Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts and managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm Practicing Attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. We'll get into Truss, got a lot of listener questions. That's all coming up next. on Judica County Radio. Whitaker and Hamer present Judica County.
With Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hamer. Welcome into Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts at the Managing Partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They have offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquave Arena, Gastodia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick.
My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys on so many different topics. We're going to get in on trust today. A lot of listener questions in and around that topic. But before we do, as always, guys, how was the week?
So far, it's so good.
So far, so good. We, uh,. You know, Joseph was at the beach last week. I'm about to go to the beach. It's beach time.
That's where I would like to be. But I'm here with you guys. Why don't you just let me go to the beach again? I was going to say, way to sell it, Josh. You're happy to be on the show.
I wish I was at the beach. You should just, you should, you know, I'm coming off of the sweet embrace of the beach, and you don't know that yet. You know, so you should just stay in your blissful ignorance. Let me go for you to the beach with your family. And I think that's the best play.
That's the best thing for everybody. I'll just keep my head down and plow through. Keep plowing, man. Joe, I was going to ask you, you do like, this is like a massive family beach event. Is that correct?
Yeah, we have a lot of. We've done this beach trip for a long time with all of my mom's side. We've got their six siblings. And so we've done it for years. And just to ask.
And you still like each other? You still vacation together? Yeah, we all love each other very much, man. But it's as we've grown as a family and the kids have had kids, it's gotten. It's gotten a little bit unruly in terms of the sheer volume of people that we have to stuff into a place.
I think we had like 40 plus. All together. Are you kidding? Living in harmony in this. Like in one in one building?
Or did you have a couple of houses? In one building. And we had a couple well, we actually had a couple of houses, but that was in that, you know. that was ev everyone kind of Shoved inside, man. And we all got real close to one another.
That's cool, man. It is cool, man. It's not very relaxing because, you know, we got all, everybody's got young kids and. They're all running around. You do it for the kids, man.
You know? But you put enough kids to you put enough kids together. They form like a little village and go do stuff. They they form a little the terrorist organization. And uh what they do is they're they're real loud and they stomp around like animals.
But I love them.
So It was great to hear them stomping around like animals. It was good, man. It was a good time. Wasn't as cool as being in the office and working, of course. Which I'm so glad to be back and doing, man.
And that's what I'm telling you, man. You go, you do the beach trip. You gotta come back. And when you come back, work's just not as good.
So you should skip to go to the beach part. And that was gonna just keep enjoying work. I was going to ask you guys, just through the years, obviously you're successful attorneys, but do you ever go to the beach and you kind of check out for a week and you're like, you're trying to figure out how can I work from down here? How can I maybe start a business? I mean, you guys have Moorhead City.
You have an office there. Think about that every day, Morgan. Dude, I was going to say, it never fails. I'm there and I'm like, there's got to be something I can do down here and make a living and just enjoy the coast. Yeah.
I had that thought. I did have that thought a few times. I won't lie to you. I had a professor when I was at NC State, and. I was an English history major, so I took a lot of writing classes, right?
And so I had this one guy, I can't remember what he taught, maybe it was fiction writing. Obviously, a huge impact you can't remember. Yeah, one of the greatest teachers of all. But he told me something that I've never really forgotten because it's kind of weird and it's common sense. It's not like I'm not about to hit you with some earth-shattering life lesson or anything.
But He mentioned all these places he had lived. I don't remember where they were, but he had lived on a tropical island and he had lived in like a small coastal town in Maine or whatever, places where people go on vacation. And when you vacation there, it's special, right? But once you live there, it's just routine. Yeah.
It's just the way it is, it loses its specialness.
So that's what I take solace in. I may not live at the beach, but at least when I go to the beach, it's special. You know, when I go to the lake, it's special.
Well Yeah, man. Yeah. I can see that being the case. Good if you were there every day. Yeah, I'd love to try.
I'd love to give it a shot and see. I don't know. I think you're. I was gonna say, I think your lake office, the inner tube with the cigar, I mean, that's I mean, that's that's habit forming right there. We gotta get rid of this rain, man.
Every every day it's like uh. With all the weather channels, I want you to watch now.
So, every day is a weather alert day or a. Increased risk of risk of tornado day, or whatever they say. Yeah, we had last weekend was great. We had when the forecast for the beach was like every day was going to suck, it was going to be terrible, and it ended up being like one day, it really was a washout, but it was beautiful, man. Beautiful.
Hina. Beautiful. It's fine here, too. You know, it looks good. Looking around, stuffy office.
I'm gonna do a week off, but we did it we did it weird. We did it's like Wednesday to Wednesday. Right, so instead of taking off like a whole week, Book in by weekends. I'm gonna try. Weekday, get the weekend.
Come back on a weekday. Yeah. We'll see how that works out. Yeah. I don't know, man.
I enjoyed it. I came back late. late-ish, like midday Friday. And so I It was nice coming back to nothing, man, and having the weekend. And to be honest, if I didn't care about you and our business so much, I probably would have just extended that even further and just kept on, just kept it going, you know.
But uh Family needs to eat food. Family needs to eat food, yeah. The kids, we didn't feed them on vacation. We like to keep them hungry, it keeps them more docile. No.
So, yeah, they need some food, man. They need to eat. We um We went and saw a sneaky. I know a lot of movies are coming out in July and August, but we went and saw. The other day, Karate Kid Legends.
Did you see that one? No, I won't be seeing that one, but I'm very interested in your review of it, though, for sure.
Well, it's fantastic. It was a great movie. It had Jackie Chan in it. Yeah, I know Jackie Chan's in it, man, but that ain't enough for me. I've never been to Josh.
Who else is in it? Who else is in it? They bring, what's the Karate Kid's name? Ralph Macchio. Ralph Macchio.
Yeah, they bring him like a new kid, right? Yeah, they got a new kid, and he's not terrible. Jaden's gonna always be the real karate kid. I never saw that one, man. I abstained.
I support the karate franchise very much, but I abstained from that one. But. No, they bring Ralph back, and they have like, I'm guessing it was like AI. What's the guy who died? I can't remember anybody's name.
Uh Mr. Miyagi? Yeah, they had Mr. Miyagi there, but I think they did some special AI. Yeah.
And they bring the Jackie they bring these two families together and Jackie Chan's in the other family. Does Jackie Channel? Have you ever seen a bad Jackie Chan movie? Mr. Miyagi?
Ah, that's a good question. I don't know that I have, man. I don't know that I've seen an outright bad one. Jackie Chan's usually a formula. You know, I read an article I I I don't I can't remember where.
Freddy was real tough on the set, man. He's real tough to work with. He's real tough on his stunt guys. And uh He just demands excellence. He demands excellence.
Apparently, he's very stingy. And I don't know, man. I've always thought of Jackie Chan as like the nicest guy ever from the movies I've seen of him. You know, I like to base my opinion off of people of the movies that I've seen them in. And.
So yeah, I'm glad you liked it. Kids liked it. Yeah, yeah, it was good. We went and saw it on the Sunday. Everything is coming out in July.
All the big movies are coming out in July, but we. Yeah, I got my Superman tickets already, so I did that. Oh, do you? Yeah, yeah. We're gonna be up in Buffalo, so I'm gonna watch Superman in Buffalo.
There's so many other fun things to do in Buffalo. Why wouldn't you just do those things instead? You know? We're gonna squeeze Superman in. Why don't you just replace your beach trip with a second Buffalo trip?
Pretty much the same vibe, right? Yeah. Yeah, Beach, Buffalo, same thing. Yeah, they both start with a B. They do have that in common.
So, today we're doing, I've got a whole new batch of listener-client questions, right?
So, we've got a whole new batch. I think some of these are pretty interesting. It'll get us talking about. Estate planning. It'll get us talking about real estate.
It'll get us talking about managing trust.
So. But but in an interesting way, where we're it's very specific issues, but I like this batch of questions, Morgan. I think these are going to take us to some things we haven't talked about before.
Okay, that's what we're going to do. We're going to get in onto trust that's coming up on the program today. I want to remind you too that we have estate planning consults. They're complimentary. All you've got to do is call 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186 and leave your contact information. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you, and we will line up that complimentary consult on estate planning. Get in the number 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. When we return, of course, we will talk more about trust.
And here's the first question: If the home was jointly owned by both my parents and one passes away, does my mom have to update the title of the home? That's the first question out of the gate. When we return, you're listening to Judica County Radio. Welcome back into Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.
And they have offices convenient for you in Moorhead City, Gastonia, Fuqua Verina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and right here in the capital city, Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys. And it's a listener question program today after our beach conversation. We are now moving to trusts.
We want to remind you that we do have complimentary consults in and around estate planning. If you've got questions, maybe you want to get started on an estate plan, this is a great way to kind of dip your toe into the planning pool. Grab one of these complimentary consults by calling 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information.
And of course, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will. We'll be in touch to line up that consult on estate planning. Josh. I gotta get my uh I got to get my list of listener questions in front of me. I forgot them now.
I was very excited about them, but then I forgot them. But now they're in front of me. You're back excited again? I'm back excited. The excitement.
Thanks for including that. All right, that's great. I can feel your excitement. Awesome. I like when you give the listeners.
It's called prep. A window into your thought process. I had this entire list. I added this entire list and uh I just had to get back in my browser here.
Okay.
So we got this question in a consult not too long ago where someone had done their estate plan, right?
Someone had gone, met with an attorney, they did their estate plan, they set up their trust, they're doing pretty good. as is the case with all of us, eventually they died. And so a lot of times we have heirs coming back to us asking us questions about what they need to do with the trust, what are the next steps. And so this question came up. It was a pretty simple question in theory, right?
So this lady had passed away. And her heir asked us, the house is in the trust, and we'll talk about what that means. If the houses in the trust are the contents of the house, also in the trust. And the answer is maybe, right? It depends.
And we're going to talk about that it depends. But Joe, I get this question a lot. And what I tell people, and I might be oversimplifying it sometimes, but a lot of people will get the concept of a trust and the concept of a will and the concept of ownership when someone passes away. They'll get it mixed up, joint accounts, life insurance, probate, non-probate, and so it'll get confusing. But for this question, Once you create a trust, I think of trust as as basically like a bucket.
Right, nothing gets in this. Yeah, nothing gets in this bucket by accident. You have to take an affirmative action. To put everything into the trust while you're alive. Um And so here There is an answer to this question.
We don't have enough information in the question to answer it.
So I'm going to assume. This is what I'm going to assume, Joseph, for the purposes of our question. That the deceased, our lady who passed away, she had deeded. That's how you put real property in a trust, right? That's how you put your house, your residence into a trust, is you create a trust.
And then you deed the property. to the trust. And then that's how you put the property in the bucket, right? That's how you put the property in the trust. But that's just the real property.
That's just step one, right? Yeah, that's right.
So step one is deeding the real property into the trust, just like he said. I like the bucket. I like that bucket, that analogy, because it makes a lot of sense and it's a good way to think about it. And so, what you things don't just fall into the bucket by accident.
So, with personal property, there's a distinction between the two, right? There's real property, there's personal property. And if you deed your real property into the trust, you don't automatically put all of your personal property in the trust as well.
So, it's like you said, there's got to be an affirmative action. You have to intentionally. Assign your personal property to the trust as well, which is really just another document, right? Like, it's not, you don't have to take some grand action to accomplish that, but you do have to do something. It doesn't just happen.
automatically.
So in your exem to answer the question, you know, we said it depends, and it depends on whether or not that that additional step was taken and the personal property was assigned into the trust as well. Because if not, then you you you know it's not to say you can't Still accomplish the same end result, but you got it's not going to be as clean and easy as if you did things the right way. Yeah, and so I always think of, I always tell people to think about it's putting stuff in a trust, you're changing the title. Right, and so how do you change title to different classes of property? Like, real property is a deed.
Right, real property, that's how you transfer title. You buy, sell property, you're getting or giving a deed. If something has a DMV title, Right, cars, jet skis, manufactured homes, you know, RVs, those kinds of things, when you Transfer ownership. To a seller, to a buyer, to a trust. you're you're gonna do it via the DMV title.
Right? And then everything else, it doesn't have. A title, you know, that's personal property, furniture, collectibles. Um Clothing, cash on hand, none of that stuff has titles.
So you do that with an assignment. Or a bill of sale, which, like Joe said, is just an additional document at closing. Most of the time, when we're meeting with folks and we're enacting your estate plan, you're going to sign a deed. That deeds the real property. To the trust, puts it in the trust bucket.
And then you're also going to sign an assignment. Where you say, hey, all my personal property, it doesn't have title. I want it treated as being in the trust, too.
So, the answer to this question is if. If this lady who had deceased worked with us, then yes, the contents of the home are going to be considered in trust because we would have had an assignment of personal property drafted and completed. If we had done it, and you did it the right way, then your residence is in the trust. and your personal property. Is in the trust.
Now, if you got a car parked in the garage, The owner of that car is whoever is on title. Which may or may not be the trust depending on how far Our deceased person uh went with Getting stuff into the trust. Yeah, and so I think the lesson there is is you know Careful estate planning is going to look at every single aspect and it's going to capture everything that you need to capture because you could have the fanciest trust in the world, the most well-constructed trust in the world, and you miss one single document in the process and it's It ain't going to do you no good. It's only as good as what you fund it with. And so you have to look at the entirety of the picture.
You can't just look at the one piece. You can't just have the trust and say, I'm good. You got to make sure all of your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed, Josh. Yeah, you're gonna spend all this time. Having your trust dictate where your assets go.
Maybe it's maintaining them for some underage kids or grandchildren. And so you've got all these instructions in your trust, but your trust only controls what it was funded with. And so, if you've got all your investment accounts, and we'll talk more about joint accounts later today, but you have to think about that. And that's what a good estate planning attorney should say. It's like, hey, this is great.
We can do all this stuff in your trust, but how are you going to fund the trust? What's going to be in here when you pass away? What is it going to? To control. And so we'll always talk with you about that at estate planning.
We ask you a lot of questions about your assets so that we can have. this funding conversation. Um But that's our first question.
So that's our first question. And we're going to come back to this in a later segment. I have a follow-up question that kind of. piggybacks on this one. Judica County Radio, we are in on listener questions when it comes to trust.
We also want to remind you: we have complimentary consults on estate planning, so right in the same mind frame there. And to grab one of the consults, all you got to do is call 800-659-1186. Again, that's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information. And of course, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to line up that complimentary consult on estate planning.
So, Judica County Radio is going to continue on the other side. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back into Judica County Radio. Your hosts, as always, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, the power behind this program. And they are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.
They've placed offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuque Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City for your convenience. And we have complimentary consults available for our listeners in and around estate planning. Call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave the contact information.
An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to line up that complimentary consult on estate planning. And again, we want to remind you, too, if you've got a question for a future show, you can send it to us: questions at judicacountyradio.com. That's questions at Judica County Radio. Radio.com and we're in on trust. Josh, take it away.
Yes, so we spent some time last segment talking about real estate being in the trust, and we talked about personal property. The big takeaway there was if you have a trust, You have to physically put things into it.
Well, fit meta metaphorically, right? Metaphorically, but we can't take our bucket metaphor to the extreme. You don't drop things into it, but yes, you have to take I think I like the you have to take affirmative action. To do something there.
So we have a we kind of have another listener question that came from a different uh A different person, but kind of piggybacks on what we were just talking about. And so this person asked, they said, hey, my mom had a trust. that left everything to me and my brother, fifty-fifty. We went to the bank. And she had a joint account with my brother.
And the bank is giving everything to the brother. Why doesn't the trust control, right?
So, here we had somebody again who went and did their estate planning, set up a trust, they died. You've got two brothers surviving, two siblings surviving the father. Uh they went to kind of get all the assets together. They went to the bank, found out the father. The deceased father had a joint account with one of the brothers.
And now that brother has everything in that joint account. It didn't go in the trust. The trust didn't control it. It didn't get split 50-50. And so the question is: why doesn't the trust control?
And Joe, the simple answer is because the trust didn't own that bank account. That's right, man. It's the same thing, it's the same issue we identified earlier. Anything that you don't. Correctly titled in the name of the trust or assigned to the trust or put into the trust, it's going to be a probate asset.
You're going to lose the benefit of the trust, which is to take that from being a probate asset and streamline the process once you're gone.
So that trust can be the best trust in the world, but it's only as good as what you fund it with.
So making sure that you appropriately fund it and you put all the assets that you want to be controlled by it in it, that's the key element. And so where you can see this pop up and you can run into issues is, you know, we can sit down with somebody and we can make sure that we put everything they own, everything they want to be in that trust and controlled by it in that trust as of the day that it's created. But you're going to live life. You're going to go, you're going to potentially acquire new property. You're going to acquire new things.
And so what we try to do when we sit down with folks and we sign that document is kind of give them. Give them a heads up and prepare them for the fact that they've got to make sure anything that they acquire makes it into the trust to get the maximum value out of it. Because, again, you have a nice, lovely trust, you put your house into it, you sell that house, you buy another piece of property, and you don't put it into the trust. You know, you're that's Again, you're losing the benefit of it. Yes, there's all kinds of ways to get things to the next generation.
And when we sit down and we talk to you about your estate plan, we talk about things that would be in your estate if you died today, right?
So probate items, things that would go into your estate. And then we talk about non-probate items, things that are not going to be in your estate, not going to be governed by your will. And so these bank accounts. Um bank accounts if you've got a joint owner. You and the joint owner equally own the money in that account.
So, maybe in our example, the dad even forgot he had this account, or maybe he even forgot that. Maybe he put the one brother on there just to help him out, you know, every now and again, help him pay bills. And so, this isn't like, I'm not even reading this question as some intentional he meant for the brother. to get all this money, but that's that's what's happened by failure. Of planning.
So, bank accounts and your investment accounts and your IRAs and your 401ks and your brokerage accounts, life insurance, those are all governed by your. Your agreement that you signed when you opened the accounts, right?
So you can name beneficiaries. uh on those accounts and and and you're If they're not titled in the name of the trust, which they aren't in our example, They're going to be non-probate. The bank is going to distribute that money based on the written instructions in your agreement with the bank. And here, The brother was a joint owner. That's just his money.
He's just the owner of that money now. Um If you die with a life insurance policy and you've named Only two of your kids because you took out that policy before you had your third kid.
Well, that third kid's not going to get any of that money. They're going to. They're gonna pay out. The beneficiaries as you set them up, and so that's one of the things we talk about. A lot when we sit down for estate planning, it's like, okay.
Where are your accounts? Where are your investment accounts? When's the last time you? Revisited beneficiaries, and for a lot of people. They get busy and they'll go 20 years, right, without revisiting that kind of thing.
And so we try to get people thinking about that because that's. That's outside of Probate already, which is good. We don't like things going through probate, we want things to be non-probate. Um But we spend a lot of time trying to get that sorted out and make sure all that is set up. Correctly, some people leave.
Ex-spouses on things, right? They don't. They don't update when they get remarried, and that can cause a big problem, right? If you got a life insurance policy with your first spouse. That did end well.
And then 30 years later you forget about it and die.
Well, then you've got. You've got some problems.
Well, you don't have problems. You're gone. You're dead. Yeah, you don't have problems. I mean, arguably, you're living your best life.
So that's important for this question.
So, in our example, Yes, the the the dad Set up a trust where he was leaving everything to the brothers, 50-50. But this bank account was not in the trust. No one actively ever put it in the bucket. No one retitled it into the name of the trust.
So it was non-probate, non-trust asset. And the bank dispersed it according to the instructions they had gotten from the dad whenever he made it a joint account, however many years ago. But we see that happen quite a bit, especially as parents get older. And they'll add their kids as joint account holders to help with bills and things like that. And then when they pass away, That's going to be that.
Kids. money. And that's not to say that you never want to do that, right? Like 'cause there's there's times where that's the advisable solution. Like you may want to do that because again, your ultimate goal of your estate plan is going to be to get the assets to The correct party that you want to leave them to.
So there are situations where your estate plan is going to be a combination of solutions. And the best solution for you may be a combination of a trust, some joint ownership on accounts. It's just all about accomplishing the end goal.
So it's not to say that. You'll, you know, if you have a trust, you're never going to want to have a situation where you set up an account with survivorship rights, but you just want to be attentive to that. And you want to make sure that you don't have any kind of unintended consequences where you think, well, I've got this trust that's going to distribute these funds, but you've got a surviving beneficiary on an account because, again, that money is going to that, it's never going to touch the trust and it's never going to touch your estate. It's a non-probate asset that's going to pass directly to them.
So it's just about being informed and knowing exactly what you want to have happen. Yeah, I've had a lot of different clients sit down and like, hey, I want to make sure this grandkid gets $10,000 and I want to make sure this niece gets $10,000 and this charity, my church gets $25,000 and we'll stop them. Like, okay, how much do you think is going to be in this trust? When you pass? Like, what do we think is going to be in there?
If you passed away today, what's in there? And after you do all these specific devices, what's going to be left? And really get people thinking about that, you know. Um And and And yeah, it's just important to know. Like you said, Joe, you can have the best estate plan in the world, but if it's not set up to fund properly, then everything goes out the window.
So we talk about that. And an estate planning attorney should ask you. I met with somebody before, and they made a comment on how we asked them so many questions, right, on our questionnaire. And I was like, well, the more information you can give us, the more helpful. you know, we can be.
Or they want us to just come in there and just stare at them during their consult. We're just going to stare at each other and breathe heavy. I love getting that information early because when I meet with you, like I've already reviewed it. And so I kind of already have my ideas and thoughts and I can ask you specific questions like, hey, I noticed you wanted to do this. Why do you want to do that?
Have you thought about how you're going to fund it? Right.
So I love being able to go in and I'm just not like, okay, what's your full name? Where do you live? Yeah. Yeah. We arm ourselves with that knowledge early because, again, it's going to save so much time and it's going to save the number of times we have to correspond and the amount of information we have to get from you.
And it's just a far superior process versus, you know, the come in, we meet for the first time, and we're going to give you this spiel in person. Then you're going to give me that information. We try to structure our information we give you to arm you with some knowledge. And you're not going to know everything. You're not going to have the answer to all the questions, but it can get you thinking the right way.
And it can get you in the right frame of mind to understand where we're going to go. And it just makes the process.
So much more streamlined. Judica County Radio, we are diving in on trusts. And again, there are a lot of questions that are coming in from the listeners, and we're handling those today. If you have a question about estate planning, and we have complimentary consults with Whitaker and Hamer, call this number 800-659-1186. Maybe there's a trust that's going to go into that estate plan.
800-659-1186. It's complimentary. Just leave your contact information, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to line up that consult. Again, 800-659-1186. And the offices are everywhere for your convenience: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuque Verina, Gastonia, and down at the beach at Moorhead City.
So you can make an appointment at any of those offices. 800-659-1186. Again, 800-659-1186. We've got more at Judica County Radio coming up. We are back on Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.
They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Of course, Whitaker and Hamer, the power behind Judica County Radio. They've got offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuqua Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. Listener questions in and around Trust today. If you've got a question you'd like answered on the program, you can always send it to us.
We'll answer it on a future broadcast. Questions at judicacountyradio.com. Real easy. Questions at judicacountyradio.com. Leave it.
And of course, we'll get to that on a future program. And the consults we have available today in and around estate planning. And everybody needs one. And if you are thinking about it, this is a great way to kind of kick the tide. There's no cost to this.
800-659-1186. Leave your contact info. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to line up that complimentary consult. 800-659-1186. Josh.
Yeah, so this next question, I get it a ton. I know Joseph does too, but.
So why have people Um that basically say like, hey, I I jointly owned My home with my spouse. My spouse passed away, and Do I need to update title? We always have people call us and they own property as husband and wife. In North Carolina, that means you owned it as tenants by the entirety. You owned it as a married couple.
And so a lot of times when the first spouse passes Passes, the surviving spouse will always be really worried about: hey, I need to update. uh title on on on my home and uh That's one we get a lot. We'll do a consult with somebody for a state administration, meaning, hey, someone just passed away. I need to meet with an attorney to figure out what I need to do. And a lot of times that's a big concern.
I'm sure you see that too, Joseph. Yeah, we see it a lot, man. It's a call we get, and it's a lot of time like a frantic call we get, you know, like folks real worried, real hung up on it. And.
the entire point of owning properties As tenants by the entireties, or in the event that you're not married, if you own with another unmarried person, you can accomplish the same survivorship benefit by owning title as joint tenants with right of survivorship. But the entire point of that is to keep you from having to worry about that, right? Like you're going to automatically absorb that interest and take title.
So you don't need another deed. You don't need to revise anything. If you're real worried about the tax records and you're in a county that doesn't keep an eye on those things closely, then you could just provide a death certificate and note the ownership. And a lot of times they'll just update that for you. But there's no benefit to another deed.
You don't have to do anything else with title. And that's important too. We get that question a lot in that with the tax that most of the time when people are trying to look at their title And they haven't talked to an attorney, and there's not like an attorney in the family, they're not actually looking at their deed. Most people are looking at the tax records, right? Who does the county have on the on the records to send the tax bill to.
And although that is usually the owner of the property, it is not always the owner of the property, and it doesn't indicate. Ownership, right?
So I'm here in Wake County. Um Wake County Wake County does not, their tax records, they don't always update. They don't know when people have died necessarily.
So you just can't depend on those for anything. And those aren't, in my opinion, very important. Whoever the owner is shown on the screen. Yeah, it has no legal relevance to you. Like, it's not, it doesn't matter.
That does bother a lot of people, though, when they get that tax bill and their spouse's names on there. And you can certainly update that with a phone call. You know, usually pretty easily. But yeah, we're going to. An attorney is going to look at the deed.
They're going to look at the way you took title to the property. And for a lot of people, they haven't looked at that in. You know, 30, 40, 50 years, you know, they bought their house, they've lived there, now a spouse has died. And so it's very important. you know, if you took title as husband and wife, Or, like Joe said, if you took the title as joint tenants of right of survivorship, when the other person dies, All you need is a death certificate.
You don't need a new deed. You don't need to update anything. You just keep on. You just keep on moving.
So, title will be vested. in your name without any change. And that always Like Joe said, it always bothers a lot of people, and that's the first thing a lot of people will go to.
Now, I will tell you: you know, I've had people ask me that question. I look at their deed, and they haven't looked at it since 1978. I'll say, oh, well, this was just in your husband's name, right? This was just in your deceased spouse's name. Or you bought it before you were married and you just took title together without any.
Survivorship. And so, in that case, That'll get us asking a bunch of other questions because you will need to do something. But if you owned property, As spouses, husband and wife. As spouse, if that language is on the deed, you owned it as tenants by the entirety. And you may have some other stuff to worry about, but you don't have to worry about updating your Title.
And so hopefully that's like I said, we get that one a lot.
So hopefully that helps.
Some folks out there who might be listening. And then, Joseph, that's going to take us into a That's going to take us into probably a more important question.
Well, before we even do that, I'll give a bonus. I'll give a bonus addendum to this question. You touched on it a little bit, but ownership, your ownership interest and what we call vesting, the way that your deed is vested, is super important, right? And so in the married situation, it's a lot easier, it's a lot cleaner. If your spouses and you take jointly, you're good.
But if you're buying property, if you're unmarried and you're buying property with a friend, a girlfriend, someone that you're not married to. In the absence of specific language that states you guys will be joint tenants with Ryder Survivorship, the law is going to default to an ownership. interest that we call Being tenants in common. And that's a completely different situation. You touched on it a little bit, but I think it's an important distinction.
Because in that scenario, if the other person passes away, it's not as simple as just we need a deed that just makes me the owner because the That asset is going to be subject to whatever their estate says. And if they don't have a will, it's going to pass by whatever the intestacy statute says. If they do, it's going to pass to their heirs. Their interest is separate. It doesn't get absorbed.
And you're going to be owning that property with God knows who at that point. Yeah, we do a lot of real estate closings. We do a lot of real estate transactions wherein we represent. The buyer. And so when we have folks who are buying and they're not married.
That comes up a lot. We talk about that, we talk about owning the property. as tenants in common. And I think we've used this. If me and Joe own property together, just me and Joe.
And I pass away. Joe, you know, my interest is going to go to my wife and my kids. And so Joe is going to own his 50%, but my heirs are now going to own my 50%. That is not. You know, that is not a survivorship.
And that's important. It's just important to know. I know a lot of times when you're going to your closing, you're just excited, you're ready to get moved in, you're going to sign all your docs. But it's something to think about, and it's easy to change, right?
So if you look at your deed and you see that only one spouse was on the deed, or you've gotten married since then, it's an easy thing to update. You can give us a call. There's not a lot of attorney fees involved in that.
So the way you own your property, if you don't own it, The way you thought you did, once you look at it, it's a very easy thing, usually. uh to change, to correct, uh to revise. We have um So, my question, Joe, that follows up on this, and it's a little more in-depth. Um So, the next question is basically, and I get that we get this, we get this question a lot, obviously. We do a lot of estate planning, but it comes up in a lot of different ways.
And so, the question I boiled down to: what is the best way to leave my home? to my kids. And this person's specific. What's the best way to leave my home to a kid's a will or a trust? Um And so, Joe, I'll just let you answer that question.
It's one we get a lot. Yeah, and again, it depends on your goals and what your goals are and what you value. But for me personally, I would answer that question. The best way to get my home to my kids is going to be the easiest, most streamlined uh most uh d stress-free What what requires them to do the least in terms of Administering my estate, taking ownership of that property. And the answer to that is going to be a trust.
100%. It's going to be a trust because a trust is going to. A trust is not a probate asset in the sense that you don't have to go and probate the will, take it down to the courthouse, go through the process of opening an estate, which is a whole lot more legwork, a whole lot more stress. It's doable. It's not the end of the world.
People do it every day. But the trust is the far superior option in terms of. What's the easiest way to go about doing this? And that's going to be far easier. Yeah, the question is the best way Usually, my answer is going to be Joe's.
The best way is the trust. That's the easiest, best way to get real property to the next. Generation: There are other ways you can will it to someone, but like Joe said, you're going to be opening up another state. creditor claims you're gonna have to deal with different things um And then we have a lot of people ask us about. We talked about this last week, so we won't get back into it, but you know, adding kids to the.
The deed, taking a life estate, and having your kids be what we call the remainder men. And we talked about.
Some of the pitfalls With that arrangement last week.
So there's a lot of different ways to get things, get real property, get homes. to get land to the next generation. A trust is far superior. It doesn't always make the most sense depending on. Economic factors, but it is definitely without question, I think, the best way to get things to the next generation.
The easiest way for sure. Judica County Radio. We are jumping in on trust. Again, listener questions coming into the program. We're answering those today.
We also have complimentary consults available for you with Whitaker and Hamer in and around estate planning. You can certainly ask questions about the trust as well. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to set up that complimentary consult.
Again, 800-659-1186. If you've got a question you'd like us to hit on a future program, just email us: questions at judicacountyradio.com. That's questions at judicacountyradio.com. Our offices are located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquave Arena, Castonia, and in Moorhead City.
So covering the state for Whitaker and Hamer. We've got one more segment. We'll be back to close up shop. You're listening to Judica County Radio. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.
They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And again, the power behind this program is the firm, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fugue Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. We are in on the trust today. If you've got questions you'd like answered on a future program, this is a great way to do it.
Just email them to us: questions at judicacountyradio.com. That's questions at judicacountyradio.com. We'll answer those on a future program. And of course, today we have the complimentary consult available in and around estate planning. The number to call is 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186. All right, gentlemen, bring it home. I just add Morgan, you know, a lot of people Tell me they hear me on the radio. And uh, they have to go Google me because uh, you know, a lot of people are driving, they can't uh. They can't remember the phone number offhand or whatever.
I can't remember numbers at all anymore. I don't know any numbers besides my childhood friends. Phone numbers. You know, numbers, like, you know, one, two, three, four. Like, I just want to clarify.
If I need to call my best friend's parents from sixth grade, like, I got those numbers.
Okay.
I remember in my head. Yeah, I got them all, man. All the old school rotary. But I was trying to call my oldest son the other day, and I just don't know his number. I've never, I think I've seen it one time when I put it into my phone.
So you just, you don't know him.
So he's your least favorite kid. WH.LAWYER, REAK. I think most people can remember that. If you're looking for me or Joe, you can go to wh.lawyer. There's no.com.
You just put that in wh.lawyer, you'll get to our webpage. It has our offices on there. It's got me and Joe on there. We've got a video library where we kind of answer questions. Past episodes of the radio show are there.
So we try to pack a lot of information in there. But wh.lawyer will get you in contact with our firm. Um, I've got one more listener question. I'm gonna go ahead and throw this one out. This one's um.
This one's just somebody asking in general. How do I protect myself and my family from the government taking our assets after I die? That's the question, right? I die. What do I need to do?
What is the bare minimum? I need to do to prevent the Government from taking my assets. What do you think about that question, Jeff? I mean. I don't know, it sound uh sounds a little 10-foot hat almost in some ways.
And I guess my question would be. What, how's the how is the government taking your assets, right?
So, I think that, yeah, I think that's a common misconception. Like, uh, and maybe that was true at some point in history, or maybe there's another, you know, we're licensed only to practice in North Carolina, so me and Joseph can only speak to North Carolina law. Um But The government is is usually the last. The last in line to receive your Property. Basically, nobody has to be left.
So if you die without a trust, you die without a will. There are laws that dictate what what Who inherits your property, you know, goes to your spouse, to kids, can go to your parents, go to brothers and sisters. And yeah, if you run out of everybody else, if you run out completely and and There's literally no one there, then. The last resort is property can achieve to the state. That is a thing.
I didn't know if the question was more of a like. The government's coming to take they're gonna come take my house. I don't know if it was one of those. And now there are situations where there can be certain liens if you end up in assisted living and you can't make you can't pay, your property can be leaned liened in that scenario. And that's kind of a different question how to protect against that, because you can protect against it.
But in terms of just the government taking your property just because. you know, you you'd have to you'd have to have no No will, no trust saying otherwise, and having contingent beneficiaries that the property goes to. And then you'd have to literally have nobody that can be found. Yeah, and you know, I've talked to folks who, you know, have outlived their parents and outlived their siblings and didn't have children. And you can get into a situation where when you pass away, there's no one immediately available to open up an estate.
Right, if you haven't left a will, if you haven't left people in charge, You know, we do see property just sit, right? That's that, like Joe was kind of alluding to this: like the government's not going to inherit your property, but if there's no one paying your tax bill after you're gone on your property, then there'll be a tax lien and the tax lien can get foreclosed upon. You know, you mentioned Medicaid, you can have different creditor liens that can attach to your property if no one's there managing it, taking you know, taking the effort.
So that that's usually how that kind of stuff happens. Where the government ends up just foreclosing on a tax lien. But yeah, you would have to have no heirs, no cousins. Um for things to we call it as cheat.
So, if you died and someone opened up an estate, but no heirs could be located, eventually things would start. is cheating, forfeiting to the To the state, but it's very rare that that happens. Super rare. But with real property, we see that a lot where someone dies and then no one. Takes control of their real property, the house where they lived, and taxes don't get paid for a couple years, and then eventually the county will foreclose.
Um But but no no in this situation Uh the the person asking the question has an immediate family. And so You really don't have to do anything in that situation. The government's not really going to come into play as long as. You know, you've got a spouse or kids that are surviving you who want. Your assets, right?
Who are going to want your property when you pass away and take care of it? then there's no real threat there. There's nothing to be scared of in this question, I don't think, Joe. Yeah, I don't think I don't think you have anything to fear, my brother. I was just going to jump in and say we do have complimentary consults in and around estate planning with Whitaker and Hamer.
And if you've got questions about trust, obviously you can throw those in as well. The number to call is 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. And as Josh pointed out, if you're out driving around, just remember, you can always go to the website w.lawyer. That's wh.lawyer.
Easy to remember. And of course, all the information is there as well. The number again, 800-659-1186. These are complimentary consults. Or go to the website, wh.lawyer.
Yep. And like you said, Morgan, you know, we do a good job. Folks who call in from the radio show, me and Joe, we enjoy sitting down with folks. And a lot of them are knocking out their estate planning. They're updating it because they haven't done it since the kids were born, and now the kids are all out of college.
Um you know, or they're really concerned about providing for grandchildren. you know, they're at a different stage in life now and they want to make sure Their children are taken care of for sure, but a lot of folks want to make sure their grandchildren have a little nest egg or help with college or their first car or whatever it may be. But we tackle those things in these free estate planning consults, and me and Joe were not. We're not salesmen. We're not salespeople.
So we're not trying to shoehorn you into an estate plan you don't need. We're going to talk to you about what you're trying to get done. and and give you our our best advice based on our Years of experience and kind of go from there. And so we'll never surprise you. It's not a high-pressure sales tactic.
We'll just talk about. You know, again, what your goals are. Joe, I think you approach it kind of the same way. The exact same way, man. No, the literal least amount of pressure possible.
I will wear gym shorts and a tank top if it can make you feel more comfortable. Yeah, that makes you feel more comfortable. I'll put on one of those. No, no, no, no, that makes you feel better. Yeah, we'll have Crocs.
And um yeah, low pressure, man. It's a it's it's a conversation, right? And it's i a lot of people get a lot of people get funny talking about When I die, it's a morbid conversation. But again, it's a conversation that you have to have. Like, it's just.
If you don't have it, you're gonna end up in a scenario where It could be mayhem after you're gone. And so make it easier on the folks you leave behind. That's my advice to you. Joe, I was just going to jump in. We have conversations like this in and around the finance shows that I do when I'm not doing Judica County, and it's so true.
So, money is a big issue. People don't want to talk about their finance. People don't want to talk about their death. But you really do need to plan for it. And once you do, it's like a weight has been lifted.
And we're talking about things that you can be proactive with that will take that kind of stress off your life. Yeah, and that's right, Morgan. And being proactive is. It can take stress off of your own life because it can give you some peace of mind to know that you're not going to have all these things. Your kids, the folks you leave things to, they're going to have less stress.
So it that stress doesn't get get any better from inaction. You have to take action. And it's not a complicated thing to come in and sit down and talk to us. And it's I think the point we're trying to make, Josh, is it's not as daunting as you may think it is. I think we do a good job of making it easy and And it is like I said, it's free console.
You can come talk to us and decide you don't want to do anything. Or decide that you think you're good and you can disagree with us and you can leave. We won't hold you there. Yeah, we can't we legally can't hold you there. That would be illegal.
We've done a lot of research and apparently we cannot. Hold you hostage in our office. That's what we call that. To find out. We call that no obligation.
And again, you can walk. You're not agreeing to become a client. They're not agreeing to take you as a client. This is a complimentary consult. Again, the number to call is 800-659-1186.
Come in, ask questions about estate planning, a trust, 800-659-1186. Again, these are complimentary. And we want to remind you, too, that the website's a great resource, wh.lawyer. That's wh.lawyer. That can get you all the information you need.
Another edition of Judica County Radio is in the books for Josh and Joe. I'm Morgan. We will see you 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 this show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at jmw at mwhlaw.lawyer.
