Inherited homes, sold one share at a time

In April 2026 the Center for NYC Neighborhoods published a study of heirs’ property in New York City, homes held in shares by family members after an owner dies. It read court filings for partition, the lawsuit that asks a court to divide or sell a home its owners cannot agree on.

• 182 cases in five months. From March 1 to July 31, 2024, the researchers found 182 likely heirs’ property partition cases, 97 of them in Brooklyn and 51 in Queens. The homes averaged about $1.1 million.
• About 350 a year. The study estimates about 350 such lawsuits a year, with $400 million in homes at risk on cautious assumptions, and closer to $4 billion on more realistic ones.
• 23 likely predatory cases. From April 1 to October 31, 2024, the researchers flagged 23 cases with a common pattern: a company buys one heir’s share, says the family cannot agree, and asks the court to sell the whole house.
• Older owners’ neighborhoods. More than half of the cases were in census tracts with an above average share of homeowners 65 and older.

In other cases the study describes companies using misrepresentation and forgery to get heirs to sign papers that moved the home or their share to the company. Gothamist reported that most cases are in Central Brooklyn and Southeast Queens.

The children or grandchildren of the owner each hold a share, often without knowing it. A buyer reaches one of them, offers a sum that sounds fair for a piece of a house, and records a deed for that share. The study found buyers keep approaching heirs one by one, encouraging them to sell their part, and in some cases tricking them into signing.

Each step is a recording or a court filing: the deed for the share, the company that took it, the partition case, the sale that follows. The family member still living in the home is often the last to see them.

New York’s heirs’ property law, section 993 of the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, was strengthened in 2024. The study names the change the Heirs Property Protection and Deed Theft Prevention Act of 2024.

• Buyers of a share cannot start the case. Someone who bought or otherwise acquired a share of heirs’ property, rather than inheriting it, may not start a partition action over it.
• The family can match an outside offer. When a co-owner receives an outside offer, the heirs may buy on the same price and terms, with first priority to an heir who lives in the home. They generally have 180 days from notice of the offer.
• A sale made without notice. If a share was sold without that notice, the other co-owners may generally buy it from the outside buyer for the price paid plus 2 percent a year, within 180 days of learning of the sale.

The study reports that buyers continue to approach heirs after the change, and calls for more education about the law, wider access to estate planning and legal services, and affordable money for heirs to buy the shares offered to outsiders.

On May 28, 2026, the Manhattan District Attorney announced the indictment of 18 people and three companies over a brownstone on West 131st Street in Harlem. Prosecutors say forged IDs, birth certificates and heirship affidavits let people pose as the owners at a closing in April 2024. The home was sold to a straw buyer, passed to a company, and used for a mortgage and construction loan of $1,636,000. The people charged include lawyers, a real estate broker and a title agency. The charges are accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent.

A deed signed by someone posing as an heir is a forgery, and the law treats it very differently from a deed a real heir was persuaded to sign. The deed you signed: deceptive deed transfers in New York explains the difference.

An inherited home carries its whole history in the public record: the deeds, the shares, the court filings. We use our data and leverage the links and joins between those records to uncover the anomalies that predatory share buyouts and deed theft leave.

Your Homeowner Research Document shows every record on your property, connected and dated, with alerts when anything new is recorded. How the research works.

• Center for NYC Neighborhoods: Understanding and Quantifying Heirs’ Property in New York City (April 2026)
• Gothamist: NYC homes worth $400M at risk of deed theft and real estate schemes, report finds (June 2026)
• New York State Senate: Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 993, partition of heirs property
• Manhattan District Attorney: Indictment of 18 individuals and 3 companies for deed theft conspiracy (May 2026)

Checked in October 2026.