What a Country Song Teaches Us About Heirs Property

Country music singer/songwriter HARDY’s song “McArthur,” which debuted earlier this year as number six on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs, covers four generations of one family. Tim McGraw, Eric Church, HARDY, and Morgan Wallen sing the parts representing different generations of the fictional McArthur family.

Tim McGraw starts as John McArthur, who farms the property with a mule and a plow and supports his family from it. Eric Church follows as Junior McArthur, John’s son, whose life ends in Vietnam before he ever meets his own son. HARDY then steps in as Jones McArthur, the next generation, who grows up with the land and tries to teach his son what it represents to the family.

By the time Morgan Wallen appears as Hunter McArthur, the question isn’t whether Hunter will be the one who finally sells it. A developer has offered a million dollars for the land. The land that has supported Hunter’s family for generations now has value because someone wants to build on it.

The song doesn’t resolve Hunter’s dilemma – whether to listen to the words of his forebears and pass the land to the next generation or sell the land for a large amount of money (which also in theory, could be passed down). But in the song, at least it’s clear that the decision whether to sell is Hunter’s alone.

Unfortunately, in real life, things aren’t always that simple. Suppose John McArthur had died without a will and left three children, so that Junior owned the property along with two siblings. Then, suppose that each of Junior and his siblings had three children and that each of those children had three more children – and they all inherited equally. By the time the McArthurs got to Hunter’s generation, there would be 27 decision-makers, instead of one.

Issues with real estate that’s jointly owned by heirs of the original owner are more common than one might think. This article discusses the challenges presented by heirs property, real estate that has been inherited from the original owners.

What is Heirs Property?

Heirs property typically develops when real estate passes to multiple family members through inheritance. Often that happens when the owner dies without a will, but it also can happen when a will transfers property to heirs equally. Regardless of the cause, the result is that instead of a single individual owning the land, several related individuals each own fractional interests in the entire property.

Heirs property is usually owned as a tenancy in common. That’s because tenancy in common ownership doesn’t require all of the owners to acquire their interests at the same time or title; the owners don’t have to receive their ownership via a single deed or at the same time. When successive generations inherit property, they do so via wills that are probated at different times and receive their ownership via different deeds. Tenancy in common also doesn’t require unity of ownership – individual owners don’t have to own the property in equal percentages.

The one thing tenancy in common does require is unity of possession. Unity of possession means that each owner has a right to possess or occupy the property along with the other owners.

Because tenancy in common property doesn’t require the owners to acquire their interests at the same time and doesn’t include a right of survivorship, the ownership can become very complicated. Each owner’s death can divide one existing ownership interest into smaller interests without changing the fact that everyone continues to own an undivided piece of the same farm.

Suppose instead of only Junior inheriting the McArthur property in HARDY’s son, Junior inherited along with his sister, Anna, and brother, Charlie, so each of them owns 1/3 of the property. Then, suppose when Junior dies, instead of passing his interest to Jones, Junior’s share goes equally to Jones and his sister, Susie. And suppose that Charlie dies and his three children, Chuck, Fred, and Natalia, inherit his share. At that point, Anna would still own 1/3, Jones and Susie would each own 1/6, and Chuck, Fred, and Natalia each would own 1/9 of the property. While they’d own different percentages, they would all have the right to use the property.

Suppose now that Jones were to die and pass his share to his children Hunter and Sharon, and Chuck died passing his share to his children Emilia and Jorge. There would be eight individuals from three generations owning various percentages of the property at the same time. Anna would still own 1/3. Susie would still own her 1/6, and Fred and Natalia would still own their 1/9. But now, Hunter and Sharon would each own 1/12, and Emilia and Jorge would each own 1/18.

Like the land in “McArthur,” the property can connect several generations of a family at once. I ended up as a potential 20% owner of heirs property (along with three generations, including an aunt and 16 of my cousins and cousins’ children), because a family member didn’t get around to writing his will. Fortunately, our family was close, and everyone knew each other. However, determining legal title and sorting out who pays for what can quickly become complicated and require both an experienced real estate attorney and genealogist.

No one wanted to live in the property, and I’m fortunate to have a cooperative family. So, we were able to sell the property in a market sale, but it was still a much more costly process than it would have been if there had been advance planning.

Practical Issues with Heirs Property

The unity of possession further complicates heirs property. When John dies, it wouldn’t be as if Junior could farm the land, Anna could live in the farmhouse, and Charlie could hike or hunt and trap in the woods. Instead, each of them would have the equal right to use the property. The problems become obvious if, suppose, both Anna and Charlie want to live in the farmhouse.

In practice, what often happens is one child, like Junior in the song, stays on the property and pays the taxes and maintenance expenses. This works okay for a while because the same individual who is benefiting from the property is paying the expenses.

But suppose the property needs a major repair, like a new roof, and Hunter doesn’t have the cash to pay for it. The other owners might not be interested in contributing, but Hunter won’t be able to obtain a home equity loan to pay for the repair since, without 100% ownership, he can’t mortgage the property.

However, eventually problems can arise because the other children or successive generations continue to own their shares. Suppose in our example, Emilia runs into tax trouble, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) puts a lien on all of her property. That lien could encumber the McArthur land even though Emilia has never set foot on the land. If at the time Hunter is living at the property, he may end up paying off the lien to avoid losing his home.

Or suppose the McArthur land is worth $1 million and that Anna needs to pay for a nursing home and has already used up her funds to pay other medical expenses. Her one-third interest would be worth over $300,000 and could be needed to pay for the care she needs. Also, she may have difficulty obtaining government assistance as long as she owns that valuable property. She’ll need to sell her interest (which she can do), but because few people want to buy a fractional interest in real estate, Anna won’t get as much money if she sells just her 1/3 interest than she would if the entire property were sold and she got 1/3 of the money.

Suppose everyone agrees to sell the property. There’s Hunter who has been paying 100% of the taxes and maintenance expenses for years. What if he decides it’s time for the others to contribute their share out of the sale proceeds?

But suppose there’s a holdout and Fred doesn’t want to sell because he wants to pass his 1/9 interest on to his children. It would require a complicated legal process to partition the land so the others can sell. But partition often involves a mandated sale, which may include a sheriff’s auction, rather than a negotiated sale to a buyer, and yield less money to the heirs. Needless to say, this process does nothing to help family harmony.

The Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act

Many states have adopted versions of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (HPHPA) to address some of the harsh results that can come from partition cases involving family property. The details depend on state law, but the act generally gives family co-owners protections beyond traditional partition procedures.

Among other things, the UPHPA can require an appraisal and give co-owners an opportunity to buy out the interest(s) of those who want to sell. UPHPA also generally favors physically dividing the property instead of immediately selling the entire parcel, which leaves open the possibility of some family members keeping their interests.

If a sale ultimately is necessary, UPHPA’s process makes it more likely the sale price will be closer to a market sale rather than a bargain-price courthouse auction sometimes seen with partition actions.

Those protections can matter once a dispute has started, but they don’t make fractured ownership an ideal long-term plan. The family still has to deal with taxes, maintenance, insurance, and future deaths. Every time another owner dies, the ownership structure can become more complicated.

Better Options

Heirs property frequently exists when individuals don’t have a will. A will that outlines who inherits and their respective rights and obligations can go a long way toward avoiding many of the challenges associated with heirs property. However, sometimes heirs property was created because the initial owner couldn’t afford a will.

Hunter McArthur was the sole owner of the land but also “inherited” something more intangible -- the generational history tied to the land. His decision whether to sell was an emotional one, but the decision was still his alone.

When multiple heirs own real estate, the legal issues become more complicated. Our family was very rare in that we were able to obtain consent of 18 individuals to sell the property on the market at an agreed-upon price and were able to work out how to get property expenses paid and reimbursed when the property was sold. But it’s unrealistic to expect that three people, much less a dozen or more, will agree on a course of action.

In our hypothetical McArthur family, siblings Junior, Anna, and Charlie grew up together and with that shared history, might not have found it difficult to come to an agreement. However, years later, when eight individuals from three generations own property that has increased in value, it can become impossible to come to an agreement. Heirs who have remained close to the land might value the property’s history, while others who have never been to the property might be eager to sell if they were to learn that the sale of the farm to a developer could yield more than $1 million.

When individuals own property jointly, they should retain a real estate attorney to prepare an agreement outlining their respective rights and responsibilities. The time to sign the agreement is when the property is first acquired, while, hopefully, everyone gets along and the property’s value is understood. And to ensure that the agreement endures through the generations, it should be recorded in the real estate records of the county.

© 2026 by Elizabeth Ayres Whitman

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