Trusts Uncovered: Listener Questions Answered

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. And of course, hosts of this show will get into listener questions about trust. That's all coming up on Judica County Radio. Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

And they have offices that are conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys on so many different topics.

And today, we are going to get into trusts. But before we do that, Joe, let's start with you, man. How was your week?

It was great, Morgan. Is that enough detail for you? I tell you, you're gonna flesh that out for us. In-depth reporting right there. The weather's nice.

There's less pollen. Yeah, man. I got no complaints. I love working. I love doing the law. Everything's going really well, man.

I got literally zero complaints. All right, Josh, add to that. Well, I'm glad you switched it up, man. You always throw that to me first, Morgan. It's tough, isn't it, Joe?

It's tough getting that question. It's very easy. You just say that. No matter how it went, I'm not gonna complain. I'm still tired for my weekend, man. See, Friday was Good Friday. We went to Wake County Speedway for the races. And so that was fun. And then we went and saw Billy String's down at Cocoa Booth.

I heard that was a good show. It is, man. I have an issue where if a song doesn't have words, like I disassociate, it turns my brain off. So I'll listen. I'll put on some jazz while I work, and I don't really think about it.

It kind of clears my head. So instrumental, we're talking. Instrumental. So we were there. It was a great concert.

Talented group. Sold out. Packed. But he had a 30-minute song, right? So from 9 to 9.30. One song?

10 to 10.30, one song. It was intense. They were going to town, man. They weren't taking it easy. It was a jam session.

No words. And so I just completely spaced out and was looking around me. But it was a good show. And then Sunday was WrestleMania, right? So you had to watch WrestleMania. Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, I couldn't watch any.

I was at the Billy String's. I couldn't watch it. Well, Joe, real quick.

Any highlights from WrestleMania that the world should know about? No. Not really.

No. You know, my kids go in and out of enjoying wrestling. It's like an in and out thing for them. Well, old man Cena did something, didn't he? Yeah, they got back into it. They enjoyed it. You know, back in my day, as like an 11, 13-year-old boy, that was like the golden age for wrestling, man. That was like the peak popularity, I feel like.

And it just ain't the same these days, man. But, you know, the kids enjoyed it. I can get enjoyment from the kids enjoying it. But nah, it wasn't a whole lot to report, man.

Especially that you get, like, I don't, there wasn't a whole lot to report. Yeah, male soap opera, sweaty guys in tights. I mean, it's pro wrestling. Yeah, that was cool. I love that.

That's my favorite part. A lot of ladies, too, man. There's a lot of ladies, you know. Honestly, the lady wrestling was more entertaining.

Not just because they're ladies, but just on a purely technical, skill-based level. If you're a wrestling purist, you know, like Josh Whittaker, I know he's a big-time purist. It's a busy week, too, right? Because we've got the Hurricanes in the playoffs. Tyler Childers is coming to town.

I think that's sometime this week. And there's a lot happening. It makes me tired.

It makes me sleepy thinking about it. How about you, Morgan? Good weekend?

Yeah, yeah. Good weekend. Spent with family, obviously. Just, you know, more and more time with the folks as much as possible. And also, charity golf event. We were out at Prestonwood for Folds of Honor. Just absolutely amazing group. And they raised so much money for scholarships and such a great cause. And it's not just military now. It's first responders.

They just do an amazing job. And, you know, again, my parent company buying a team and getting us in there, it was really nice. That sounds way more charitable and altruistic than anything I did, man. Now I feel bad.

Yeah, I can't say I had a... Just watching wrestling. I didn't help any children or any good causes. You helped your children.

I helped my kids, yeah. That's true. That's something.

That's something, man. Well, guys, we're going to dive into trust. Josh just... Head first. Yeah, head first.

To a shallow pool. Again, these are questions that come from, you know, around the country when it comes to trust. But what prompted you to go this direction this week? Yeah. So last week, if you listen to us, if you listen to the show last week, which you still can, right? We deliver our show as a podcast.

So you can find us. You can find Juneca County radio wherever you get your own, your podcast. But last week we had Aaron Lowe, an attorney with the firm on. And we spent a lot of time talking about personal injury.

What to do if you're in a traffic accident, what that looks like. And so I figured this week we'd get back to our bread and butter. And me and Joe spend a lot of time talking about estate planning and trust. But I've gathered some listener questions that we get about trust. And so I sat down with three or four clients yesterday and all of them were unfamiliar. Some of them were new to the U.S., right?

So some of them were foreign born folks who are now in the U.S. But a lot of people, you know, they didn't know what a trust was. And so, you know, when you're telling someone what a trust is for the first time, if they don't have experience with it, it can be a little confusing. And so that made me think for this week's show, let's answer some specific questions about trust. Let's talk more about, you know, what a trust is, what a trust does. How does a trust function? What are some problems that can come up with trust? And so I've kind of gathered, I gathered a lot of questions. We're not going to answer all these, but I gathered about 15, 20 kind of specific trust questions.

And so I figured that's what we'd highlight this week are these. Again, we like to talk about trust to make you more aware of what a trust is and how it can benefit you and your estate plan and avoid probate. And, you know, we talk about that a lot. These are going to be more specific, like what can a trustee do? Can you have multiple trustees? You know, what happens, you know, if one beneficiary needs more help than another beneficiary, you know, we're talking about those kind of things. So kind of a more specific, a lot of times we're giving you a general overview of how this estate plan works and what this trust can do. We're going to get down more on a micro level and talk about the nitty gritty. That's what you say.

Getting down to it. Now, I would assume that our consultations that we make available are going to be in and around trust, correct? Yeah. So this week we want to focus our free consults for our callers on trust, trust estate planning, that kind of thing.

All right. So to grab one of those, you can call at any time, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information. Say, I'd like one of those consultations in and around the trust. And again, find out possibly if you want to go in that direction. These are, again, you're leaving the checkbook at home.

There's no cost to this. We're here to help. 800-659-1186 for a complimentary consult on trust, 800-659-1186. That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.

An attorney with the firm will reach out to you and set up one of those complimentary consults. Want to remind you, Judica County Radio, we're here each week. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, here to host and also here to serve you. Again, we've got offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verita, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City.

We're going to be talking all about trust when we return. You're listening to Judica County Radio. Judica County Radio hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, again, located right here in North Carolina. They're practicing attorneys here in this great state.

Offices located conveniently for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verita, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, and again, my pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys each and every week about different topics. We're going to get into trusts, and these are listener questions that have come in on trusts. And we're also offering up complimentary consults for a trust conversation, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact info and briefly what that call is about. And an attorney will be in touch with one of those complimentary consults on trust.

Josh? So Joseph, you know, leading up to this, we were talking about, I was talking about how I met with several folks yesterday just in consults. And we're kind of talking to them like, hey, I would recommend that, you know, you have a revocable living trust as the centerpiece to your estate plan to avoid probate. And, you know, a couple of folks who just never, and this happens all the time, right, had never worked with a trust, experienced a trust. Their parents didn't have a trust.

They didn't know what it was. And so when you're talking to a client who doesn't know what a trust is, I was going to ask you, put you on the spot. How would you describe a trust to someone who has not dealt with a trust before? Yeah. So and, you know, to add to that, I've heard and I'm sure you've heard this too, man.

I've heard a lot of folks when we talk about the concept of a trust in the context of their estate plan and what can how it can benefit them. I've actually heard a lot of folks say like, well, I don't need that. You know, that's too that's beyond the scope of what I need. It's too fancy for me.

I've literally heard that several times. And to that, I say, no, it's not. There's a trust is is a trust is it has a lot of functionality. Right. And so in this context that we're talking about, we're talking about it in the context of an estate planning vehicle. And like you said, I like the way you worded it, a centerpiece to your estate plan. And so basically the trust is going to act as its own separate entity. And you're going to put everything you can into that trust with the goal of avoiding probate. Right. That's always our goal.

If you've ever listened to our show, you've heard to say it 17000 times. We want to avoid probate. We want to avoid having to go down to the clerk's office, having to deal with a lot of red tape, having to deal with a lot of additional stress in a time of, you know, immense stress already. And and and the trust is is arguably the most streamlined, best, efficient way to do that, whether you're super fancy or not. Yeah.

And I do the same thing. I tell people, you know, it's an entity that you're going to create. And, you know, you're going to be and it's not there's different kinds of trust. So we're talking about a revocable living trust right now. There's all kinds of different trust. We may suggest depending on your assets or what's going on.

But for a lot of folks, you know, having a revocable living trust kind of kind of works for for what they what their asset level and what's going on with them. But I do the same thing. This is you're creating an entity that's outside of yourself. Right.

It exists on its own. And I usually tell people you're going to be the grand tour of this trust. Right. So you're going to be creating it or you and your spouse are going to be creating it. You and your spouse are going to be trustees, meaning you'll control the trust as long as you're able. And then you guys are also going to be the lifetime beneficiary. So any asset that resides that lives in the trust, you'll be the beneficiary of that while you're alive. And of course, you can name backup trustees and you can name backup beneficiaries. That's one of our questions, actually.

Let me get this list back in front of me. Yeah. So so now that we've talked about just basically what a trust is and if you listen to the show a lot, you know this. We beat you over the head with with trust because there's such a good estate planning vehicle.

So this first listener question that I have these I call these ultra specific listener questions. But can a trust be created without naming a successor trustee? So like we just said, if you create a trust, usually not all the time, but usually you're going to be the initial trustee.

You're going to be the one controlling the trust while you're alive, while you're competent, while you're able. And that's what the trustee does, controls the assets of the trust. It's a fiduciary to the trust. Can a trust be created without naming a successor trustee? So we would normally recommend that you say, hey, go ahead and designate the person you want to be in charge of the trust to be the trustee. If you can't name at least one successor, sometimes we get you to name two or three. Those are successor trustees, trustees that would follow you if you were unable, unwilling to be or be your own trustee. So that question to you, Joe, can a trust be created without naming a successor trustee? So, yeah, I mean, you again, trust give you great flexibility. And so while that would not be our recommendation, right, like our recommendation is always going to be you want to. The whole purpose of you carefully crafting your estate plan is to keep maximum control over your assets after you pass.

Right. You know, you want to make sure that things are handled the way you want it to be handled. So we would always recommend stating a successor trustee. But if there's a lot of situations where folks just simply don't have anybody to put in that position. And so what we do in that scenario is you create a mechanism of action within the trust by which a new trustee can be appointed, whether that be your existing trustee at the time, you know, using their best judgment to select who that trustee is, whether you give the ability to have a professional trustee, whatever it may be.

You know, there's there's plenty of ways to go about it. If at the time you sit there with us at the table or at the time we draft for you, you don't necessarily know exactly who you want it to be. That's not the that's not a fatal issue. Right. Like you can overcome it. Yeah.

And I guess the you know, we wouldn't recommend it, you know, because. But the trust you usually want the trust to tell you you want you want that control. Right. So you want you want the trust to determine what happens. If there's not a you know, if you name a successor trustee, that's what's going to happen. Right. But if you don't it, you can you can put a mechanism in the trust, like like Joe was saying. But if there's no mechanism, there's no successor trustee, then it would be up to the court, the courts to appoint a trustee. Right. So your benefit, the beneficiaries of the trust can't can't run it if they're not if they're not named. So they have to go to the court and ask that the court appoint a trustee, which could be a local attorney, could be, you know, a bank. Right.

It could be a lot of different people. But the court would appoint a trustee. So you wouldn't want to do that. I don't like to leave anything up to a clerk or a judge.

I don't want anything at the courthouse. I can take care of it myself. I like to do that. And the trust allows you to do that. But if to answer this question, if you did name a successor trustee, that's that's kind of what you run into.

So but that's an ultra specific question that happens from time to time. I've been involved in some trust that came back. The beneficiaries came back to me and they're like, hey, this guy's dead. That guy's dead. This guy's, you know, in hospice or whatever.

And you just run out. I've got a friend. I got a good friend who's who's in his 90s doing real good. You got a buddy in his 90s. That's awesome, man. Yeah, man. He's doing real good. I like him quite a bit.

And, you know, he you know, he was kind of tell me about that one day. Like if you live long enough, you outlive your attorney, your CPA, your doctor. Right.

You know, cousins, friends. And so if you if you if you're fortunate enough to live that long, sometimes it's hard to find one trustee. Let alone successor trustees. And that's why a lot of people might look to professional trustees.

Like the law firm does it for some folks, banks, investment advisors, things like that. But life pro tip. You need to go.

You need to go make friends with some some young folks. Right. And it's always easy to be. You always need to be refreshing your roster of friends.

And so that way you never run out, man. You never have to. He's got you, man.

This guy, this 90 year old guy. That's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he does. He does.

He does. So that's good. But all right.

I'm going to do I'm going to go to this next listener question. So so we got another question here and says, what's the correct way to amend a revocable trust without invalidating the original document? So in this in this scenario, the listener has has a revocable trust that's been created.

Right. So he's already gone through the estate planning process. He has a revocable living trust and he's decided he wants to amend it. And there's all different things you could amend in a trust beneficiaries. You know, if you're splitting percentages, 50 percent of this kid, 50 percent of this kid, maybe he's changing the percentages. Maybe he wants to add successor trustees because he's lost a couple of successor trustees. Right.

So, Joe, that's the question I would pose to you. What's the correct way to amend a revocable trust without invalidating the original document? You just you execute an amendment.

It's just that simple. You know, assuming that the terms of the trust and you're you're you're stating in your your fact pattern here that it is a revocable trust. So you've got the ability to to revoke or change it. You're just going to you're going to execute an amendment the same way that that she executed the original trust. And you're going to make reference to that original trust. And, you know, you can essentially change pretty much anything you want, assuming that it's not contrary to something that the original document has has put in place and put a restriction on.

You can you know, you're free to amend it as you see fit. And it's just it's another document, man. It's an amendment to that trust.

Yeah, we just did one. We just had somebody come in signing a first first amendment to their trust. And they were leaving. They had a pot of money in their trust. They were going to divide up amongst some charities. And they had been thinking about that. And they made a decision that one of those charities might need the money a little bit more than the others.

They're going to change the percentages. And so we did a we did an amendment to just change that that one thing. And you can amend the trust as many times as you need to. But, you know, it's a document that usually you want your attorney to prepare. Usually it's great if the attorney who drafted the trust for you prepares it right, because they know what your original intent was.

They're familiar with the trust. But any any attorney can help you with that. You know, the one thing you don't want to do when you when this goes for a trust or a will or a P.O.A.

I see some clients bring their old estate plan in and they've started going in with pen, crossing things out and writing new beneficiaries in and making changes. And that's not the way to do it. That's sloppy.

That's some sloppy work there. That's not you're going to you're going to get yourself into problems if you've if you've gone within a, you know, gone with a pen and trying to change your estate plan. You know, a lot of that stuff's notarized.

It's date specific. You can't go in later and change it without, you know, having a new notarized amendment or a codicil. If we're if we're changing a will, you're going to that's going to be a codicil that that you use to change a specific part of a will. But it's very important that whatever in this this is a general rule for most legal documents.

Any kind of amendments you make have to match the same form as the original document itself that you produced. So that's just a little pro tip there for you. So, yeah. So we have a lot of people who come in and I've seen they've, you know, highlighted some things and struck through and made some notes in the in the in the on the side there in the margins.

And none of that's no, that's good stuff. Don't don't do that. Talk to an attorney first. And if you're making enough changes to a document, you know, maybe maybe it's time to just redo it. Right. If you're changing one or two things, that's an amendment, maybe a codicil to a will. But if you're changing a lot of stuff and you're you're competent, you might as well just, you know, do it again, revise your plan, just do your state plan from scratch. And we do that a lot, too. You know, there's a lot of folks who come in, especially without a state documents, documents from another state.

And we have to always let them know, hey, state statutes are different. You know, this could function exactly like you want, but we can't say for sure. So, yeah, there's a lot of times where we might recommend, you know, completely redoing everything, you know, and that's not the end of the world. But don't be surprised if that's a recommendation that's made for you. Judica County radio, we are diving in on questions from listeners about trust. And again, if you're in the estate planning arena, you're doing this, a trust might be a way to go. Again, these are questions that are coming in.

We'll answer more of them coming up on the other side. We want to remind you, too, that there are complimentary consults available on trust with Whitaker and Amer. And when we say complimentary, that means no charge. That means you leave the checkbook at home to grab one of these consults. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

Leave your contact information. Obviously, it's about trust. So we will have an attorney call you back and set up that complimentary consult.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. When we return on Judica County radio, it's more questions about trust. That's coming up next. Judica County radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, right here in North Carolina, they practice law here.

They have offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, and I'm just, you know, staying out of the way. It's going to be a trust conversation. These are questions that are coming into the firm from from everywhere. And these these are common questions about trust. We do have complimentary consults this week and they are centering around trust. And if you need one, you might have some questions. You can grab a consult at any time by calling eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Josh, back to you. All right. So we've talked about we've talked about a lot of different aspects of trust so far.

Right. And so we've talked about what a trust is. It's a separate entity that you create and you can control. There's a lot of different types of trust. We're kind of focusing on revocable living trust.

That's a very popular trust that a lot of folks use for estate planning. We've talked about successor trustees. We have talked about how you amend.

When can you amend a, you know, a revocable living trust and how do you do it without invalidating the original trust? So we've talked about amendments. We talked about codicels to wills. So we've talked about a lot of stuff. We have these very specific listener questions about trust. And so, Joseph, I'm going to I'm going to pose you one of our very specific listener questions. And it goes, what are the what are the risks?

What are the risks of transferring real estate into a trust without notifying the mortgage lender? Oh, what a that's a pretty guy. These are specific. So this man.

Yeah. So this is one of the more specific questions I've ever heard. So in this specific question, someone has had a revocable. They've had their estate plan done. They have a revocable living trust. And one of the first things that your your estate planning attorney or me, one of the first things that me or Joe are going to tell you to do is, hey, you've got this revocable living trust. Let's fund it. Let's get assets into it.

That's the whole goal. You know, I tell people I'm going to die. Morgan's going to die.

Joseph's going to die. This revocable living trust that you've created is going to survive us. Right. And so you want to get property into it because that's how you avoid probate.

It survives you. And one of the first things we're going to say most people's biggest asset is their home. And we're going to be like, hey, let's deed that home, that real property into your trust.

And we do get this question a lot. Like, hey, what do I need to let my mortgage lender know? What you know, how does that affect me and my mortgage?

And Joseph, what do you what do you tell those people? So if you have a mortgage on a home, you've signed a note. Right. And there is a virtually every single note that we deal with. There is a clause. It's an acceleration clause. And basically that clause states that if you transfer this this property to really anybody, a third party, any any any other anything, then the the mortgage company has a right and has the ability to come in and call that note due. So any time we're dealing with a situation where we're we're taking property and we're moving it around and there's a there's a mortgage in place, we have to let folks know there is a possibility of that note being called due.

Now, practically speaking, that's not something that that's not something that you're going to see happen very often. But that is the the risk. That's the potential risk involved in transferring your property into trust.

And so there's been court cases. You know, the trust we I call the trust an alter ego of your of yourself, right? You're the in our example and our revocable living trust. And again, hundreds of types of trust for different reasons. You can make trust do a lot of different things. But the standard revocable living trust that you would start as part of an estate plan is going to be an alter ego of you and or you and your spouse. If you're it's a joint estate plan because you're going to be the grantors, the trustees and the beneficiaries.

It's just an alter ego of you. And so I don't usually instruct people to give notice to their mortgage lenders that this property is going to go into into a trust for estate planning purposes, because that's an alter ego of you. And so I usually I don't think there's any reason to let it, you know, to notify your your mortgage lender. Like Joe said, there is that acceleration clause, but that's more designed. If you if I transfer if I transfer property to Morgan just because I like them and I don't pay off. Yeah, I like that idea. Yeah. And that's and happening and pay off because normally at a closing.

Right. If I was going to sell Morgan a piece of real property, any liens that I have would get paid off at closing. But if I just decide I'm going to gift Morgan property and not pay the lien, well, my mortgage company is not going to like that. Morgan's a completely different person.

He's a third party. He's not an alter ego of me, but my trust is. And so most mortgage companies in most, you know, we're talking about North Carolina, but most companies and most most mortgage companies in most states just see that as as you. And so so I would say you don't have to notify the mortgage lender. And and the worst case scenario that I've seen in my 20 plus years is somebody got a letter from a mortgage company wanting to know more about the trust.

And you can give them information about the trust. They wanted to make sure it was an alter ego of you. So that was that was a very good, very specific question. And well, this is this is another specific question. I think this is an easy answer, Joseph. So I'm going to throw you a softball.

Oh, boy, I can't wait, man. What happens if the deed transferring your home into a trust is never recorded? Right. So we got in this question, the guy, whoever's asking this question, the client got an estate plan done. They have a revocable living trust. A deed was prepared, right? A deed is what you use to transfer title to real property. So a deed was prepared from himself to himself as trustee of the trust to put the property in trust. It was signed, notarized, but no one ever took it downtown. This deed never got recorded at the register of deeds. Nobody knows it exists, but the client. So what would happen in that situation where this deed was never recorded at the registered deeds office?

Yes. So so we're talking about the concept of notice, right? And so the entire purpose of public record is to put the general public on notice that something has been done. And in this case, a deed was recorded and ownership changed hands. So in the absence of that deed being recorded, the answer is nothing. Nothing happens that the property doesn't transfer, doesn't change hands.

And this person is is so well, essentially. Yeah. So it's, you know, depending on how much time has passed and what's been going on. Can this can this property be treated as if it was in the trust?

And you probably have an argument that it still could be in certain situations. But if 40 years have passed, you know, there's this would be very fact specific. But hopefully, you know, when we do your estate plan, we're going to handle all that right away. Oh, yeah.

Hundred percent. We're going to do that immediately. That's not something that's going to happen.

But but yeah, you want it. You want it recorded because it's arguably. Oh, you can make an argument either way. But I wouldn't want you to have to make that argument that it's included in the trust.

I'd rather just record it and have no no questions or concerns because certain liens could attach if it doesn't get recorded. It'll mess you up. So it's not it's not good if that if that happens, because remember this trust, like we talked about, this trust is a is a separate entity from you. That's how it works. That's how it survives you because it exists.

You control it to the extent that you want to control it or you need to control it. But it it exists outside of you. And so you got to you got to get you got to fund it. That's a trust funding question.

We've had two of those. Yeah. Yeah, man. But but all different kinds of property can go into a trust. Right. So we're talking about real property. We're talking about a deed. That's how you change title to real property.

But there's all kinds of personal property. I have people asking me about crypto, right? Crypto gold. I have a lot of people ask me about gold. How can I get this gold in the trust? You're in the gold club.

I remember. And so that's all personal property. And you you you can assign personal property to a trust. That's how you put personal property into a trust. Right.

So an assignment. So you can you can put that kind of thing in a trust. You just have to let your attorney know that you have it. You can put your business owner ownership interest into a trust as well. You sure can. You know, we you can take your membership interest in an LLC or stock in a privately held corporation. And you can for the most part, there are some limitations there, but for the most part, you can assign that. And that can live in the trust.

You know, vehicles, cars, boats, jet skis. They can be titled in the name of a trust. Those can live in a trust. So there's there's really no limit to what can be in the trust.

It can hold title. You just have to make it clear so that when you're gone, when you've passed away or you're incompetent and someone's handling this trust for you. They know what's in the trust.

And that's that's the trick. You've got to make sure they know what's in the trust and what's not in the trust. Judica County radio, we are dialing in on trust again.

Judica County radio is offering up complimentary consults with Whitaker and Hamer law firm. If you've got a question about a trust, you can grab one of these consults. And again, you're leaving the checkbook at home.

Easy to do it. Call this number. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information. We know it's going to be about trust. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to set up that again consultation where you can talk about it, ask questions. Offices located Whitaker and Hamer.

That is very convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. Again, covering the state for you. Again, if you've got a trust question and you want to consult, grab it.

800-659-1186. We've got more listener questions in and around trust. That's coming up next on Judica County radio. Judica County radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices located Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City.

I'm Morgan Patrick. We're about to get back to our trust and the questions that are coming in from the listeners. Again, if you've got a situation, maybe you're considering a trust, you've got some questions, you need some answers. We have complimentary consults available this week at Whitaker and Hamer. All you've got to do is call 800-659-1186. If you've got questions about a trust, you can get those questions answered. Complimentary consult available 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you to set up one of those complimentary consults again on trust. Again, we're getting to the questions. Josh, you've got some more. I do. I do have some more of these specific, ultra specific listener questions on trust and how they operate and how they work. And Joseph, I feel like we've been going pretty hard and heavy on these trust questions. Yeah, man. I feel like I'm in law school. I've been really loving it, man. This is a real blessing.

It's a blessing to be able to do this for our people. And the reason that we're doing this is we often talk about trust very generally as part of a state plan. And when I meet with folks, a lot of times people don't have intimate experience with trust, how they operate, what they do. And so sometimes it's a challenge to to to tell people who you know what what a trust is. And so that's kind of what we've been doing and then kind of talking about more of the finer points of, you know, how can you amend a trust? You know, we're going to have some questions coming up in this segment about what the trustee can and can't do.

Kind of some very specific questions here. And so the first question I want to hit as to operations and powers of trustees, I have three questions here that I've got. We may not make them to all of them, but, you know, can a trustee. This is going to we're going to have to answer this in a couple of parts, but can a trustee be held liable for failing to diversify trust investments? Right. Can a trustee be held liable for failing to diversify trust investments? And before we can get to that question, we have to talk about what a trustee is.

Right. And so if you set up a revocable living trust, you and your spouse pass away. You've named a successor trustee who's going to step in and manage the assets of the trust.

And hopefully you've led a successful, productive life. And that trust has a lot of assets that of different kinds that need to be managed for your beneficiaries. Right. You might have your real property in there, your house, your rental house, investment properties. You're going to have maybe you might have a stock in there.

Right. And investments, things like that. You're you know, if you own a business, anything you own essentially can right vehicles. There's gonna be all kinds of things in this trust. And so your trustee is going to have a fiduciary. That's a that's a powerful word in the legal arena.

Right. A fiduciary obligation to make the best of those assets for your beneficiaries. And so the question here, could a trustee be held liable for failing to diversify trust investments?

The answer is going to be possibly right. A trustee can't mismanage. You know, they have a they have a duty to get the highest return and and to think to think about how these assets are going to be used. You know, if your beneficiaries are eight, nine, you got to think about, OK, I need to make these things last.

But I got to take care of their health, education, maintenance, support. How should these things be invested? Do I need to get more liquidity in the trust?

Do we need to sell some real property? There's all kinds of things a trustee can do. But but there's a fiduciary duty there. Yeah.

You said it right. Maybe I think that would be the answer. Right. Maybe because, again, there's there's a fiduciary duty and that duty entails managing those assets, you know, stewarding those assets for the beneficiary. So that doesn't mean, you know, you're not going to win on every deal.

You're not going to every everything you do isn't going to be the best business move. You don't have to be infallible. The question really boils down. And again, the trust can kind of stipulate what kind of liability a trustee can have. And so, again, we I want to really emphasize the how how much you can customize a trust and be very nuanced and specific in the way that you prepare it. But boiling that down, it's really a question of whether this trustee breached their fiduciary duty to the beneficiaries by whatever action they took. And so maybe they did. But I think that's a more fact specific question.

Yeah, I think it is. I think it is very fact specific. And usually you're going to give your trustee pretty broad discretion. You're you know, you've named this person to be your trustee when you passed away. You obviously have faith in them, trust in them and in the trust. Usually you can change this as you feel you need to. But normally you're going to give them pretty broad discretion. And so it really depends on how your trust is worded.

You know, but but there's there's going to be discretion there. And this kind of goes into the next very specific legal question that we got asked. And so this one says, can a trust make loans to beneficiaries?

If so, how should it be documented? So can a trustee make a loan to a beneficiary? Let's say the beneficiary has maxed out what they can get in that year or quarter or month.

They still need more money. Could could could a trustee loan a beneficiary money? And, you know, Joseph, I think that just depends on how you wrote the trust and how much discretion you gave. And it's not a cop out answer, right?

Like, we're not just saying that to avoid answering the question. I mean, it's it again comes back to the fact that trust can be very, very specific and they can have limitations or they can have broad discretion. And so a lot of times you'll be able to do that and that and that will be a possibility. And then other times there may be a restriction on doing it.

So it just all depends on the trust itself and how what kind of discretion that you're given as as the trustee and what kind of authority and power that you have. And I sit down, I sit down with people all the time who have, you know, a lot of times your beneficiaries are your kids. They're not always your kids. Some people provide for their nieces and nephews and their siblings. And if their parents are still alive, you know, so it doesn't have to be your children. But a lot of times when I'm talking to people about their state plan, it's getting stuff to the next generation. And so we'll talk to people that have several children.

They were like, hey, these guys can all you know, we're fine with these. You know, you always sometimes you have the one child who just, you know, for whatever reason, hasn't really may have some some disabilities, may maybe not have made the best decisions in the past. It's a bad kid.

You don't like their you don't like their spouse. You know, I've talked with people who will have whatever the concern is. It's your it's your money. It's your assets. And they'll be like, you know, I don't want I don't want this beneficiary, this child to get everything at one time because they're not good with money. Don't trust them with it. Yeah.

Yeah. Whatever the reason is, is your reason is personal. It doesn't doesn't matter to us what your reason is, but just to have a concern about this beneficiary.

I wouldn't want them to get everything when they're 18 and maybe they can get some when they're 25. And I want the trustee to have a tight leash on on what goes to this person. And so you control all that when you when you set up your trust.

That's all part of the drafting process, the consult process. We we provide we provide for that in the trust because the trust is going to is going to control it. And so some you may want your trust. You may want your trustee to be able to make loans to some of the other beneficiaries or extra disbursements or go into principle. But for this one, you could say, hey, this this person, you know, make sure their health, education, maintenance and support is taken care of.

But they don't need any lump sums, you know, or you can tie it to getting a four year degree. You can tie it to events, marriage, you know, beating you one on one in basketball. That could be a thing. I know you're tying your trust. Yeah, you have to you have to beat my trusty one on one. Yeah, my trusty is Michael Jordan.

Sorry. But so there's all different kinds of ways you can do that. So you control what your trustee can and can't do. And again, most people give the trustee broad discretion because it makes it easier for the beneficiaries down the road. But you don't have to. You can really tighten that up and say, hey, look, they just get the interest on these assets.

They get it once a quarter. I don't want you giving them anything else unless this, this and this happens. So lots of freedom in this trust. We are in the middle of questions about trust, and we are also offering up complimentary consults and around that same topic.

Again, if you've got questions about trust, grab a console. Again, you're leaving the checkbook at home and you're doing this with Whitaker and Hamer. Here's the phone number. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That number again.

Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information. And again, briefly what the call's about, which it will be about trust. And you get a complimentary consult. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to set that up again.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Judica County radio will continue on the other side of the break. We've got more questions from listeners.

It's all about trust. That's coming up next. Judica County radio hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm and they placed offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and down on the coast at Morehead City.

Opportunity to get on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer. A complimentary consult when it comes to trust. All you got to do is call eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Again, we're back to listener questions in and around trust. Josh, what's next? You know, I was thinking about what we were talking about. We're talking about the power you can give a trustee, restrictions you can put on a trustee and how you can control that when you when you when you make your trust, when your estate planning attorney drafts your trust. And we were talking about making the trustee, making a beneficiary pay the trustee one on one in basketball to get more money. Right. Yeah, I like that.

I try to put that in every trust we draft. You know, I think I'm a do guitar hero. You have to play the trustee one on one and guitar hero. Am I the best trustee?

Yeah. I was going to give Joe you got to give Joe two weeks notice so he can really beef up on his guitar hero skills. I don't have my fingers still work the same way, but if they do, man, you're not getting that money.

You're not getting that money unless you're a savant. I miss guitar. You got to be a guitar hero, too. It's got to be it's got to be the old school with the old school guitar.

You know, I was I like three man threes where I you really you really brought it all together. Yeah, I really kicked it into another year. Josh, if you introduced your kids to guitar hero, they like it. So but so they haven't played it in the arcade because kids don't kids don't go to arcades anymore. Right. They they played it on the what the 360.

I think I got it on the. Yeah, they had it at 360 was the last generation, I think, man. But but that was everywhere for such a long time, man.

I always wonder about that stuff. Like it was ever the time in like the kids. They still play Street Fighter. Like we played Street Fighter Street. There's Street Fighter now.

Yeah. And I don't I don't know if the kids are playing it, man, but it's, you know, competitive gaming. It was a it was a joke back in the day. Like you could never you know, it was a waste of your time to play games. But now it's like a viable thing for kids. Like they could do that like on a professional level.

Well, make my kids believe them like to get to get your benefits under the trust. You got to find an Atari twenty six hundred and you have to find a working pitfall and you have to finish pitfall. Yeah. I don't think there's an end to pitfall. I think it just keeps going. So then they're just going to play it until they die. That's going to be right. And then trust your last page.

It says just kidding after they spend their time doing that. I like that because it's like Pac-Man right there. There's no end to Pac-Man.

There's an end to Miss Pac-Man. But there's a high score. You'd have to give them a score.

You'd have to say you got to hit this score. Because I remember I had to add a Commodore 64. That's what I played pitfall on back in the day.

Yeah. And I don't remember I remember playing pitfall for days. You get that from your 90 year old buddy, the Commodore 64. I have that.

That was mine. The I've got an Atari, man. And I've got a lot of games. It's sitting up in the attic if you need it, if you need to borrow it. I've got an Atari, but I don't know if I don't know if it works. I haven't.

I haven't like they never break, man. It's a it's a it was a great technology, you know. I was down at the last weekend.

We went to the you ever go to the flea market down the state fairgrounds. Yeah. Yeah.

I've got my kid does cheer competitions. And so at Dorton and so we'll go and walk over with the boys and check out the booths, man. There's there's a I can't remember.

I can't remember the guy's name. We were down there and there's a booth, a store on the inside where they they have all the retro games and they work on old consoles. And I'm pretty excited because I got a Sega Master System that I can't make it work. Yeah, I'll take a look at it for me. Nice.

That's pretty sweet. I've got all the old I've got every every system I ever had, man. And I think I've got I don't know that there's one that I'm missing. I don't think I've got a Sega CD. I got one of those. So if you got one of those laying around anywhere, I can't find my I can't find my Dreamcast.

I had it and now I can't I can't find it, but I got the rest of them hooked up. It's weird how fun that is for me. Like, I never thought like I never would throw away. Like, what do you do? I mean, I don't know. The kids who just threw away their old gaming systems when they got a new one. Monster, I guess. Those are the kids.

Those are the kids that you leave out of your trust, man. That's that's. Yeah, I can't respect that, but I got to put my hands on a Dreamcast. But I don't really want to pay for one. I want to find one. I got you. I got you one in the attic, man. I'm telling you, I got one up there, but that's your dream cast. Yeah, but you'll be a good steward of my Dreamcast, man. You'd be a good trustee for the Dreamcast.

I got no doubt. I want to find one like kind of like on a video game. I want to find one in like a side quest.

You know, I just want to be walking to get some coffee. Randomly like, yeah, you just randomly pop up on it. I like that. Yeah, I'd be like a box somewhere. I'm like, hey, what's in that box?

It'll be a Dreamcast Dreamcast, the cursed Dreamcast. That's how the movie Jumanji started, the most recent one, I'm pretty sure. Didn't Timberlake on Saturday Night Live, didn't he do a song about what's in the box or something like that? Yeah, that's a really different concept than what we're talking about, though, Morgan. I don't think that that's the type of box that Josh wants to happen upon in the wilderness.

So that's why that's an incredible sketch. I don't feel like we can really. My bad. It went off off the rails.

My bad. Well, you can only talk. You know, we're with you an hour every week and we like to talk about trust. And me and Joe could talk about trust all the live long day. But I feel like there's only a certain amount of trust talk. Non attorneys can tolerate. Yeah, I don't know, man.

I think the tolerance is pretty high for these folks that have stuck through this this amazing show to this point. Well, you know, we had more we had more we had more questions. You know, can you disinherit a child through a trust without explicitly naming them? What's a trust certificate? I like that trust certificate question. We could answer that one. I don't know. We had a lot of time left, but what is a trust certificate?

Yes. So basically it's a it's a privacy instrument, right? So you got this distrust that's going to be long and lengthy and, you know, wordy. And you don't always want to give the general public or someone you're doing business with all the terms of that. You want to keep some things private. So basically that trust certificate is just designed to do exactly that.

It just gives you the essential terms, what you can do, who the trustees are, just enough to get business done without divulging more personal information than what you're comfortable with. Yeah, it's a big thing when we do your state plan. We talk about avoiding probate. We're talking about keeping things private.

Right. Because if you go into probate, we talked about that. There's going to be a file downtown as public record. People will will know whatever assets were in the estate and a trust keeps that private. And that trust is a private document. So you don't even have to show it to other banks or attorneys. The trust might have to do business with this one page. Usually it's one page, two page. Trust certificate is all you have to show people.

So that's what a trust certificate is. Joseph, when you've been at the flea market, have you met Mr. Jim at the flea market? At the flea market, Mr. Jim?

Maybe. I don't know him as Mr. Jim. I don't know. What does he do? He's outside. He does baseball cards. He sells baseball cards and the sign says Mr. Jim and you go talk to him. He's Mr. Jim. No, I've not met Mr. Jim, man. I haven't.

I got to put it on my list of things to do. He sold me a bunch of Mike Ditka's. Oh, OK. Yeah. Sixties, some 1960s NFL cards, some Mike Ditka's.

For baseball, for football cards, rather. Yeah. But yeah, Morgan, so we got the free. We got, you know, if you want to talk to us about trust, me and Joseph will talk about trust all the live long day with you. We're going to do the free con. We're going to keep doing the free consult. So, Morgan, how would people get a hold of us?

Absolutely. You can call this number 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information. The call is going to be about a complimentary consultation on trust. So, again, just contact information. They'll get back in touch with you. They'll set up that consultation.

Offices are conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and Moorhead City. Again, if you've got questions about trust, take advantage of this. I mean, there's no cost to it.

You're not obligated to become a client. You can get answers to your questions. Again, get that consult by calling 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Gentlemen, closing thoughts. Great show. A++.

Incredible work. We're back in the basketball gym this Thursday, Morgan, with Joshua Whitaker again. Oh, that's right. That is Thursday. Yeah, it's Thursday.

I mean, you can't forget about that. So, I'll let you know if there's any fresh injuries. I think panic sweats just came on Josh.

He's a little bit worried. Well, my knee was swollen. My knee was swollen after.

If you'd have seen him out there, you'd understand. My right knee just finally unfroze. It's just starting to feel loose.

So, I guess I thought that was Thursday in May. No, it's coming up, man. It's coming up. So, you need to be prepared.

You need to be ready. I'll tell the boys. Yeah, tell the boys, man. Tell the boys. I ain't taking it easy on them. Bring their shoes because they're not getting the same easy treatment just for wearing Crocs.

If he wears Crocs again, man, he's getting cooked. I understand. Another edition of Judica County Radio in the books. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, are your hosts. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, and they've placed offices everywhere.

Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. And, of course, we've been talking about trusts. You can get a complimentary consult by calling 800-659-1186. If you've got any questions about trusts, maybe there is a situation where you're going to need one.

You can take advantage of this right now. Complimentary consult available. 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Again, another edition of Judica County Radio in the books. For Josh and Joe, I'm Morgan. We'll see you on the radio next week. Thank you.