Heirs’ Property Program Helps Landowners Protect Generational Wealth 

Jun 16, 2025 | Leadership

A man in a maroon shirt stands at a podium holding a microphone and a sheet of paper while speaking to an audience. His conference badge reads "Small Farms Week." In the background, a yellow banner reads "College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences University Farm," with a few attendees seated at round tables covered in blue and yellow tablecloths.

Biswanath Dari, Ph.D., agriculture and natural resource specialist and assistant professor with Cooperative Extension at N.C. A&T, speaks at an educational forum at 2025 Small Farms Week.

ACROSS N.C. —According to Biswanath Dari, Ph.D., understanding and dealing with heirs’ property is an emotional journey as much as a practical one involving legal and financial experts.

“First of all, you have to have a solid reason to transform your heirs land,” said Dari, an  assistant professor in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences and natural resource specialist with Cooperative Extension at N.C. A&T. “You need to be mentally strong enough to accept that facing this issue can be difficult and very time consuming.  For the older generation who might’ve grown up on family land, there can be a lot of emotional and cultural values associated with (dealing with heirs’ property issues).”

Dari and colleagues from N.C. State University are tackling those problems with an award-winning program called “Understanding Heirs Property at the Community Level in North Carolina.” Funded through a $150,000 USDA Risk Management Agency, Southern Rural Development Center and Alcorn State University grant, the program consists of summits across the state that cover the history of heirs’ property, informs participants about estate planning and legal strategies to secure their land, and provides help finding assistance for affirming land ownership.

Two participants sit at a table covered with a blue tablecloth, collaborating during Small Farms Week. The woman on the left, wearing glasses and a dark gray shirt with a conference badge, points at a smartphone held by the man on the right, who wears a pink shirt, glasses, and a blue Farm Bureau hat. Papers, a notebook, and pens are spread out on the table.

Linette and Richard Hewlin, 2023 N.C. Small Farmers of the Year finalists, look over information at a 2025 Small Farms Week educational forum.

The team conducted six summits in 2024, and another two are planned for 2025 at Western Carolina University in Jackson County, and at the Vance County Extension Center. The team, which includes N.C. State faculty Kurt Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor and Extension specialist in forestry (land retention); Noah Ranells, Ph.D., NC State Extension’s eastern director of NC FarmLink; and Robert Andrew Branan, J.D., Associate Extension professor, agricultural and resource economics; also offered a February summit in Mecklenburg County.  Mecklenburg County Extension Director Barbara Worley, Ph.D. helped organize the summit, which focused on urban heirs’ property and rural property where development is rapidly changing the landscape.  

Heirs’ property is defined as land passed down through a family – often over generations – without the use of a will or probate court. Without a proper will or probate to confirm ownership, Dari said, families with generational land run the risk of involuntary land loss, as well as farmland being sold well below market price. Black landowners, who are more likely to lack