs’ property failed to pay the rising real estate taxes. The non-profit Pan-African Family Empowerment and Land Preservation Network and a family friend pitched in thousands of dollars to help the family retain the land. Singleton-Prather and her family now divide up the property tax payments.“A lot of times, as Black people, we don’t like to do wills,” Singleton-Prather told the Guardian last year. “That’s one of the first steps: to decide who you’re going to will this property to, or specified in such a way to try to save it.”Heirs’ property issues can also lead to family infighting when one person decides to sell the land and others want to stay. Herbert Ford’s family lost their heirs’ property when an out-of-state family member sold the land to a developer in 2018. Ford, a fifth-generation Hilton Head Island resident who is Gullah, said that it was unfair that his family was forced to leave their homes.“I don’t think the entire family should be penalized because one or two persons decide they want to sell their particular interest. And if that means the developer can’t do anything with that small interest, then don’t purchase it,” Ford said. “Allow it to remain in the family and allow the family to take advantage of it.”A clear title legally owned by one party solves the issues that many people with heirs’ properties face. The working group behind the legislation plans to continue suggesting solutions to South Carolina lawmakers so heirs can retain their ancestral land.The Gullah Geechee community is grateful that it is now less risky to clear property titles. “People are really excited,” Graves Sellars said. “They have been recognizing the kind of impact that this will have on our communities.”