Available From UC Press

At both ends of the wealth spectrum, the laws governing credit and debt hardwire patterns of both privilege and poverty. They drive financial extraction by creating a flow of assets from the pockets of low-income families into the bank accounts of high-wealth ones. In short, some families are legally enabled as they accumulate and preserve great fortunes that get passed down through generations—while others are locked into a cycle of scraping by, just hoping to find affordable housing and put food on the table.

This book traces the joint forces of law, geography, and narrative that have built this superstructure of inequality and extraction: "the house of family money." Allison Anna Tait reveals how this monumental piece of economic architecture can be deciphered by the blueprints that guided its construction, navigated by maps that reveal its hidden shortcuts, and ultimately renovated by lasting reforms.

Allison Anna Tait is Dennis I. Belcher Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law.