A Little Pop Culture and Legal Insights

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, Harry Potter movies, not Josh's liking.

Finally, a bench press in the house. We'll talk some weights, but it's also about listener questions, legalese, that's all coming up next on Judica County Radio. I'm Morgan Patrick. Each and every week we get into legal conversation and we go off on some tangents for sure. It's going to be listener questions this week, but as we always do before we get started, Josh, we'll start with you, man. How was the rest of the week? How was the week? It was fine. It's been fine, Morgan. I wanted to ask you guys a couple of questions, though, and the first one was... That wasn't convincing at all. I don't believe it. Yeah, you sound really upbeat over there, Josh.

It was fine. I mean, if I have to be alive, I guess I'll be alive. Eeyore. Eeyore is on the show today. What do you got, Josh? My kids, my boys, they're out for summer break and my two oldest play football and they pretty much just take it easy all day and then they get worn out at football because they're doing the practices and the weight room and stuff. But my little guy, I got an elementary school guy, and he's really into movies, loves movies, loves the Marvel movies, loves Star Wars. I was going to ask you guys, do you guys like Star Wars? Are you all watching any of the Star Wars? Oh, yeah. I mean, I did. I like Star Wars. I grew up. I was a boy. Yeah. How could you not at the time?

But no, man, I haven't watched any recent Star Wars, really. I just got my early Father's Day card. You'll have to describe it. Oh. This is from Jackie.

This is about how our kids love us. That's me. Yeah. Darth Vader, Lego. Is that a Lego? What is that? No, it's just a pop-up card.

You just do that. Oh, nice. So you're a big Star Wars guy. I love Star Wars, and I'm also influenced by the fact that she's a supervisor at Disney and works down there. Yeah. And she is in charge of some of the Star Wars area. Nice.

Oh, nice, nice. How come this has never come up before? How come we- It has. You just don't pay attention with the Star Wars. Yeah, you don't pay attention.

When Morgan talks, Josh checks out. I knew that. Yeah. I was well familiar. So we've talked about Star Wars before. That's not really what I wanted to bring up, but okay, so we like Star Wars. Three for three.

Yeah. What do we think about the Marvel movies? The very first Marvel movie of whatever series I enjoy, but when you get into the twos, threes, and fours, I'm not so much. It's coming back, man. They're going to come back. Doomsday is going to be a return to form for Marvel. And the last Thunderbolts was solid. Yeah, I thought that was good. I thought Thunderbolts was solid. I think Fantastic Four will be- I think it'll be good.

A seven. Yeah, I mean, there's pretty good buzz about Fantastic Four. I will admit that, yeah. Yeah, it'll be fine, man. It's going to be fine. So he's really excited about that. He's real excited about the DC movies, right? So we're- Oh, yeah, Superman's going to be rock solid, man.

Yeah, I can attest to that. But none of that stuff, none of the new stuff is out yet. We've seen everything.

We've seen all there is to see. It's like you're in a dead period, kind of like sports if you don't like baseball right now. That's right. I like baseballs, but still, yes, you're right.

Yeah, you've got to stand the coat. Finals start tonight. Start this week, I should say. So my movie-loving elementary school kid is bored out of his mind. And I told him he needs to go back to school. If he's this bored, he needs to go back to school. He doesn't agree. But he wants to watch something. He's going to send him back to school in the summer, man? Yeah. You do that?

You just drop him off there? In my house, you weren't allowed to say you were bored. If you said you were bored, you got like a chore. You got beat, and then you got a career. You got beat with a vacuum, and then you had to vacuum.

You can go get his masters online during the summer. So his idea was, because he's heard me say this before, I've never read- I don't really read fiction. I've never read Harry Potter. I've never watched any of the movies. I think I played one of the Lego games.

So I have no Harry Potter experience whatsoever. And he said, Dad, why don't we watch the Harry Potter movies? That was his idea. I was like, that's a good idea.

There's nothing else to do. We'll put that on. We'll watch the first Harry Potter. Have you guys ever seen it? Yeah. I've seen all the Harry Potters, man. Terrible.

The first Harry Potter movie is one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. I mean, yeah, it probably doesn't hold up. It's a little older now. You know, what you should do is you should put a hiatus on doing any of that. You should stop. Because HBO is doing a series, right?

That'll be more modern and that's coming out pretty, you know, before too long, man. You should just wait, wait for that. So we watched, watched, I played on my phone and- Oh, that's what it is. You missed all the details. There's no detail. There's a very deep and detailed, nuanced story.

No, there's no detail. And if you're not paying very close attention, man, you're going to miss. They were playing that weird game where they fly around and catch balls and stuff. Yeah, Quidditch, man. That's Quidditch. Oh my God. It's so terrible.

They catch balls. But anyway, so the point of this, the point of this, I was going to see if you guys enjoy Harry Potter. So we were three for three on Star Wars, two or three. Morgan was kind of a weirdo outlier on the Marvel DC stuff, right? Yeah. The I'm going to vote no. I'm going to watch some more of them, but I'm voting no.

It gets better, man. The movies get more current like it gets. But if you didn't pay attention to the first one, man. Well, the first one was 2000, 2001. It wasn't like it's that old. I don't know that it's for you. So how did what did Charlie think of it?

That's what I want to know. He hung in there. I don't think he was blown away, but he wants to continue. Yeah, sure. I love the first one. Absolutely loved it.

Loved it. Yeah. I mean, and Josh, just just so you can kind of take a survey of the rest of humanity. The fact that Universal is one of the most visited sites, you know, like a Disney. But they have Harry Potter World and it's the most visited part of their park. I mean, everybody goes to it. They love Harry Potter World.

And Universal is awesome, man. So you think you think I'm the weird outlier? You are incredibly weird. Well, you're not the target audience for it either, man.

That's very true. You know, it was that's not a child like mine, like myself. I could have told you you were going to hate Harry Potter. I know enough about you to know that that's not going to be your thing. You're just too sophisticated. Yeah, I'm so smart. My palate is too refined.

You know, I think it's too intelligent, man. And then because my kids, my kids are playing the football like I put off. Did you say playing the football, the football, the playing? My kids have been begging me for for a weight room. Oh, good. And I've been putting it off, putting it off. And I finally this past weekend got in the basement, cleared it all out, put in the rack, put in the bench. I like weights are expensive, man. Just the physical weights.

They're not they're not cheap. So the real question is, man, are you going to be hitting the weights with them? We're going to see Jack Josh Whitaker on the show. That's what I want. So I hope so.

I hope so, Joseph. I haven't yet. It's been there for a week.

I haven't gone down there and done anything yet. But my excuse has always been once I get home, I don't want to go back to the gym. Once I get home, I'm home. Always have been. Once I get home, I get to my basketball shorts. I'm not going anywhere else for any.

I'm not going anywhere else. All right. And but you've got weights now.

Now I got weights. Yeah. So we'll see. I'll report back to you if I touch them. You know, there's these things, man, that they've got. I've been I've been hearing about them like they're called steroids here to those. I've heard a little.

Yeah. That would be something, man, as a as a nearly 50 year old man, if I finally just get on the roads and start getting jacked. I like that for you, man.

I think that's a good character. How much personally, how much damage could that do? You know, you read about the wrestlers and the UFC guys and the weight lifters who do the steroids and get all jacked when they're young. And then they have the problems like later on life. If you start late, start late.

Right. What if I start doing it real hard right now? If you start doing it real hard, I think you're probably going to die way earlier. I mean, you're going to have a good, strong run before you burn out, man.

It's going to be like a really bright candle. And you're going to be on the show right before you burn out. On this show, we talk about legal things. It's the steroids. As far as I know, the ones we're talking about, those would be we're talking about the legal ones, man.

We're talking about the ones you get from the doctor, obviously. But if I decided, like, now's my time. Now's my time. I'm a good I'm a good, meaty two seventy five without steroids. And we can turn that into a muscle bound two seventy five, man.

We could do that overnight. I'm going to think that over and show up with a headband and the ultimate warrior hairdo and just jacked. I'm going to do. Yeah, we'll do. I like that, man. I like ultimate warrior face paint for you, too.

I think that would really tie the look together. Joe, would you come over and give me the shots in the butt? Yeah, that's the kind of friend I am.

I don't want to ask my kids to do it. My wife, I don't know. I think we can I think there's other places we can give you shots and we'll talk about that. I mean, if you're really if you want to be true to the experience, you know, but I feel like you give me man, you give me shots in the butt and I'll give you shots in the butt. All right.

That sounds like an absolute wonderful plan. All right, man, today, today, what we're actually talking about is I got I got some good. I've been in a lot of consults here lately. I've got some good, relevant listener questions that I think may probably apply. A lot of people have probably gone through this or have had these questions. So I've got top notch, state of the art legal listener questions that we're going to answer today, Morgan.

And I was Morgan. I was going to tell you, you know, our Web site. I know a lot of people listen to us.

They're driving. They're doing something else. I know we give out the firm's number and sometimes it's hard to remember numbers and emails. But I want to remind people, if you're listening to the show and you want to get in contact with me and Joe, what might be easier to remember?

Our Web site is WH for Whitaker Hamer, WH dot lawyer. And so that's that's kind of easy to remember. So I was going to throw that out there.

People are trying to get a hold of us that that might be the easiest thing to remember. I like it. I like it. And we will certainly promote that. Josh, did your kids enjoy having the weight room introduced at the house?

I mean, you said you haven't been down there, but have the boys jumped on it? Love it. Love it. Yeah. My little my little guy goes down there. My middle schooler, my high schooler. But my high schoolers are already lifting all the weight we got. So I got to go get more weight. All right.

All right. Well, again, always interesting developments at the households. We talk about it here on at Judica County. We are going to have complimentary consults this week. It's in and around estate planning. All you've got to do is call nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.

That's nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Leave your contact information. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will call you back and set up that complimentary consult. Again, you can also go to the Web site WH dot lawyer. That's WH dot lawyer.

And you get tons of information there as well. We've got more Judica County coming up on the other side of the break. We are getting into listener questions. That's coming up next. Welcome back in to Judica County radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm right here in North Carolina, where they practice law.

They have offices located in Moorhead City, Gastonia, Fuquay Varina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland and in Raleigh. Again, for your convenience. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys on a different subject matter. We also encourage our listeners, if you want to throw a question into the mix, certainly questions at Judica County radio dot com. You can send those and we'll answer them on a future broadcast. So it's listener questions.

Josh, explain to us how you came to, I guess, the choice of questions this week. You know, I sit down with a lot of people, you know, me and Joseph, we sit down with a lot of people during the week. We have consultations kind of across a bunch of different areas.

We get a lot of real estate law questions, estate planning, estate admin, just kind of general civil litigation consult. So we sit down with a lot of people who have different legal issues. And when I come across a question that I think might be useful to our listeners to hear how we analyze it. I like to bring those to the radio show. And so that's kind of where these go.

You know, I take names and facts and I change everything. These are you know, these aren't these questions the way I do them aren't specific to any client. They're just kind of a compilation of different types of questions that I that I get.

And and so that's that's where they come from. You know, I was going to ask you, Morgan, real quick. Are we allowed on the radio to talk about illegal drugs? Are you allowed to talk about that?

I mean, I mean, it's freedom of speech. You're not. You're not taking.

Yeah, you're not taking illegal drugs. You're not encouraging. God forbid. God forbid. No, absolutely not.

I just heard your rules and. Well, yeah, I mean, just yeah, you're not encouraging. You're not selling. No, no, not encouraging, not selling, not taking. No, just just. All right. First listener question that I'm going to do. And we've seen this a lot.

We've seen this a lot. And so here's how here's how the question comes through. So the question is, I posed it is I deeded my house to my children and took a took a life estate. But now my children won't talk to me.

Don't like me. There's been a family dispute. I voted for Trump.

They voted for Harris. And part of that's part of that's part of the question. Yeah. There's something something is something has happened where my children don't talk to me. And so I've deeded my house to my children as part of I guess some people think it's estate planning or whatever. So I've deeded my interest to my kids. And then I took a I took a life estate, meaning I can stay here as long as long as I'm alive. But when I die, it'll be it'll be my kid's house. We see a lot of people do that kind of as of a shortcut for estate planning.

And I don't usually encourage that. But this this is what's happened, right? I deeded my house to my children. I took a life estate. Now me and my children don't get along or don't get along with one of them. And I'm not the owner of my house.

Can I cancel it? Right. So that's that's kind of our that's kind of our scenario that this person has had an attorney drafted deed. You know, Josh Whitaker as the grand tour, I'm dating to Mikey, my oldest. And I'm taking I'm taking a life estate in the house. The thought being that when I die, it'll automatically become Michael's.

But in the meantime, while I'm alive, all I have is a life estate, which is kind of a small a smaller interest in the property than, of course, owning it. And so we see people come back to us where they need to sell the house or refinance the house or get a reverse mortgage or an equity line. And now they're figuring out, hey, I need Michael, my son to be on board.

And then if he was married, I need his spouse to be on board. And they're not talking. Right. So so you basically don't own the house that you're living in. Does that make sense, Joseph?

That makes perfect sense. And I can answer that question very, very simply and easily. Well, we need to stretch it out. This is this question for the whole segment. No, man, we're going to I think we answer the question and then dead silence for the remainder of the segment. And we just let everybody breathe.

Everybody put their pencils down and do some busy work till we come back. So you've got a life estate and there's there's a simple principle whenever you any time that you deed an interest in anything, you're you're recording a deed. It's public record. And there's no take backs on that, Josh. There's no take backs. So once you once you do it, it's it's done. And you've deeded away your fee.

Simple interest. You have that life estate and your life estate's good, right? Like you've got those lifetime rights, but that ain't worth a whole lot other than your right to occupy and live in the property. So the answer is no, you can't retroactively reverse and terminate your life estate. Now, your kid can't do anything with the property without you either. You know, just like you need your kid and his spouse to sign, you got to sign as well. And so they're not going to be able to just deed it out from underneath you.

They could they could deed their remainder interest out. But you're you're stuck in that situation. And you've given away your fee simple ownership, meaning you had total control. You deeded it out.

You don't just get that back magically. Your your hands are tied unless you guys can come together and work on some kind of an amicable solution. And in that scenario, it's worse than if you retain some sense of fee simple ownership because you've just got the life estate. So that's a problematic situation. And I've got no I can't give you the warm fuzzies about it, you know, because there's just not a good solution. There's not a good solution. And we we don't you know, we do a lot of estate planning and we that's not something we would typically advise. That's not something we encourage. I think a lot of people I don't know where it comes from, but a lot of people think it's a good idea. Like their neighbors did it or, you know, maybe their parents did it or they they got it for some from somebody who's not an attorney. But, yeah, you get you get stuck.

You definitely get stuck. And then a lot of people don't realize until after the fact in North Carolina, it doesn't matter if your spouse is mentioned on the deed. It doesn't matter if I do that to my Michael. And then he he's not married now. Obviously, he's underage. He better not be married.

That we know of. Yeah. You start lifting those weights, man. You don't know what's going to happen. So happen. So I could do that today.

I could say I do that today. And Mikey gets married five years around to someone I don't I don't like. Right.

Well, now you're super stuck, because even if Michael's on board, if there's a spouse you don't like, you're in trouble. If Mikey gets an IRS lien or doesn't pay his credit cards or gets a judgment against him, that's going to attach to the house. Like you really, you know, especially if this is a house where you're going to live for the rest of this is your I call it your death house.

Right. This is the house. They're going to have to drag your dead body out of forever home forever home. You don't have to call it death. That's your death house. No, man. That's the common term. That's what the people say these days.

There's plenty of better ways to get your assets, assets, including your house, to the next generation where you maintain control until you're into your death or your incompetence or whatever. This is always a bad you're trapped. And sometimes it goes well. Right. Some people don't ever have any problems.

And so it might all it might all work out. But I've had several people just over the past 30 to 60 days coming in with that problem, like I need to do this. And that's where you're at, because the only solution is for your. So if you if you did it to your children, your children and their spouses hopefully have no judgments against them. That impaired title, because those stick once those attach, those are attached. But let's assume that didn't happen. They all have to deed it back to you for you to to do anything on your own. So and there's no easy way to fix it once it's done. Once it's done, it's done.

As I've had a lot of people, that's what they want me to do. Oh, I just want to cancel it. I'm like, there's no canceling it. You can't take it back, man. You take. Yeah, you've done it and it's and it's done.

And we can talk about how to get back to where to where you were. And you're going to spend a lot more money on attorneys to get back than you did to do it. But, you know, the thing that solves this is usually I mean, Joseph, a trust is kind of the we talk about trust a lot. But a trust would solve this problem. Yeah, you could you could have a trust and you could you could put a provision in the trust.

The same, you know, a right to residency, you know, the right to occupy the property. You can build that into a trust the same way. Retain some, you know, control as trustee. You know, there's a lot of there's a lot of better ways to go about that. You know, that's that's and and that's why it's important to be informed, man.

I really think these decisions through because you never know what's going to happen. And that's not to say that a life estate is never going to be the solution and you should never have a life estate. But, you know, it's it's that is the that's what can happen. I've met with I've met with some folks over the years where this situation gets super, super nasty. You know, you know, the person who deeded their property away ends up paying money to kids or disgruntled people to to get it back.

Or they're just they just remain stuck because there's there's not a lot you can you can you can do in that situation. So, you know, and for us, you know, we don't especially, you know, if you call in via the radio show or you contact us and say you heard us on the radio, we would sit down with you for free. And if that's something you want to do, we would say, hey, this is a horrible idea for all these reasons. And that when it that advice wouldn't have even cost you anything, you know. So I definitely talk with an attorney and don't talk with your neighbor who just happens to be an attorney who practices some other practice area. You know, you know, or or a nice attorney on the radio told you about it. You know, don't talk with an attorney who's seen how these things work and don't work. Seen the the the somebody who's who's seen it happen.

I guess somebody somebody with with experience. And I don't know. I've seen that one a lot. It's real easy to avoid making that mistake. It's very difficult to come back from that mistake. That's very true.

Very, very difficult. Be careful out there with your life estate interests. Judica County radio. We are going to continue on the other side with more listener questions in and around property dealing with that legally. Again, Judica County radio hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, the managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. We are offering up, again, estate planning consults and they are available by calling nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.

These again are complimentary. No charge. Leave the checkbook at home.

Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Leave your name and contact information and they will get back in touch with you. You can always go to the Web site.

It's a great resource for you. W.H. Dot Lawyer.

That's W.H. Dot Lawyer. We've got more Judica County coming up right after this. Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm located right here in the great state of North Carolina. That's where they practice law and they have offices placed conveniently for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City.

I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure. Jump on each and every week and talk legalese and obviously a referee between the attorneys every now and then. If you've got a question you'd like answered on a future program, just send it to us. Questions at Judica County radio dot com. That's questions at Judica County radio dot com and the complimentary consults in and around estate planning. You can call at any time and grab one. Nine one nine seven seven to seven thousand.

See if you're going in the right direction with your estate planning or maybe get started on it. Nine one nine seven seven to seven thousand. You can always visit the Web site. W.H. Dot Lawyer.

That's W.H. Dot Lawyer dot com. And again, easy and a good resource.

Josh, back to you. So we like you said, Morgan, we do a lot of we do a lot of consults with people who are setting up their estate plan. Right. They've just they've just had their first kid and they want to get everything set up for guardianship and things like that. If something happens to both of them, both of the parents at the same time we did, you know, I've sat down with a lot of people here recently who's who had an estate plan, but they haven't touched it in twenty five years. Now their kids are all in college or out of college and they want to kind of revisit. It's kind of a different plan.

Right. You've got one estate plan where you're just getting your family started. That estate planning advice will change just like your financial advice, just like your life insurance advice. That changes as you get older and your kids are independent. And we kind of got different mindsets depending on what stage of life you're you're in. So I've sat down with a lot of those on both ends of the spectrum here lately.

But this question, this Listerine question and and you can call us with these issues, too. You know, we handle a lot of estate planning, but we also deal with a lot of estate administration. Right. So you we do your estate plan and then someone passes away and your heirs will come to us and say, hey, we need help administering this estate, you know, administering this this trust. So that's kind of two sides of the same coin.

And we do a lot of that. And I've said now a lot of people who are dealing with, OK, now my you know, my parents have passed on and I have these issues. I got these things to figure out. And so this question, I get a lot.

And I'll let Joe comment on comment on it first. But so this question kind of comes to, you know, I inherited my parents house. My parents have done their estate plan.

They're gone. I've inherited this real property, this house. It has a mortgage on it. Who's responsible for paying the mortgage? Who's responsible for paying the light bills? Who's responsible for property tax?

Right. I've inherited this house. I've got these things. And so this this come this comes up a lot and we see a lot of people come to us after they've tried to handle the estate administration and they've messed it up. And we have to do a lot of work with the clerk downtown or whoever to get it squared away. But but, Joe, just the basic part of that question is I've inherited this house. We'll say it just happened.

It's been a couple of weeks. And who's responsible for those expenses, those debts associated with the house? Yeah, you are. You've inherited the house. You own the house.

Who? You know, my question to that person would be, who else do you think would be responsible for it realistically? Like it's yours. You you inherited it and it's your responsibility because the reality is, is you're the owner. So if you don't if you don't pay the mortgage, there's they're going to come and they're going to foreclose. And, you know, nobody else has a vested interest to pay it. Now, you're not you're not necessarily obligated as a creditor on that mortgage. So like, worst case, you don't pay it. You can't pay it. There's a foreclosure. That's not necessarily going to be something that negatively impacts your credit score, but you're going to lose the property. So ultimately, you own that property. You're responsible for those issues and those things. Yeah.

Yeah. So the the the thought the thought process there is when your parents were alive, you know, they they got a mortgage on the house and a reverse mortgage or an equity line. You know, they got they got loaned some money and they gave that house as collateral. So they signed a promissory note that made them personally liable. And then the lender took a deed of trust and recorded it.

They said they got a lien on the property. And so your parents in this scenario, they were liable two ways, right? They had some personal liability. They could have been sued personally for not paying that off in theory.

It doesn't really happen a lot. There's some statutes that apply. But in theory, I would have hurt their credit if there was a foreclosure. But your parents are gone and and the personal liability goes with them.

They are the ones that had that. You're the lender in this scenario still has a lien. That lien's good no matter who owns it. I could deed it to Morgan. Morgan could deed it to Joe.

Joe could deed it to some guy on the street. That first lien, that lien goes with the property until it's paid off. So that lien stays there. So if you inherited the property, the mortgage is your your issue, even though you're not personally liable for it. If you don't pay it, the estate shouldn't pay it. It shouldn't come from other it shouldn't come from other assets of the estate. You got the benefit of the property.

You have the burden of the mortgage. I should probably get time to point out that death. So your parents death will just will say it was their death.

Sounds hard. Sounds harsh to say it like this, but your death, their death is a default under the note. Yeah.

Right. So, you know, you can be in default on a note a couple of different ways, not paying it. That's what is usually the default rate. You're not paying the note.

So you're in default. But when you die, that is that is a default under the note. And so whoever whatever company is holding that note, servicing it, accepting payments, they all have different ways they deal with death. Some of them give you time to refinance it. Some of them just keep taking payments from whoever owns it.

And they don't they don't seem to care. But but just so you know, death's a default and they could foreclose, start foreclosure. Foreclosure doesn't happen instantly. It takes time.

It's a process. But they could they could foreclose. So you want to talk to your mortgage servicer in that situation.

You either want to refinance and pay it off or see if they'll continue accepting payments or see if it's assumeable. But it's your it's your problem. The tax bill is your problem. Utility bills are your problem. The estate shouldn't pay any of that.

That's all. And again, that's you have the part of the reason of that is also you've got the benefit of the use of that property now, you know. So it's not like you're just getting stuck with a raw deal and you own that property.

So in theory, you could access the equity on that property to help and offset any of those costs as well if you needed to. Sure. You could live there. You could rent it. You could sell it. Right.

It's yours. But but that confuses a lot of people don't realize that that death is a default. And so we get a lot of people asking us questions about it. Some people have handled it the wrong way and used estate assets to pay the things that we're talking about. And you have to give that back to get the estate closed out.

And so, yeah, and we've been seeing that that's not a like that's not a scare tactic. Like we have seen situations where the clerk requires repayment to the estate of funds that were advanced from the estate that should not have been advanced from the estate. So that's not that's a thing that's that's a real thing that happens. You know, it's a real life situation because, you know, if you have and we talk about avoiding probate.

Right. So when we do your estate plan, we talk about avoiding probate so your heirs don't run into this problem. But but assuming it is a problem like probate is a is a process to write you. You have to open it after someone dies. You might have some creditor claims. You have to divvy up the assets evenly. The clerk and different counties are different levels of intensity on this.

But you have to account for everything you did. And the clerks are looking behind you and they want receipts. They want they ask a bunch of questions. They want affidavits from you like it's it's not super easy to people who don't do it every day. Like, you know, if you've been through it a time or two with your aunts and your uncles and your grandparents, you you might have a good footing on how to how to maybe get through it.

But we filled a lot of questions about this issue and you can get around it. Again, trust, careful estate planning. You can make it less confusing to your heirs. But we see that a lot.

And definitely we have a lot of clients where the probate process, the administration process, what heirs are required to pay. It's not always common sense. It's not always if you don't deal with it every day.

It doesn't it makes perfect sense to us, but it doesn't always make sense to people who have never dealt with it before. So, guys, the best way to avoid this type of headache is to do what? Well, in this scenario, you know, I mean, I have adequate life insurance. That would be one thing you could do. You know, if you're talking about a scenario where you're potentially leaving property to an heir that may not be able to afford paying for it and you don't have assets that are going to set them up appropriately, then I mean, that's really a solid option. But I think more than anything, careful estate planning, understanding your financial situation, what assets you have and making sure that everyone involved your heirs who are going to take knows the situation.

So there's no surprises and nothing just jumps up on you. Well, I would I would add, too, if you're leaving an asset to like one of your kids and you there's a mortgage on the property. Yeah, you need to think about that life insurance is a good idea. You could have some life insurance that your heir may get the proceeds of and use that to pay the house off. But if you're leaving an asset, let's say you've got a million dollar house with the average cost of a house in Wake County just went up.

Well, it was like four fifty five or something. Right. So let's say you have a you have a nice house and it's close closer to a million and you leave that something happens and you leave that to your 19 year old after your death. And your 19 year old doesn't have the income where they can go qualify for a refinance.

Right. Because you can't you can't go get a mortgage if you don't qualify for it. And so I've seen where people died earlier.

You know, we all die earlier than we want to for the most part. And they left their heirs with this asset where they can't they can't pay it off and they can't qualify for a mortgage. You can't go get an equity line if you don't have income. Right.

You got to qualify for it. And so, you know, it's awesome you got your one million dollar house to your heir, but are they going to be in a position where they can handle it, take care of it? I think things to think about that we don't always think about unless you sit down with someone who's seen these problems before. Yeah, I mean, working with a professional and getting, you know, ahead of this early that we call that being proactive. And and again, we never really anticipate the end, but it can it can happen.

And, you know, you talk about what if scenarios all the time. If some something like that happens, you need to have a plan for it. And again, an estate plan will go a long way to help kind of solve some of these problems.

So get it done ahead of time. Now, here on the program, we do offer up complimentary consults in and around estate planning. All you got to do is call nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.

That's nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Leave your contact information and they'll get back in touch with you. They'll line up one of those complimentary consults.

And you can always go to the website. The new streamline is WH Dot Lawyer. That's WH Dot Lawyer. We're back with more Judica County right after this.

We are back on Judica County radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm are your hosts. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

And again, office is located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. If you've got a question you'd like answered on a future program, we're in the middle of that question and answer right now. You can send your question questions at Judica County radio dot com. That's questions at Judica County radio dot com.

We'll answer those on a future program. And we also have the complimentary estate planning consults. All you got to do is call 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000.

Leave the contact information. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and they'll line up that complimentary consult on estate planning. And you can always check out the website WH Dot Lawyer.

That's WH Dot Lawyer. Good resource for you, Josh. This next question, it comes up a lot in a lot of different ways. You know, we talked about it on the show last year, but there was a you know, there was a there was a lawsuit against national real estate agents about how real estate agents get paid, you know, and there were some settlements.

And, you know, we don't have to go too far into that. But as a result, I know a lot of good rules. My wife's a real estate agent and a lot of good real estate agents who do good work. But I'm seeing more buyers and sellers proceeding without a real estate agent.

And I tie that back to kind of the settlement and how agents get paid and and things like that. But the question today, the question I have for this segment is this is what it is, says my tenant wants to buy the house he rents for me. Do I need to hire a real estate real estate agent? Do I need an attorney?

Basically, what are what are my what are my next steps? So this guy, our client who's asking us this question, they have rental property. Their tenant's been living in there renting it from them.

And now the tenant says, hey, I want to buy it. And we'll say the landlord and the tenant have agreed on a purchase price. They've agreed on a time frame. They're they're in agreement on on how to proceed. But they don't have a contract.

They don't know what the closing process is. And so I get that question a lot now. And and so the first the first question is, what are what are the next steps? Yeah. So if you don't have a contract, step one is going to be let's get a contract like that's where we're going to start. Right. That's our starting point.

We're going to draft up a contract. We're going to memorialize those terms. You've you've done a lot of the legwork. You've come to an agreement. So that's a starting point. But we need to go ahead and formalize that. There you go, man.

Step one. Yeah. And so some people some people are used to real estate agents being involved in transactions, which is which is great. I would argue that you probably don't need a real estate agent here.

Right. You've already real estate agents help you know the market. You know, a good real estate agent kind of knows the market moves.

Right. It goes up and down. Buyers market, sellers market. So somebody who's actively monitoring the real estate market in your area, your local area, that's one thing that they're good for. And they also help you advertise, market, sell your home, try to bring you a buyer. And here you have a buyer. Right.

You have your purchase price. So here a real estate agent, you've kind of gotten past the part of the transaction where real estate agents, now they're going to they'll help you with the rest of it, too. And like I said, we work with a ton of great ones. But you've you've done a lot of that that job.

And so you've got a lot of what of what they'll do for you. That's correct. So we have a lot of people that reach out to us because they need an offer to purchase. They need an agreement.

That's what's supposed to happen. Your buyer. They've made a verbal offer. Verbal offers on real estate are worthless. Right. The law says any offer for the purchase of real estate needs to be written down.

Any time you're dealing with real property, you've got to it's got to be in writing. Right. And that's that's the that's the statute of frauds.

Right. We have a statute in North Carolina. And it says, like, if you're going to buy an interest in real property, these things have to be in writing or a property address, purchase price. There's certain things that just have to be in writing. And so a lot of folks will come to us and pay us to go and prepare that contract. And then once you have a contract, you guys have to sign it.

And then all the terms are in there. Who's paying for what? Closing cost wise, who's going to you know, are you prorating taxes? Is the buyer going to just pay taxes? When is it going to close?

What happens if it doesn't close as scheduled? Is there earnest money? Is there due diligence? Right. All that goes into the contract and you and your buyer would agree to that in writing.

So no one can come back later and say, oh, that's not what we agreed to. Right. And so that's the first part. And then, you know, you'll need a closing attorney. Right. So once you once you have everything in writing, then there's going to be a closing attorney who performs the title search and gets everybody on the same page and handles the closing funds, works with the buyer's lender if there's going to be a mortgage.

And then you close. And and so we're seeing a lot more people who just need that part. They already they already have their buyer and they just need that part of the transaction. And that's more an attorney, a traditional attorney role, I would say, Joseph. Yeah.

And and, you know, the you've been living there for however long you've been living there. But I can't emphasize the importance of a title search still. You know, that's still a vital and important part of of this process, because you never know. We run into hidden title issues all the time that can jump up and bite you and prevent you from a future sale of that property.

So, you know, title title search is essential. And when you this hypothetical, I didn't know. Did you say whether they're working with a lender or whether they're they're purchasing cash? What's the what's the let's say they're working with a lender, because most people are working with a mortgage lender. There's you know, there are cash transactions, but I think it's more common where your buyer has to go out and qualify and get a get a mortgage.

Yeah. And so in that case, you know, we skipped a couple of steps because you're going to need preapproval from your lender. They're going to have to run, you know, get a loan application for you, run your credit, make sure that you're credit worthy, make sure that you qualify for whatever you need to purchase the property.

So there's some additional steps to go into it there. But, you know, assuming you've got all of that done, assuming you got your contract, you've reached out to your closing attorney. You know, your closing attorney is going to complete your title search and they're going to do everything that is required to satisfy the lender to get that loan ready to close.

And so that's going to be the next. There's a kind of a waiting game in a sense where you're waiting on everybody else to get those things done to get you ready to come to the closing table. It's important to you know, if you and your buyer, you know, want to work with an attorney, an attorney usually represents one side of the transaction. And a closing attorney usually represents the buyer. Sellers can have their own attorney.

It's more common in bigger states where everybody has their own attorney here in North Carolina. Sometimes, you know, the closing attorney represent the buyer and then they're allowed in North Carolina bar allows them to represent the seller. To further the closing, to draft some of the documents, the deed, write some of the stuff the sellers responsible for.

But I think you touched on something if you do something that was that was really important. If you're in our scenario, the owner of the house, the sellers is our client. That's the one who's reached out to us and we can prepare the contract for the for the parties. But it is important if your buyer is getting a mortgage, the mortgage lender will usually give a prequalification letter saying, hey, I've run the loan app, like you said, and this person is qualified. I have prequalified them to purchase the house at this amount. You want to make sure your buyers actually can before you go under contract with a buyer to buy the house and you tie it up for the next 30 to 60 days, you know, your buyer actually has the the wherewithal to buy the house. Yeah, exactly. So and again, this is a non-traditional situation where you're not talking about, you know, this isn't a house you put on the market.

This is kind of a deal that fell into your lap. So, you know, maybe less important than that situation where you're actively marketing the property. But still, you know, you you got to make sure that they can actually consummate and complete the transaction. That's a that's an essential component of what we're talking about here.

So got to have that prequalification. But but once all that's done and we've done everything we've talked about, you know, you're you're just you're you're right at the finish line and you're just waiting for a closing date at which point you're going to go in, you're going to sign your loan documents. The seller is going to sign all the documents needed to convey the property to you. The attorney is going to hold those funds in trust while they make sure that everything looks good and the lender gives approval. And then you're going to get on record and you're going to own yourself a nice, beautiful new house. Judica County radio.

We've got one more segment coming up on the other side. Again, we have complimentary consults in and around the state planning. If you've got any questions in that area, certainly grab one of these consults. Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.

That's nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. You can also visit the Web site WH Lawyer. That's WH Lawyer.

Great resource for you. And if you'd like to send us a question for a future program, questions at Judica County radio dot com. That's questions at Judica County radio dot com.

Again, we'll be back on the other side. Final segment coming up. Welcome back into Judica County radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners. Whitaker Hamer law firm practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City.

I'm Morgan Patrick. Back and forth with the attorneys each and every week. Listener questions this week. We also have complimentary consults in and around estate planning. And if you learn anything from today's show, it's just the importance of kind of wrapping things up, having a plan, being proactive.

So you don't run into big, big problems later on. So, again, estate planning. Very important. Call 919-772-7000 for a complimentary consult. That's 919-772-7000. Leave your contact information. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you shortly. And you can always check out the website. Great resource. WH dot lawyer. That's WH dot lawyer. Josh.

So I think those were I think those were good, relevant listener questions. I think that getting people thinking about potential problems. I mean, you're you may be thinking of your state as very, very simple. You know, I have a house. Maybe I have a rental house.

I've got my 401ks. And it's never quite as simple once you think about what actually happens once you pass away. You know, and so you do things to think through. You know, we've seen the problems once we look at your information and have a chance to talk to you. We're very good at pointing out things to at least think about. Hey, have you thought about this? You know, so.

So definitely worth worth thinking about. Joseph, I saw you were drinking some McDonald's Coke there. No, man, I just put my protein shakes in McDonald's cups.

That's not not a protein. I don't want people. I don't want people who like McDonald's to be ashamed. And I care about people.

So I just put my health drinks in McDonald's cups to make myself more relatable to people. I've been going through I get through these phases. You know, we've been we've been very busy. We're very blessed to be a very busy law firm. And the past couple of weeks have been really busy.

And so I don't do a good job. Like I'll eat a good breakfast. My wife makes sure. What is a good breakfast, man?

Give us the give us the breakdown. What is a good breakfast in Josh's household? Well, the kids are out.

You know, the kids are out on summer vacation. So we just got a bunch of cereal. Yeah. And that's not that good for you.

But like this morning I had Frosted Flakes. That's not a good example. OK. We didn't ask for you.

Way to start off with a bang. Tell us your best. Yeah. Tell us what you got, man. I want to know. I don't know how you look like that.

So I can look like that. I usually I usually I like a good bowl of yogurt with some fruit and some granola in there. But big bowl. Big bowl. Yeah.

It's going to stay with you. What kind of yogurt? What kind of yogurt? Just like just like a vanilla.

Yeah. Just like a vanilla yogurt. He's not a yogurt snob, man.

Any kind. Get him the Paw Patrol yogurt if you got to. But just get this guy. Guys, I'll just say this right now. Start reading the labels because they put a lot of stuff in the food that we don't need.

Go with the basic Greek and then add stuff to it. Walnuts, blueberries, blackberries. You know, a little a little a little splenda. No, we're not going there. But I mean, no. Read the labels because some of the stuff they're putting in, even some of what we think is healthy, really not good for you.

Whitaker and Hamer coming out this summer with a new steroid infused yogurt. We'll go back. What do we talk about? The pound. The best attorneys in town. Pound for pound. The best attorneys.

Yeah. Pound for pound. Best attorneys will also design your dungeon basement for weightlifting. Two packets of steroid yogurt included with our construction process. Look, if we're going to do this, if we're going to if we're going to we don't again, disclaimer, we don't currently take illegal steroids.

No. And you won't. I mean, I never you're goofing. I never we're just we're just we're just good. But if we were if we were going to do illegal steroids, I don't want the new stuff.

I won't like the Conseco Maguire, but steroids. Old school. Yeah, that's yeah.

Those have proven themselves, you know, over time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's good stuff. I think we could skip the steroids, go straight to dungeon basement weightlifting. I think that's enough for us.

I think if we just get a dungeon basement where we can lift weights. The point the point of the story was I did have a point. The point of the story was we've been very busy. I haven't been doing very well for lunch. I've been eating a lot of fast food for lunch. You can't tell, man, because if you look at you, your physique is great, man. And I say that as a you know, I just say that to me to let you know what I'm saying. I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

Well, I've seen you from the head up, but my mind's filling in the rest and it looks pretty good. The point is, what do you think the healthiest fast food is? Not actual, just your mind. What do you think the healthiest fast food is? I mean, if you get like grilled nuggets from Chick-fil-A.

That's disgusting. OK, that's the healthiest thing on the menu. The grilled. Maybe like a salad with grilled nuggets. I get a number one and a side of eight piece nuggets. Double it up.

You got to have it. We need to get back to the healthy conversation. You're doing you're doing a number one. You're doing nuggets on the side and you're doing a dessert.

Note to self things to get Josh for the holidays. A nutritionist. Judica County radio.

We have another episode in the books. Again, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer law firm are your hosts. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They have offices located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City. And during the course of this show, we offer up complimentary consults in and around estate planning. So if you've got questions, grab one of the consults. Nine one nine seven seven to seven thousand. Leave your contact information. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch.

Again, the number nine one nine seven seven to seven thousand. And a Web site is a great resource for you. That's WH dot lawyer. That's WH dot lawyer.

You can get all the information there as well. That's WH dot lawyer. Another edition of Judica County is in the books for Josh and Joe. I'm Morgan.

We'll see on the radio next week. Judica County is hosted by attorneys licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on this podcast may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion on this podcast is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live has the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on this podcast are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at J.M.W. at M.W.H Law Lawyer.