Using a Land Trust to Avoid Fragmented Ownership Interests in Real Property

Julius J. Zschau (attorney and shareholder, Tampa), Ulysses Clayborn (attorney, Kansas City, Missouri), & Andrew M. O’Malley (attorney, Tampa) have published their article entitled Using Land Trusts to Prevent Small Farmer Land Loss, 44 Real Prop. Trust & Estate L.J 521 (2009).  

The editor’s synopsis of the article is below:

In the century since African Americans began to acquire real property in the American southeast, generations of intestacy inheritance[s] have led to such drastic fragmentation of ownership [of] this land that the law has had a difficult time equitably protecting the owner’s interests.  In this Article, the authors present a brief overview of these fragmented real property interest–Heir’s Property–and propose land trusts as a method by which all parties involved can avoid some of the significant problems that result.