Honoring Heritage: How Culture Shapes Estate Planning for African American Families

Attorney Gregory Robinson

You're listening to Roots & Rights: Securing Tomorrow. I'm Attorney Gregory Robinson, and today we're diving into a topic that sits right at the intersection of law, history, and culture: how African American values and traditions shape the way we do, or don't do, estate planning.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Now, if you grew up anything like I did in the South, you probably heard some version of, "We don't talk about money like that," or, "Don't be rushing my death talking about wills." For a lot of Black families, conversations about who gets the house, the land, or the business feel taboo, disrespectful, or just plain scary.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

And there are reasons for that. You can't separate how we plan for the future from what this country has done in the past. Think about it: we went from being treated as property, to finally being allowed to own property, to watching the government back away from promises like "40 acres and a mule," and then decades of Jim Crow, redlining, and predatory lending. That leaves a mark. It creates a deep, earned mistrust of systems — courts, banks, government offices — all the places we're told we have to go to protect our assets.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

So instead of saying, "Let's sit down with a lawyer and draft a plan," many families say, "We'll just keep it in the family." Everybody understands, or so they think, that the house is for Mama's grandbabies, or the land is "for the family" in general. And those are real cultural values: collective responsibility, taking care of each other, the idea that we don't need a bunch of paperwork to tell us what we already know in our hearts.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

On top of that, many of us lean heavily on church and community leaders. We trust our pastor. We trust Big Mama. We trust that cousin who's "good with numbers." But lawyers? Financial advisors? Historically, those haven't always been people who look like us, understand our story, or even operate in our neighborhoods. So it's understandable that we don't automatically see the legal system as a partner in protecting what we've built.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Let me share a composite story that reflects a situation I've seen again and again. Picture a family in Alabama — grandparents bought a little piece of land back in the '50s, brick house they poured their sweat into. The house becomes the gathering place: fish fries, graduations, repasts after funerals, babies learning to walk on that same porch.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

The grandmother is the matriarch. Everyone knows, or thinks they know, that when she passes, the house is "for all the children" and really for the grandkids. But anytime somebody brings up a will, she says, "Don't speak that over me. I'm not going anywhere." Or, "God will take care of it." So nobody pushes, because you don't want to be the disrespectful one.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Eventually she passes. There is no will. One child has been living in the house for years, keeping up the yard. Another child lives out of state and hasn't been around much but suddenly has a lot to say. A third child is in financial trouble and quietly thinks, "Maybe we should just sell and split the money, because I need help right now." Cousins start taking sides. Old wounds pop up: "You never came around when she was sick." "Mama always favored you." And the thing that was supposed to be a blessing — this home filled with memories — turns into a battlefield.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

I have watched families where folks didn't speak for years because of that kind of situation. And what's sad is, they weren't bad people. They were grieving, scared, and trying to figure out how to interpret verbal promises that never got written down. Their cultural value was, "We're family, we'll work it out." But when the law gets involved without a plan, it doesn't care about all those unspoken understandings.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

So as we go through this episode, I want you to hear two things at the same time. One: our reluctance to plan is not random; it comes out of a long history of trauma, dispossession, and mistrust that we have a right to name. Two: if we don't respond to that history with intentional, culturally grounded planning, we risk repeating the same story of loss — this time with assets our parents and grandparents worked too hard to build.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

In the next chapter, we're going to talk about one of the clearest examples of this dynamic: heirs' property and the way informal transfers of land and houses can quietly undermine Black wealth across generations.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Let's get into this idea of heirs' property, because you'll hear that term thrown around more and more, especially in conversations about Black land loss and Black homeownership.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Heirs' property is what happens when somebody passes away owning real estate — a house, land, a farm — and there's no will, no trust, no clear estate administration. Under state law, their ownership interest just spills out automatically to their heirs, usually children, sometimes siblings, depending on the situation. On paper, that means multiple people now own undivided interests in the same property as tenants in common. In real life, it often means nobody really knows who owns what, but everybody feels entitled to something.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Research has shown that Black families are disproportionately likely to end up with heirs' property. Low rates of will-making, migration patterns where folks left the South for work, and a habit of passing land "within the family" without formal probate all contribute. Over time, that creates what I call gridlocked ownership — the family owns something together, but can't really use it in a powerful way.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Let me paint a picture. Imagine a piece of rural land outside of a small town in Georgia. Granddad bought 60 acres after World War II. He farmed a little, raised hogs, grew vegetables. When he died, there was no will. His five children all inherited equal shares automatically. Nobody did a deed. Nobody opened an estate. Everyone just said, "This is the family land."

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Over time, those five children have children of their own. Some move to Atlanta, Chicago, Houston. Some stay close by. A few are struggling financially. Maybe one cousin stops paying their share of property taxes but keeps saying, "Just hold on to it; that's our birthright." Decades pass. By the time we hit the third generation, you may have fifteen or twenty people with a potential ownership interest in that same 60 acres, spread across multiple states, and no clear title that a bank or a government agency will recognize without a lot of legal work.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Here's where the problems stack up. First, because title is tangled, it's hard to borrow against the property to make improvements. So the old farmhouse gets run-down, or the land sits idle instead of producing income. Second, when a hurricane, flood, or tornado hits, heirs' property owners often can't access disaster relief because they can't prove ownership in the way the forms require. Third, owners may miss out on tax exemptions like a homestead exemption that could significantly reduce the property tax bill, just because the paperwork doesn't line up.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

And then there's the big one: vulnerability to forced sales. Under traditional partition law, any one co-owner – even a distant cousin with a tiny share – can go to court and ask the judge to order a sale of the entire property. In some sad cases, an outside investor will find a family member who's willing to sell a small interest cheaply, buy that share, and then use partition to force the sale of the whole tract. The family may get pennies on the dollar, and suddenly the land that was supposed to be "for the family forever" is gone.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

That's not a theoretical risk. Scholars and advocates have documented massive Black land loss — especially in the South — tied to these kinds of heirs' property issues. Between the early 1900s and the early 2000s, Black Americans lost a huge percentage of the rural and agricultural land we once owned. Heirs' property wasn't the only reason, but it was a major factor.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Now, there has been some progress. In a number of states, we have something called the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act. I won't bore you with all the legalese, but the big idea is this: it tries to make it harder for speculators to use partition actions to snatch family land. It gives the family a right to buy out a co-owner who wants to force a sale, pushes courts to consider the family's history and connection to the property, and, if a sale really has to happen, encourages a more fair, open-market process instead of a fire sale on the courthouse steps.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

But here's what I really want you to hear: those laws are a safety net, not a plan. They are a response to a problem that already exists. If we keep letting property pass informally from generation to generation, we're still leaving our families with a complicated mess to untangle, usually after someone has died and emotions are high.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Whether we're talking about rural land in the Carolinas or a brick bungalow in Detroit or Houston, the pattern is the same. Informal transfers feel simple and respectful in the moment — "We all know what Mama wanted" — but in the eyes of the law, they can produce instability, lost opportunities, and, in too many cases, permanent loss of Black-owned property.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

So the question becomes: how do we honor our cultural values of family, sharing, and respect for elders, while also using the tools that exist to give our loved ones clear title, flexibility, and protection from forced loss? In the next chapter, we're going to talk about exactly that — culturally rooted strategies that can turn heirs' property risk into a real, sustainable legacy.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Alright, we've talked about the history, we've talked about the problem. Let's talk about what we can actually do. Because I never want these conversations to just leave you feeling scared or ashamed. This is about tools. This is about strategy. And it's about aligning those tools with who we are as African American families.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

From a legal standpoint, the toolbox is fairly straightforward: you've got wills, you've got revocable living trusts, you have business entities like limited liability companies, and you have co-ownership agreements that spell out how multiple people will share and manage a property. Those are the "hard" tools. But the "soft" tools — family meetings, storytelling, involving elders and faith, being honest about money — that's where culture really shows up.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Let me give you a concrete example of how this can work in a way that feels authentic. Again, I'm blending details from several real families here to protect privacy, but the pattern is very real.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

A Black family comes to see me about a small piece of land and an old house that belonged to their parents. They're in that "heirs' property" danger zone — multiple siblings on the tax bill, some grandkids living in the house, title not fully cleaned up. One sister is the de facto caretaker. She grew up there, she lives there now, she's been paying most of the taxes and patching the roof. Another sibling is in another state and really just wants their "share" so they can pay down debt. The elders in the family keep saying, "Don't let these white folks take our land," but nobody's actually clear on who owns what.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Instead of starting with documents, we start with a conversation. I ask questions like: What does this property mean to you? Is it a place to live, a symbol of your parents' struggle, an economic asset, or all of the above? Who do you feel a responsibility toward — is it just your siblings, or also the grandkids, great-grandkids not even born yet? When you say, "keep it in the family," what does that actually look like?

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Once people talk that out, you can start matching tools to values. If the main goal is, "We want this house to always be available for a family member to live in, and we don't ever want one person to be able to force a sale," then a revocable living trust or a family LLC might make sense. You transfer the property into the trust or the company, you spell out who manages it, who can live there, how decisions get made, and what happens if someone wants to cash out their interest.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

For example, in that blended case I'm describing, we created a family LLC for the property. The siblings became members, and the sister who lived in the house was named the manager for a set term. The operating agreement said no one could unilaterally force a sale. If a family member wanted to exit, there was a buyout formula and a timeline. We tied that formula to an appraisal, so they weren't cheated but also couldn't demand some unrealistic number.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

We also layered in some culture. The family decided that once a year, they would have a "Family Land Day" at the house. Part reunion, part business meeting. They review the finances, talk about needed repairs, and tell the story of how their parents acquired the land so the younger ones understand why this matters. We wrote the requirement for an annual meeting right into the LLC agreement. It sounds simple, but that ritual turns a dry legal structure into a living part of the family's identity.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

In some cases, a trust makes more sense than an LLC, especially where you have minors, or you want very clear rules about who can benefit and when. A revocable living trust can say, "This house shall be maintained as long as financially reasonable for the benefit of my descendants. My trustee shall prioritize housing for family members who are elderly, disabled, or serving as caregivers." You can also give the trustee authority to sell if it becomes too burdensome, but require that sale proceeds be used a certain way — like down payments for grandkids, education funds, or even to buy another family property.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Wills are still critical, even when you use a trust or an LLC. The will is where you say, "I am choosing not to let the state decide who gets what. I'm making the rules." For a lot of my African American clients, just that shift — from "the state will decide" to "I will decide" — is empowering. It's a quiet act of resistance against a history where our ancestors were denied decision-making power over their own lives and labor.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

And then there are the process strategies. Instead of one person disappearing into a lawyer's office and coming back with "the plan," you can have structured family conversations. Maybe you bring the attorney to the family, into a church fellowship hall or a living room, instead of forcing elders to navigate a downtown office they're not comfortable with. Maybe you open the meeting with prayer because that's how your family does serious business. These are not small details; they build trust and help everyone feel that the plan comes from "us," not from some outsider.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

In that success-story family, once we got the LLC and key wills in place, something shifted. People relaxed. The sister living in the house no longer felt like a squatter; she was the manager with clear responsibility. The out-of-state sibling no longer worried they'd be cut out; they could see the buyout provisions in black and white. The elders could say to the grandkids, "Look, this is how you keep what we built." And we were able to clean up the title so that the family could access some rehab funds to fix critical issues with the home.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Here's the bigger point: honoring heritage doesn't mean avoiding paperwork. It means using paperwork to protect what that heritage represents. It means saying, "Our ancestors did the best they could with what they had. Now we have access to tools they didn't have, or couldn't trust. We're going to use those tools to make sure their sacrifice wasn't in vain."

Attorney Gregory Robinson

If you're listening to this and recognizing your own family — the 'everybody knows what's supposed to happen' situation, the multiple names on the tax bill, the unspoken fear that one day the property will be lost — take that as your invitation to start a different conversation. Ask, "What do we actually want this land or this house to do for our family?" And then talk to a professional who understands both the law and the culture you're coming from.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

We're not going to fix 400 years of dispossession with one document, or one podcast. But each family that chooses intentional planning, that clears up heirs' property, that writes down what was previously just "understood," is doing its part to close that gap between heritage and security.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

I'm Attorney Gregory Robinson. This has been Roots & Rights: Securing Tomorrow. If this sparked something for you, don't ignore it. Start the conversation in your family, in your church, in your group chat. And as always, we'll be here to keep breaking these issues down so you can protect what matters most and build a legacy that lasts. Until next time.