The Modern Partition Action: UPHPA Buyouts, Open-Market Sales, & Professional Responsibility

Jacy Fisher, Partner | Greg Varner Attorney at Law

Jacy Fisher is a Partner at Greg Varner Attorney at Law, where her practice includes heirs’ property and real estate litigation. Since 2020 she has represented heirs’ property landowners in Alabama in their fight against involuntary land loss, and she serves as Chief Legal Counsel for Clear Landing, Inc., which provides free title opinions to qualifying heirs’ property owners in underserved Alabama communities. In 2026 she presented at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., on the impact of the Uniform Partition of Heirs’ Property Act (UPHPA) on property rights for Alabama landowners.

• Education & Credentials

Jacy earned her Juris Doctor from Southern Illinois University School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, with a minor in Criminal Justice, from Southeastern Louisiana University. She is licensed to practice law in Alabama and Missouri. She commissioned as a Judge Advocate (JAG) in the Air National Guard as the Top Graduate of her Air Force Officer Training School class, and received the “Excellence in Advocacy Competition” award at the Air Force Judge Advocate Staff Officer Course.

• Recognition & Leadership

Jacy is a 2026 Birmingham Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree. She is Chief Legal Counsel for Clear Landing, Inc., Governance Committee Chair for the Board of Directors at Alabama Goodwill Industries, and a member of the Advisory Council for the Southern Risk Management Education Center.

• Professional Involvement

In 2024 and 2025, Jacy was a panelist at Boston Law School’s “Heirs’ Property & the Preservation of Affordable Housing” conferences, hosted by Professor Thomas Mitchell, the architect of the UPHPA. From 2021 to 2024 she presented annually at the Federation of Southern Cooperatives’ Heirs’ Property Bootcamp, and she collaborates with the Southern Rural Development Center (SRDC) at Mississippi State University and the National Policy Research Center at Alcorn University to deliver national training sessions on “Understanding Heirs’ Property at the Community Level.” She is active in the Heirs’ Property Practitioner Network (HPPN), the Shelby County Bar Association, and the Junior League of Birmingham, and she delivers CLE courses and community trainings on heirs’ property resolution, estate planning, family law, and laws affecting servicemembers.

• Experience

Jacy’s practice at Greg Varner Attorney at Law centers on heirs’ property and real estate litigation, with additional work in probate, estate planning, family law, and criminal defense. Before joining the firm, she represented clients in complex divorce cases at The Schechter Law Firm in St. Louis, Missouri, and she began her legal career as an enlisted paralegal in the Air National Guard. She continues to serve in the Alabama Air National Guard. Her writing includes the blog posts “Why the Division of Debt in Divorce is Just as Important as the Division of Assets” and “New DHR Rule Expands Due Process Rights in Child Abuse & Neglect Cases — But Leaves Some Behind.”

K. Scott Kohanowski, General Counsel | Center for NYC Neighborhoods

K. Scott Kohanowski is General Counsel at the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, focusing on heirs property, community stabilization, deed theft, scam prevention and litigation, and foreclosure defense, with a focus on racial equity and social justice. He co-chairs the ABA subcommittee on Heirs Property and, for 13 years, has directed the Homeowner Stability and LGBT Advocacy Projects at the City Bar Justice Center, representing distressed homeowners, supervising cases, training attorneys, and pursuing law reform to preserve housing and communities.

• Education & Credentials

Scott graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota in 1996 with a B.A. in Portuguese and Spanish. He earned his J.D. from NYU School of Law in 2001. Following law school, he worked in real estate finance at Morrison & Foerster LLP before transitioning to public interest law, where his career has focused on housing preservation, homeowner advocacy, and related legal issues.

• Recognition & Leadership

Scott is co-chair of the ABA subcommittee on Heirs Property. He serves on the New York City Deed Theft Task Force and the New York City Non-Profit Legal Services Foreclosure Prevention Task, and he moderated the forum “Securing the Future – Heirs Property and Estate Planning in New York” at the Center for NYC Neighborhoods’ 2025 Summit, a panel on heirs’ property and tangled title and on estate planning as an accessible act.

• Professional Involvement

Scott serves on the New York City Bar Association’s Mortgage Foreclosure Task Force and Condo/Coop Committee, and formerly served on the City Bar’s Housing and Urban Development and LGBT Rights Committees. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the National Consumer Law Center, and a former executive board member of the LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York.

• Experience

At the City Bar Justice Center, Scott has spent thirteen years directing the Homeowner Stability and LGBT Advocacy Projects, combining direct representation of distressed homeowners with supervision of pro bono and staff attorneys, attorney training, and law reform work on heirs property, deed theft, and foreclosure. As General Counsel of the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, he works within an organization that promotes and protects affordable homeownership in New York so that middle- and working-class families can build strong, thriving communities. Before moving to public interest practice, he worked in real estate finance at Morrison and Foerster LLP.

SESSION 1 – Heirs’ Property, Partition, and the UPHPA: From the Problem to the Buyout | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session establishes the conceptual foundation of heirs’ property practice, identifies the governing legal regime, and walks a case from initial client analysis through valuation and the statutory buyout election. Coverage includes why heirs’ property developed and what the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act was designed to fix, a comparative roadmap of the three partition regimes a practitioner may encounter, the threshold title and ownership analysis that determines whether the UPHPA applies, pre-suit and early litigation strategy, New York’s mandatory good-faith settlement conference, court-ordered appraisals and valuation disputes, and the mechanics of the statutory buyout. Attorneys will learn how to identify and litigate heirs-property status at the outset of a partition action, navigate the appraisal process, and exercise or defend against buyout rights. Attendees will leave with the practical skills to avoid the procedural pitfalls that lead to dismissal, missed buyout windows, and wasted litigation.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – When the Buyout Does Not End the Case: Partition, Sale, Investors, and Professional Responsibility | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session picks up the case after the buyout stage and addresses disposition of the property, purchaser-side compliance, state variations, and the ethical obligations of counsel on all sides. Coverage includes the UPHPA’s mandatory preference for partition in kind and the statutory factors, evidence, and case law that drive it; the court-supervised open-market sale that replaces the courthouse auction when division in kind is not feasible; New York’s “UPHPA 2.0” amendments; the statutory constraints and litigation risk facing purchasers of fractional interests; and the professional-responsibility questions that arise when counsel represents heirs, cotenants, or investor-purchasers. Attorneys will learn how to apply the partition-in-kind factors, structure compliant sale orders, advise fractional-interest purchasers within statutory limits, and recognize conflicts and competence issues unique to heirs’ property matters. The session closes with integrated practice problems that tie the two hours together.