Published: November 2024

Organizations ask HUD to take steps to protect disaster relief for property owners lacking formal title

In a letter to HUD, consumer-interest organizations called on the agency to require states and localities receiving Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds to accept affidavits as proof of ownership in a property from homeowners applying for repair, reconstruction and relocation funds after a natural disaster.

More than 80 organizations signed on to a letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requesting that the agency require states and localities receiving Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds to accept affidavits of ownership from heirs’ property owners (descendants of a deceased person who jointly own property without conventional title to the property) applying for repair, reconstruction and relocation funds after a natural disaster. With natural disasters growing in frequency and intensity, the cost of these catastrophic events threatens to overwhelm low- and moderate-income households without traditional forms of title documentation. Many communities, particularly in territories such as Puerto Rico and states in the U.S. Southeast, have historically transferred home title informally. Absent a federal requirement to recognize heirs’ property owners, many states and local governments will continue to frustrate relief efforts, leaving thousands of families ineligible for disaster relief. Requiring states to accept affidavits of ownership would also comport with HUD's responsibility to affirmatively further fair housing, given the disproportionate number of Black and Brown communities who have and will continue to experience home loss due to informal title. Absent a HUD requirement to accept affidavits of ownership, and the release of a HUD statement of this policy, HUD should require that grantees develop and implement alternative measures to ensure that heirs’ property owners and others without traditional forms of title documentation can establish ownership for purposes of receiving assistance.

Lead Organization

National Consumer Law Center

More Information

Read the letter here.

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