The upcoming NeighborWorks® Training Institute in Chicago promises to be an incubator for ideas, innovations and energy when it opens on Feb. 23. One of the courses that has people talking is Building Legacies: Property Inheritance and Estate Planning Strategies for Housing Professionals (HO233). The course continues the conversation on how to increase generational wealth and make sure that when families or individuals do buy a home, they are able to pass that wealth on. It should be of particular interest to housing counselors.
“Our network organizations were constantly getting questions,” explained Molly Barackman-Eder, director of Financial Capability at NeighborWorks America. Clients would ask how to prove homeownership when a relative passed away, what to do about tangled titles and more. “Many of our organizations have community relationships and may provide referrals or information on the probate process. But this has been treated like something outside the scope of housing counseling in the past. That’s a disservice to counselors who have already built trusting relationships with their communities.”
Senior Curriculum & Training Manager Mahria Harris said that as her team built this course, “it became even more apparent that estate planning isn’t a side conversation in homeownership: It is truly how families protect everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve. We created this training to make sure counselors and specialists feel confident and equipped to help communities safeguard their futures, not just reach the milestone of buying a home.”
Christi Baker, a long-time NeighborWorks faculty member, will be teaching the three-day course. “Housing
counseling organizations have invested a lot of time and energy into increasing access to homeownership, and in turn, wealth building, especially to those who have been excluded from such opportunities,” she shared.
Once people own a home, it’s equally important to help those homeowners protect their assets and facilitate generational wealth transfers. But according to a 2021 GALLUP survey, more than half of adults in the U.S. do not have a will – which is just one way to protect property. “The risks of not attending to property inheritance and estate planning are costly – the loss of long-term financial security and intergenerational homeownership and wealth,” Baker said.
For more than 47 years, NeighborWorks has worked to ensure that people can live in affordable homes. That work includes shining a spotlight on how people can keep those homes and pass them on. The nonprofit has led round tables and symposiums on tangled titles, home preservation and heirs property, supported by partners like JPMorganChase and TD Bank. This new training course, created with support from JPMorganChase, is a continuation of the conversation, Barackman-Eder said.
If clients can talk to a housing counselor before picking up the phone and talking to a lawyer, they can learn about and understand some of the options available to them. “More and more, organizations are building up prepurchase conversations to work with clients on what happens after they buy the home,” Barackman-Eder said. “When we think about the finish line of homebuying, we have to think about what happens next with the asset clients have worked very hard to gain. We have to make sure they have a plan for their legacy. You’re not across the finish line until you set up what’s next.”
Integrating estate planning into homeownership and financial capability programs is a must, Baker agreed. Doing so requires such things as:
- Skills for having difficult conversations and addressing common challenges with inheritance issues.
- Knowledge of key terminology and tools to apply that knowledge.
- Partnerships with legal services and other entities to support estate planning.
The course will prepare housing counselors and program managers to have these conversations, Baker said – and to help clients protect their legacies.
Register today for the NeighborWorks Training Institute in Chicago! Registration closes Jan. 26.
