Empowering communities of color: the importance of estate planning (2024)

Real Estate

A 2022 Consumer Reports survey suggested that 77 percent of Black adults and 82 percent of Hispanics in the United States don’t have wills.

By Jim Morrison -- Boston.com Correspondent

June 5, 2024

Gallup polling in 2021 suggested that more than half of Americans don’t have a will. That number jumps considerably for people of color.

A Consumer Reports survey a year later pinned those numbers at 77 percent for Black adults and 82 percent for Hispanics.

Why didn’t they have wills? The respondents said they didn’t have enough assets, they weren’t sure how to create one, they were too young, they didn’t want to think about death, or they just wanted their next of kin to get everything.

If you’re someone who owns a home or other assets you’d like to leave to someone when you die, attorney Aimee Griffin of Life and Legacy Law, a firm with offices in Boston and throughout the Northeast, has a key piece of advice for you: “You need to plan now, because almost everybody dies unexpectedly.”

And part of being proactive is having an estate plan, even if your estate is small.

The National Consumer Law Center released a report in January called “Keeping It In the Family” that addresses the challenges many heirs to property face when people die without an estate plan. These issues affect communities of color disproportionately, it said. “A lack of access to, as well as exploitation at the hands of, the legal system has discouraged generations of Black families from utilizing probate or estate planning services. As a result, Black adults are more likely than their white counterparts to own a home without clear legal title or to co-own the home with other relatives who inherited without a will.”

These issues can come to a head if a natural disaster strikes and the Federal Emergency Management Agency requires proof of legal title to a property, the law center said, with some studies estimating “that more than half the real property owned by Black Americans is owned as heirs property.”

The problems begin in probate court, which ”has jurisdiction over family-related and probate matters, such as divorce, paternity, child support, custody, parenting time, adoption, ending parental rights, abuse prevention, wills, estates, trusts, guardianships, conservatorships, and name changes.”

Probate court also is where anyone who thinks they’re entitled to some or all of the deceased person’s assets can file a claim. They could be family members, friends, creditors, and companies, including ones that view other people’s tragedies as opportunities.

In its report, the consumer law center called out companies that pay deeply discounted prices for property, “preying on the lack of information an heir might have about what the home is worth and taking advantage of the absence of a competitive, open-market sale. The companies using these high-pressure tactics to force an undervalued sale of the home have in many instances targeted heirs property owners or other vulnerable homeowners who have experienced a life event that creates pressure to sell the home.”

Griffin said those tactics don’t just harm the heirs. When a home sells for below market value, it lowers the value of other properties in the neighborhood as well.

“Leaving your home to someone in a will does not keep it out of probate court,” she added. “A will only directs the probate process. The best way to ensure a property goes to the person or people intended is [having] a life estate, which means I can continue to own the property during my lifetime, but it transfers without probate to whomever I choose at the moment of my death.”

When a family member dies without a will, Griffin said, there’s nothing the prospective heirs can do until they get a death certificate. Once they have it, they don’t necessarily need to hire an attorney yet. The heirs can go to probate court, which will tell them what the next steps are, which varies by case and jurisdiction.

“If you don’t have the resources to hire an attorney, a lot of times the court will also give you a resource center that you can tap into,” she said. “They’re not going to give you legal advice, but they’ll give you next-step instructions. But what we encourage folks to do is, as opposed to being reactive, be proactive. Make a plan.”

She said the process can be confusing and overwhelming for people who are grieving and unfamiliar with the process. Staying organized and focused are key to success.

“You have to go to the court to get what’s called “Letters of Administration” to enable you to manage the assets like bank accounts,” she said. “One of the things that often happens is people will go through that process, get access to the bank accounts, but don’t remember to transfer the real estate to whoever it is going to, leaving the title in the person who passed away.”

Griffin said crafting an estate plan is easier and less expensive than cleaning up a mess in probate court, and hiring an attorney to help you craft an estate plan means more of your assets go to the people you want to have them.

Attorney Nancy R. Dreyer, cofounder and owner of Koffman & Dreyer in Belmont, said it’s common for parents to leave a home to their children by will, often with unintended results.

“Let’s assume that four siblings of differing needs and interests now own the house,” she said, “and one of them says: ‘The house is worth $5 million. I want my 25 percent.’ Now the other three don’t have the ability to buy out that sibling, and they actually want to hold on to it because they really love it. You can’t rule from the grave, but you have to think ‘What am I leaving my children with to fight over?’”

Attorney Lisa Cukier is a partner with Rubin and Rudman and an estate planning attorney. She said very often people stall in the planning process because they find talking about their mortality and making uncomfortable choices too daunting. She said it’s crucial to see the process through, because there’s comfort in knowing you’ve taken care of your loved ones.

“We had a client who was going through a divorce and doing some estate planning,” she said. “And they hadn’t finished their estate plan when they passed away just before the divorce was final. That meant that the ex is still a spouse and the estate plan wasn’t signed, Everything went to the soon-to-be ex and left out the children and other very important people. It was really tragic.”

Jim Morrison can be reached at [emailprotected]. Follow him on X @jimmorrison617.