Yes — a convicted felon can own property. Nothing in federal law strips your general right to buy a house, hold title to land, register a car, keep a bank account, or own personal belongings after a felony conviction. The Fifth Amendment protects against being deprived of property without due process, and no statute broadly disqualifies someone with a felony record from participating in ordinary economic life.1Library of Congress. U.S. Constitution – Fifth Amendment The real restrictions are narrower and specific: firearms and ammunition, explosives, some federally assisted housing situations, and where you can live if you’re on a sex offender registry.
What You Can Still Own
Houses, land, condos, vehicles, investment accounts, retirement savings, jewelry, tools, furniture — ordinary property is not off-limits after a conviction. You can buy it, inherit it, or receive it as a gift. No state or federal law revokes your capacity to hold title to real estate or register a vehicle in your name because of a criminal record. The legal system treats punishment for a crime and your ability to acquire property as separate questions.
The practical hurdles are a different matter. A felony can damage your credit, shrink your employment options, and leave income gaps that make saving hard. Difficulty affording property is not the same as being prohibited from owning it. If you have the money or you qualify for financing, the closing table is open to you.
Mortgages
Federal mortgage programs do not disqualify borrowers with felony convictions. FHA-insured loans, the most common route for buyers with limited savings or bruised credit, are available to applicants with a record. Lenders look at credit score, income, debt-to-income ratio, and employment history far more than criminal background.
Some lenders do pull criminal history reports and can deny an application or offer worse terms based on what they find. That’s a lender’s choice, not a legal requirement. If one turns you down, another may not. For most people leaving incarceration, the bigger obstacle is rebuilding credit and showing stable income after missed payments and employment gaps.
Firearms and Ammunition
This is the largest ownership restriction that applies to felons. Under federal law, anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison cannot ship, transport, receive, or possess any firearm or ammunition.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts The trigger is the maximum sentence the offense carried, not what you actually served. If the crime was punishable by more than a year, the prohibition applies even if you never spent a day in prison.
Two narrow categories fall outside the ban. Federal and state offenses tied to business regulation, such as antitrust violations and trade practice offenses, don’t count. And state offenses classified as misdemeanors with a maximum sentence of two years or less are excluded.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 921 – Definitions
Violating the ban carries up to 15 years in federal prison, and a prior record of violent felonies or serious drug offenses can push that to a mandatory minimum under the Armed Career Criminal Act.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 924 – Penalties “I didn’t know” is not a defense worth relying on. The rule covers possession, not just ownership, so keeping a firearm at your home that technically belongs to a spouse can still be a crime if you have access and control.
Getting Firearm Rights Back
The path depends on whether the conviction was state or federal. For a state felony, a pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights removes the conviction as a federal disqualifier — unless the state itself expressly keeps the firearm restriction in place.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 921 – Definitions If your state restores voting rights, the right to hold office, and jury service without any firearm carve-out, you clear the federal bar.
Federal felony convictions are much harder to resolve. State rights restoration does not touch a federal disability. For decades, a presidential pardon has been essentially the only realistic route, because Congress has consistently declined to fund the ATF’s individual relief process under 18 U.S.C. 925(c). In 2025, the Department of Justice proposed a rule to create a new pathway for some federal cases, but that rule has not been finalized.5U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Firearm Rights Restoration Under 18 U.S. Code 925(c)
Explosives
Federal law treats explosive materials the same way it treats firearms. Anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison cannot ship, transport, receive, or possess explosives that have moved in interstate commerce.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 842 – Unlawful Acts That covers commercial explosives, blasting agents, detonators, and black powder beyond the small quantities used for sporting purposes. Acquiring explosives requires a federal permit and a background check, so the prohibition tends to be enforced at the point of sale.
Where You Can Live If You’re on a Sex Offender Registry
If your conviction requires sex offender registration, residency restrictions can limit the use of any home you own. Federal law under SORNA does not itself cap where registered offenders can live, but most states impose their own rules that prohibit living within a set distance of schools, daycare centers, parks, playgrounds, and other places where children gather.7Office of Justice Programs. Case Law Summary – II. Locally Enacted Sex Offender Requirements
The buffer zones typically run from 1,000 to 2,000 feet, and at least one state uses 3,000 feet. These laws don’t stop you from owning property in a restricted zone; they stop you from living there. You could legally own a rental near a school and lease it to someone else, but you couldn’t move in yourself. The rules vary by state, and some apply only to certain offense levels or victim ages. Check your state’s law before buying. Violating a residency restriction is itself a criminal offense.
Renting and Federally Assisted Housing
Renting is often harder than buying. Criminal history is not a protected class under the Fair Housing Act, and private landlords can consider a record. Blanket rejections of anyone with any record can still violate the Fair Housing Act if they disproportionately affect racial or ethnic minorities, so housing providers are expected to look at the nature and severity of the offense, how much time has passed, and evidence of rehabilitation. One explicit carve-out: landlords may refuse tenants convicted of manufacturing or distributing controlled substances without disparate-impact exposure.
HUD does not impose a blanket ban on felons in public housing or on Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8). Only two categories are mandatory exclusions from both programs:
- Conviction for manufacturing methamphetamine on the premises of federally assisted housing.
- Lifetime registration under a state sex offender program.
Beyond those, local Public Housing Agencies set their own admissions policies. PHAs must deny applicants currently using illegal drugs and may deny applicants evicted from federally assisted housing for drug-related activity in the past three years, with a waiver available for people who have completed rehabilitation. A PHA cannot deny you based solely on an arrest that never led to a conviction.8HUD Exchange. Are Applicants With Felonies Banned From Public Housing or Any Other Housing Funded by HUD?
Losing Property You Already Own: Forfeiture
Forfeiture is a separate issue from whether you can own property going forward. It’s the process by which the government takes specific assets tied to criminal activity. It does not restrict your ability to acquire new property later.
Criminal forfeiture happens at sentencing after a conviction. The court orders you to surrender property that was involved in the offense or that you obtained through it. Federal law authorizes it for offenses including money laundering, bank fraud, mail and wire fraud, counterfeiting, and drug crimes.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 982 – Criminal Forfeiture
Civil forfeiture works differently. The government files an action against the property itself, not against you, and no criminal conviction is required. The government must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the property is subject to forfeiture, and where the theory is facilitation, it must show a substantial connection between the property and the offense.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 983 – General Rules for Civil Forfeiture Proceedings Property can be seized if it facilitated a crime or was purchased with proceeds of illegal activity.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 981 – Civil Forfeiture That’s a lower burden than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard used in criminal cases.
Inheriting Property
You can generally inherit property with a felony conviction. The one significant exception is the slayer rule. If you intentionally and unlawfully killed the person whose estate you would otherwise inherit, every state, in some form, treats you as having died before the victim, cutting you out of the inheritance. A criminal conviction for the killing creates a conclusive presumption that the rule applies, and courts can invoke it even without a conviction if the civil evidence supports it. The law will not let someone profit from killing the person they stand to inherit from.