Legal Questions on Judica County Radio

Welcome into another edition of Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. And we are getting into listener questions. Don't go anywhere. Listener questions coming up next: Judica County Radio.

Whitaker and Hamer present Judica County. with Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hayman. Welcome in to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, 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 placed offices convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verina, Gastonia, and down at the coast at Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. We get into all kinds of different topics. And today we're doing listener questions, but as always, we jump in.

Josh, we'll start with you. How was the week and what's on the plate? Uh Uh today I all I can think about is football, Morgan. High school football, college football. Pro football.

It's all football. I'm the same. Yeah. I know Joseph never thinks about football. I like football, man.

I do. I'm a big, big fan of the football. I'm. I'm not quite You know, I'm getting there. We got our fantasy football draft tonight.

That's That's a thing. That's getting me in the seasonal mood. Juices are flowing. Juices are flowing. I agree.

I'll be where you are, Josh, but we're still. You know, give me another week or so. We're still in the thick of the NFL preseason. Hard, you know. It's a warm-up.

It's like an appetizer, right? And I'm eating the appetizer right now. I'm not into the main course, but I'm getting there.

So I will be where you are, but I'm easing into it. Growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, I was always basketball first. I played basketball. I didn't play football. And so I always look forward to college basketball season.

And football was awesome, but it was definitely secondary for me. And now that I got two kids playing football and, you know, they're football crazy. It's just, I think football has just taken over. I think it's just. It's the best season right now.

Are you a yell in the from the stands at everyone parent? Do you get do you get real no.

So as as you know, Joseph, I used to coach basketball, youth basketball for A very even kill, very, very calm demeanor. I don't remember ever seeing you. get that worked up even a little bit. But I coached a lot of kids with a lot of parents. And even back then, this was what the late 90s, early 2000s.

I. did not like the parents You know, there's some parents that just were like super aggressive. You know? It's all right to cheer for your kid. It's all right to support your kid.

And, you know, I can even take you yelling at your kid, but there's it got out of hand, I think, at some point in the early 2000s. It kicked up a notch. And as a result, I make no noise at games. I'm completely silent at my kids' games. Like, I'll go talk to them or catch them when they're coming off the field or going on the field, but just polite clapping is all I can, all I do.

Yeah, you're kind of Bill Bella checking it. Is that what you're doing? Just kind of the, you know, you got the cutoff hoodie, and you just kind of make the grimace. You were very stoic as a coach, too, man. Like, I can see, I see that.

That makes perfect sense to me. I got to ask a question, Josh. In the post-game presser with the parents, how do you handle that? I mean, they're coming up to you, they're asking questions. Let's say it's after a tough loss.

How do you handle that? Kind of give us a picture of what that's like as a coach. Are you going to bella check it and just say, next question?

Well, luckily, when I coached, there was absolutely nothing on the line. It was completely for fun. The lowest stakes.

So I didn't, yeah.

So there wasn't a lot of people. He coached in a different era, though, man. You know, these days, I think even there is no low stakes for some of these parents, man. It's like we could have something. You know, my kids play in the private school league, and we go to some of these schools, and I can't.

Believe how some of the parents Act. You know, they have cops at these games, and the cops will have to embarrass. It's embarrassing. Yeah. I mean, we've had parents almost kicked out of games on our side.

I remember, man, we had, I remember back in our day, back when I was one of your pupils, one of the basketball players under your tutelage. I remember some games. Not our parents. We had very well-behaved parents, obviously, man. You drafted based on character, your kids.

And those came from good stock. But I definitely remember. Just being in the gym, man, and some real riled-up parents, man, getting out of the outside. Super duper riled up, man. I coached my kids at younger ages, and Just just can't believe you're one of those parents and you're listening like.

Everybody's really embarrassed for Don't threaten the referees. That's hard right now to get refs. A lot of people won't. Won't even ref anymore because they get so verbally abused at like middle school JV basketball games, you know. I can tell you, man, as a member of an adult 35-and-up men's basketball league, it doesn't get any better.

There's a lot of verbal abuse from adults to those referees as well, man. God bless the referees, man. You can't play without the referees. I think that might actually be tougher than refing for the kids, man. We saw some real verbal abuse to these poor refs, man.

I really sympathize with them. If I was a ref man, if I was a ref, I've ref some, I had to ref some games, but if I was like a ref and that's what I did, and that's you know, I would throw people out. I'd be the ref who threw people out constantly. I was going to say, have a quick trigger. That'll end whatever's going on, especially if you get the reputation.

People aren't going to do that if you're refing that game. Oh, that's that's Josh. He's going to throw me out. He's going to throw me out for an ugly look. I'm going to keep it clean.

But there's no security in those games either.

So if you throw someone out and they just don't leave, the ref's not going to do it, you know? Yeah. Yeah, you're out of here. You can still carry. I don't know.

I mean, I joke, but I mean, people are. Man, they are wired. I mean, it's like they're on edge, and you gotta watch that stuff. Everybody needs to calm down, group hug, you know. I get internally fired up at my my kid.

He plays hockey. Good, good kid, man. He's really but like if he's not giving it a hundred percent internally, I get real bothered by that. You know, that's not I don't let that manifest. You know, I just internalize that.

And uh And and it's it's yeah, so I think I'm in between you and the crazy parents, Josh. I think I'm somewhere closer to you on the sliding scale than the crazy folks. But that's it, man. The hockey parents, too, man, I've seen. Uh yeah, they they get real fired up, man.

Real fired up. I'm probably too quiet. I'm probably too quiet, too stoic. I should probably show a little bit more emotion, but I'm traumatized by the things that I've seen in the past. You've been in the trenches, man.

So.

Well, today we got more listener questions. We have, I like to do these, and these are questions that we get asked in kind of our day-to-day. Me and Joe are the partners over here at Whitaker and Hamer. And so we meet with a lot of people about a lot of different things. And And today, I get asked this question once a day.

I'll just be eating tacos somewhere, and somebody asked me this question. But you get a ticket, officer pulls you, you get some speeding ticket, some kind of violation. I get that question. People just want to pay the ticket, right? On the back, it gives you the option to pay your penalty, your fees, your court cost.

And a lot of people just want to write a check and mail that in. And we're going to tell you why you should never do that. That should never be an option. Don't ever do that for any reason. We're going to talk about that.

That's a question we get a lot. We get it. We do. We handle a lot of personal injury at the firm. Personal injury is what attorneys call like car accident cases, negligence cases.

And I want to talk about the timing of that a little bit. We've talked about personal injury cases on the show before. Those, a lot of attorneys who handle personal injury cases do the ads where they're standing on tractor trailers or. Uh You know, have celebrities telling you about their firm. But there's some timing issues with a personal injury case that I think a lot of people don't, maybe, don't understand.

And so I wanted to talk a little bit about that. And then our last listener question is going to be an old favorite talking about warranty deeds and quick claim deeds, kind of in the real property arena. Um But that's going to be, and then we'll have some other stuff. But that's the big three today. And, Josh, if you would just kind of go over the complementary consult estate planning, what that includes.

Yeah, so as always, Morgan, when we come back from breaks, we're going to break, he's going to be talking about free consults. And so, if you give us a call, these are estate planning consults.

So, if you're ready for a will, you need a POA, you want to talk to us about trust, if you give us a call, we're going to set you up with a free consult to talk to one of our estate planning attorneys about estate planning. All right, there you go. We've got the consults available for you. The number to call is 919-772-7000. That'll get you in the queue: 919-772-7000.

You can also go to the website wh.lawyer. That's wh.lawyer. It's a complimentary consult in and around estate planning. Get your affairs in order, and you can do that complimentary style with that first meeting. 919-772-7000.

That's 919-772-7000. Or go to the website, wh.lawyer. We've got more Judica County with listener questions coming up next. Welcome back, Judica County Radio. You're locked in.

Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. They're the managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, right here in North Carolina, where they practice law. Offices are located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuque, Verena, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City to serve you. If you have an opportunity, you feel like you need to get started on your estate plan or maybe have your estate plan looked at, you have a complimentary consult available simply by calling the firm 919-77270000. That's 919-77270000.

You can also hit the website, wh.lawyer. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to jump on. The attorneys are now going to get into listener questions. Josh, take it away.

So, no matter where I'm at, no matter where I go, party. Kids stuff. Out to eat. People always recognize you from the radio show. They do.

They ask for an autograph. That's the good thing about radio. People don't really know what you look like, so you just kind of. Move around, you know. No one hear that guy from that number one top national radio show.

Yeah, Pavlov's dog, man. You hear the voice, you start salivating, that's what happens. A lot when I'm out and start talking, people just start drooling. We talked about this. It even happens when you're in law school when you can't even give legal advice.

You're not a lawyer yet. If anybody you know gets any kind of ticket. Right. Yeah. Speeding ticket, careless and reckless.

Any kind of ticket, failure to yield. They call you, right? That's uh, because a lot of people get tickets. That's why a lot of people have to contact attorneys. Um, And I'm here to tell you.

Never. any reason. Just pay a ticket. Right, the officer who's giving you a ticket, he's going to tell you there's instructions on the back. You can just mail in a check.

You don't have to show up for court. It sounds great.

Sounds easy. Nobody wants to have to take a day off work to go to court. But if you pay the ticket, you're getting driver's license points. Let's say you're 17 over. the speed limit, you get a ticket, officer says, hey, you can just mail a check in.

You mail a check-in, you're getting three points on your license. That's what they don't tell you. It's an automatic three points on your license. And that'll make your drivers that'll make your insurance go up. Of course, you can only get so many points on your license before they take it away.

That's three points automatically.

So never. Never, never. Pay a ticket. Yeah, I think the moral of the story, just boiling it down to its simplest form, is. You know, you get a ticket and and ultimately You know, depending on what your driving history looks like, like if you've got enough issues, you know, that could be a A real issue for you in terms of potential restrictions on your license, losing your license.

So let's just say it's just a straight-up speeding ticket. Generally, you got to look at that. It's just going to be a it's going to be a financial question, right? Like, what's the cheapest route? If you're looking at it from just a purely financial standpoint, Some folks may think, well, I just pay the ticket, right?

I just pay the ticket. that's cheap, probably cheaper than hiring an attorney, which which ironically enough is is is isn't always going to be the case, you know. But it's like you said, man, you're there's un a lot of time there's unforeseen consequences. The the the main one being Insurance increases that are going to hit you. That's not something that's readily apparent on the face of it that you may not think about.

But that's going to be. a whole lot more costly than having the ticket disposed of in some other way, which there's tons of ways, depending on what county you're in, you know, there's all kinds of ways that your attorney can can re can negotiate a reduced charge to to make it the least financially burdensome for you. Yeah, and just to clarify, Josh, you you said never pay a ticket. Never pay a ticket on the spot. You never mail it in.

Right. Yeah, never mail it in. Don't and don't walk it in. Don't just pay it without going to court or consulting someone or going to court yourself. Exactly.

That's right.

Now that applies for moving violations, right? A seatbelt ticket, you know, if you get a if you get a seatbelt ticket or you get some kind of non moving violation that isn't going to impact your license and get you points, then that may be a different conversation. But That's still a thing that, generally speaking, you're going to want to talk to an attorney about to make sure you understand. I spent a lot of time in Raleigh, and there was a lot of confusion when Raleigh decided to do the red light cameras. And so people are getting these these uh Running a red light, tickets, failure to You know, stop at a red light.

But if it's a camera ticket, Those don't usually affect your driver's license. You know, that's just, you know. You pay it and you get on with your life. If an officer gives you, if you get pulled over and an officer gives you a running a red light ticket, then that's different. That's going to have a court date.

You need that could be, that could result in points. But I know the camera tickets, you know, in cities and towns that have the red light cameras, that trips people up sometimes. But yeah, if you run a stop sign, you run a red light, these moving violations, speeding tickets, you know, and the officer's giving you a ticket, the ticket will have a court date on it. Um, you want to talk to an attorney because, like Joe said, every county is different, right? Traffic court is district court, it's county specific, so it's wherever you got the ticket, right?

So, if you're driving county-specific, yeah, and some like Harnick County, like it was let's use the example, you got a 17-over. Right, you got a 17-over speeding ticket. The resolution, and you got a clean record. The resolution is going to change from Harnett to Johnston to Wake to Chatham to Granville.

Some counties, if you got a clean record, they may give you, I know people have heard of improper equipment, which lets you plead to let you have to pay court costs, but you don't get any points, right?

Some people know that every couple of years, the NC State law allows you to get a nine-over speeding without penalty, without points. And so some counties would reduce that with maybe some traffic school to a nine-over, so you don't have any points. You're still paying court costs. Court costs are hard to get out of, you're going to pay court costs. Um Some counties won't reduce a 17 over below 15, and you have to do some traffic school and use a prayer for judgment continued a PJC.

That comes up a lot. But but traffic tickets are all about having an attorney Who's familiar with that county to get you the best? That was going to be my question, Josh. If you are outside your home county and you get a ticket, is it smart to vet attorneys in the county that deal with that situation? And do you go through maybe, if you have an attorney relationship in your home county, are they kind of connected?

Can you get in touch with your own attorney and say, look, do you know somebody in whatever county? Who should I go with? Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Practically, there's a lot of attorneys who dedicate their practice to traffic law. And what you're going to see with a lot of the attorneys that do a ton of traffic law, they're going to have a very heavy marketing presence.

And so if you've ever gotten a ticket before in your life, you know one of the first things that's going to happen is you're going to get bombarded With ad letters from folks. And a lot of times, if you're in a random county, that that you're just driving through on the other corner of the state. We're happy to try to help find someone for you if you're one of our clients and try to work that out for you. But it's not a terrible idea. Uh to to To take a look at whatever mail-ins you get, find someone that looks the most reputable, do some due diligence, hit them up on the Google, see how legit they are.

But a lot of times, the folks that you're getting those mailings for are going to be the folks who are in the courtroom every day and have the most relevant experience to help you out the best, honestly. Yeah, you know, when we drive up to New York a lot or drive down to Florida, you know, some states are better than others, but you know, you get a speeding ticket in Virginia. Virginia. Has a reputation. I don't practice in Virginia, but anytime I've gotten a speeding ticket in Virginia, They've been a little harder to deal with North Carolina.

So, not only is every county different, every state's different, but whatever points you get from that ticket. You know, it doesn't matter where you're at, that's going to affect your North Carolina driver's license. And so, you know, you can only have so many points.

So it's. It's all fun in games until you get like six or nine points on your driver's license, and then you're then you're sweating bullets. And it's no longer fun in games at that point. Usually, most counties have there's their state laws or there's policies where they don't want to throw the Hamer at you for your first speeding ticket or your second speeding ticket. And if you get a moving violation and insurance is involved, sometimes you can get those tickets thrown out.

Expired registration, as long as you get the stuff fixed, you can get that thrown out. You know, so you don't want to just start paying tickets and hoping you don't get another one. You want to. Handle each ticket the best, most least damaging way that you can. And so I had somebody the other day who I knew.

Who could have asked me a question at any time on the phone or texted me, and I'd have just told them, they paid a ticket. And they were only contacting me because they got a second ticket. And they were like, oh, I just got one. I feel like I should talk to you. I was like, you should have talked to me on the first one.

Luckily, there's things you can do after the fact too. Attorneys can file motions for appropriate relief and try to get old tickets that you handled the wrong way corrected, but that's a little difficult. It's better to. It's a little more tricky and it's going to be a little more costly too. Yeah, that'll be a little more expensive.

That's going to be a little bit. The first time. But I get Satan. Another thing that's very important to touch on before we put a bow on this is do not just ignore the ticket completely. No, that's another gigantic no-no.

And that's the worst thing you can do. And what's going to happen is if you just ignore it, you put your head in the sand, you're going to get a failure to appear. And then eventually you're going to end up with a warrant for your arrest over a traffic ticket potentially. And lose your license. And lose your license.

So you can take a not that big of a deal situation and turn it into a very, very big deal. And a huge problem for you. We've seen that snowball. We've seen people come in with their driving record and be like, all right, well, you didn't appear on this ticket. Your driver's license got revoked.

Then you start getting driving while license revoked tickets, and it all just snowballs. And once that happens, it's very difficult to unwind and expensive. For an attorney to take the time to kind of work backwards and try to get everything taken care of.

So, yeah, ignoring it. As often is the case, ignoring it doesn't make it go away, and usually. Things don't just magically get better. Although, I guess it's happened before, but. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in that.

Well, and think about it. You guys have mentioned it, understanding that you may pay an attorney fee up front to help you through these situations, but what it may cost you on the back end if you don't, insurance creeping up, all these things. I mean, it really does add up.

So, very important to just do your due diligence if you are in this ticket scenario we're talking about. And as Josh and Joe have both said, you know, don't just mail it in. Get some attorney advice on that. All right, Judica County Radio. We're going to continue on the other side.

I want to remind you, too, we have complimentary consults in and around estate planning available with Whitaker and Hamer. All you've got to do is call 919-77270000. You're leaving the checkbook at home. See if you're on track for your estate plan. That's 919-77270000.

You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. We've got more listener questions coming up on the other side. You're listening to Judica County Radio. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, located right here in North Carolina, where they practice law. Offices located, Moorhead City, down on the coast, Gastonia, over near Charlotte, Fucquave Arena, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and right here in the Cap City, Raleigh, North Carolina, again, for your convenience.

And here on the program, it's always about helping out. We've got estate planning consults that are complimentary. You can call at any time, 919-772-7000. You've been thinking about the estate plan, you haven't gotten the ball rolling, maybe you've been kicking it down the road, the can we're talking about. You can get started on it complimentary.

Call 919-772-7000. Ask for a complimentary consult on estate planning. You can also go to website, W. for more information. Josh.

This listener in question was specifically about the kind of the timing of a personal injury case, right?

So, you know, personal injury we talked about is a negligence case. Basically, you're driving, somebody hits you, causes an accident, you're injured. Attorneys call that personal injury. And, and, You know, personal injury cases usually take some time to resolve. you know you get you get injured let's just say let's say uh joe's driving down the road he gets t-boned and uh somebody hits him on the driver's side they run a they run a they run a stop sign Just a broken leg.

Just a imaginary broken leg. And I can fuck that. Yeah, yeah. Goes to a law firm and says, Hey, I need representation. Because what's going to happen is the guy who caused the accident, who ran the stop sign, is going, his insurance company is going to reach out to Joseph.

And say, hey, we want to know what happened. We want your medical records. We want to take a look at your car. And then they're gonna eventually make him some kind of offer. To settle the case, right?

And maybe Joe's not even had surgery on his broken leg yet. They're going to try to make some offers to get him to settle as early and as cheaply as possible. And so if Joe Comes to me and says, Josh, I want you to represent me on this personal injury. One thing we're going to do is we're going to shut that insurance company down. We're not going to share information with that insurance company until Joe.

is better. Right. We're going to let Joe get his surgery, go through his physical therapy, and then kind of see where he's at, see how he heals. And we'll kind of wait till he gets to 100%.

So we know a couple of things. We know all of his damages. We know what doctors he went to, the x-ray bills, the ambulance bills. We have all the bills. We know how Joe's been damaged.

We know how much work he's had to miss. We get a really good picture of his damages, and once he's better, so let's say it takes Joe six to eight months to recover from that broken leg. That's when we're going to go to the insurance company and be like, all right. Your insured caused this accident, caused Joe this harm. He's been damaged this much.

This is his pain and suffering. This is what we want. In our experience as attorneys who have handled these matters for 20 years, this is what Joe we think he's entitled to. And so we kind of set the bar for what the insurance company is going to do. And they may agree with us, they may disagree with us, there's some negotiation.

If that doesn't work out, then we're filing a lawsuit. But some of these personal injury cases take a while to figure out if, in Joe's example, let's say the. Surgery didn't go well. He has to get his leg rebroken and reset, and more physical therapy.

Some of these things, it goes like two, two and a half years before you figure out. Hey are you? Are you going to have this problem the rest of your life? Do we need to talk about future medicals as damages? Or are you going to get back to 100%?

We can kind of put. A finite estimate on your damages. And so, personal injury cases are not something, you know, we talked about traffic tickets in the last segment. Traffic tickets, you're going to get wrapped up in 30 to 90 days. Like, there's going to be.

A court date. Your attorney is going to get it fixed, sends you a letter: hey, this is what we did. It's all done. File it away in case you need it. But personal injury cases can go on.

You know, we have personal injury cases wherein you're. Four and five, you know, and three years is the important thing, right? Because that's.

Well, Joseph, you see that you know, that's the statute of limitations.

Some people don't always know what that is. Yeah, you got, I mean, for essentially any legal matter, there's going to be a statute of limitations during which you have to bring a claim. And so, that you know, you touched on a lot of good stuff there. I didn't love the rebreaking my leg part of the hypothetical, I thought that was a little excessive, but it does illustrate a good point. And I think at the heart of all of this discussion is the fact that you know, ultimately, it's a financial question, right?

You know, we have to quantify your damages ultimately. And The insurance companies and a judge, who whoever you're in front of, that that's going to be looking at this matter, you got to have a starting point. You got to have a basis uh from which you base your claim and Cold, hard monetary expenditure is the best starting place. And that's not to say that we're not going to factor in your pain and suffering. There's not going to be some intangible things that we're going to use to kind of modify what the amount is.

But ultimately, we got to have a dollar amount that we start from. And this is what your loss is. And this is the thing that. It really kills a lot of potential claims for folks. And this applies to personal injury and it applies to other elements of just general civil litigation.

And it's what are you going to recover if you pursue this, right? And so we got a lot of folks who we talk to regularly who have super valid claims. They're very upset. They could have a. justifiable legal cause of action to pursue.

But if they've got no damages, if you've got no damages, then a lot of times we're going to advise against pursuing anything because. Getting a judgment. And knowing that you're right and having that vindication, there is some value to that. But if there's no monetary value underlying it, then. What's it worth to you?

Or how much are you willing to pay to pursue this thing when you're going to recover nothing other than the satisfaction of knowing that you're right?

So, you know, it's very important with a personal injury case that you know exactly what the amount of your damage is going to be. And like you said, Josh, you don't want to... You don't want to jump the gun on that. And that's why these things often take a lot of time because we need to make sure that you've completed all of your treatment, that there's going to be no residual impact that we can't account for. And we want to make sure that we are asking for the maximum amount of money that we possibly can to make you whole in this situation.

And so it's important to keep that in mind and to be patient. I remember I had a personal injury consult with someone, and they came in. They had been in a really bad, it was a really bad accident. Cars looked. Bad.

I think maybe a tractor trailer was involved. I mean, it was a bad-looking accident. And miraculously, they walked away without a scratch. You know, they just got out of the car. They were fine.

The car's total, right? That's property damage. And that the insurance company was responsible for the property damage.

So there's some arguing there to figure out what that vehicle was worth. But they had no, they didn't go to the hospital. You know, maybe they had a little neck soreness afterwards, but miraculously. They were fine. Which is great, right?

That's, I mean, that's awesome when that happens, right? But from a personal injury case standpoint, your case is worthless, right? Because you don't have any damages. They were like, well, I could have been hurt, you know, I could have been killed, you know, or it was very traumatic. And there's, there's some argument, there's, there's value there.

Um, But yeah, you walk away from an accident, you've been inconvenienced, maybe you missed some work. Of course, you're going to have to find a new vehicle. And it all needs to be dealt with. But from a personal injury standpoint, if you didn't have to go to the hospital, if you didn't have, you know, you don't have any diagnosed injuries, then your personal injury case is not worth very much because you didn't have any personal injury style damages. And so, yeah, great result for you personally in your life.

Bad result for your potential personal injury claim. And one of the trickiest things we see, man, and one of the most difficult and Tough conversations to have sometimes is the situation where you got an accident and you're dealing purely. Purely with property damage. And the reason that's difficult. from a client perspective, is a a personal injury case Generally, an attorney's going to take that on a contingent basis, meaning that You're not going to have to come out of pocket and pay attorney's fees up front.

Your attorney is kind of, you know, you guys are kind of married to the result in the sense that your attorney is only going to recover in the event that you're going to recover, and they're going to recover a percentage of that. And that's the way that this functions.

So you're not looking at a scenario where you're having to come out of pocket. But when you're dealing with strictly. Damage to personal property, that's a trickier proposition. And in those situations, aren't necessarily going to work on that same structure.

So it can be a little bit trickier because you you may have to come out of pocket to pursue your very valid claim. And that's just an unfortunate that's just the nature of how it works. Yeah, I like to do that. And anytime we sit down with anybody, we're talking about personal injury now. We talked about traffic tickets, but estate planning, civil litigation, real estate trans anytime I'm talking with anybody, I really try to give them A timeline.

And, you know, as attorneys, we can't guarantee anything because a lot of it we don't control. We don't control how fast the court moves. We can't control what a judge or a jury is going to do all, you know, or how fast an insurance company is going to settle. All we can do is just based on our experience, give you a timeline. I don't like people to, I don't like surprising people.

I don't like, you know, I can be very impatient too. I don't like when people get impatient with us. Or, so I try to tell everybody, whatever you talk to me about, this is, this is about how long it's going to take. It might take longer. It might end up taking less, but here's a good average amount of time it's going to take to resolve your case.

And I think when people understand that on the front end, It makes everything a little easier to tolerate because usually, if you've sustained a significant injury, your life has changed. Your income has changed. There's bills, medical bills, collection agencies calling.

So it's a difficult situation. And we've learned over time how to be the most helpful. To those clients that we can be. But I think being honest with people, you know, right out of the gate, you know, there is no. There's not a quick fix here.

This is what's going to have to happen. This is what you stand to gain. This is what you stand to lose. And giving people that information is the best way to go. Yeah, it's a process, and certainly having guidance during that process is vital.

Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, Managing Partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, Practicing Attorneys here in North Carolina are your hosts. They have placed offices for your convenience all over the state: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Feque Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. During the course of the show, obviously, we have complimentary consults in and around estate planning. If you've got questions about an estate plan, you can certainly grab one. 919-772-7000.

Again, they're complimentary. You're not agreeing to become a client. This is an opportunity for you. 919-772-7000. You can also check out the website, wh.lawyer.

That's wh.lawyer. We've got more listener questions coming up after the break. We are back on Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm here in North Carolina. They're practicing attorneys here.

They've got offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuque, Verena, Gastonia, and down at the coast, Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. We are in the middle of listener questions, and we're about to talk about warranty deed versus quick claim deed. That's coming up.

We want to remind you, too, there are complimentary consults on estate planning. If you don't have an estate plan or you're thinking about it, this is an opportunity to get the ball rolling at no cost and no obligation. Grab one of the consults by calling 919-772-7000. That's 919-7727000. You can also Visit the website wh.lawyer and find out more information there.

WH.LAWYER. Josh. All right, so far today we've talked about traffic law. We've talked about personal injury, kind of car accident negligence law. And then this is an old classic me and Joe.

I've talked about this before, but I just get this question so often. Um. You know, we're talking about deeds, right?

So when you buy property, You buy a new house, you buy land, you buy a condo. In North Carolina, your seller is going to give you a deed that basically gets recorded and shows that they owned it. They've signed it over to you.

Now it's your property. And that's a deed. You get the original.

Some people put it in their safety deposit box or their fire box. You get the original deed, but it's been recorded downtown at the register deeds office. And there's different types of deeds. And we're starting to see some builders, you know, for different types of things, you can use a different type of deed. The gold standard.

The deed that you want to get your property is a general warranty deed. Um and so that's kind of the that's kind of the base, uh I would say, Joseph. Yeah, so the the j a general warranty deed is is I like that, man. It's the gold standard. It's the award-winning pig at the state fair.

That's the one. And basically, with a with a general warranty deed, your seller is going to warrant in the simplest terms, that it it has good, marketable, clear title and it's conveying that title to you, and that it is willing to warrant and defend the fact that it that that is what it's giving you.

So they're giving you some guarantees That you can fall back on in the event that it turns out that's not actually what you've received. You know, they are making some affirmative statements about the nature of their title, and they're willing to step up and defend that in the event that things go south for you.

So, like you said, that's really the gold standard. That's what you're looking for. if at all possible in a closing transaction. Yes, and that's going to be the standard. You know, if you've got real estate agents and they're using the standard offer-to-purchase contract, usually a general warranty deed is what's required in those contracts.

And, like Joe said, if something you get there and you find out someone has a claim to your back two acres or someone has an easement over your property you weren't aware of that's causing you damage, that general warranty deed is what allows you to sue. The person who sold you the property and didn't disclose this information. That's uh, so those are, those are, those are warranties. And, um, There's several different ones. We don't have to get into them, but a general warranty deed has all of those warranties.

Now, We have noticed over the past 10, 15 years, a lot of builders, a lot of developers, if you're buying what we call new construction, right, a newly built house, and you're buying it straight from the builder. A lot of builders don't want to give you a general warranty deed, they don't want that liability. And so that's kind of a special warranty deed kind of is used sometimes. And Joseph, you see that. Yeah, we we see it a good amount and A special warranty deed is gonna be it's it's you're still getting some warranties from the seller, but they can pick and choose what they want to offer.

So they may come in and accept some things out and specifically remove some warranties that you would get otherwise with a general warranty deed. There may be certain Certain things that they've noted on title that they don't want to have to step up and defend if things go south. But they're kind of trying to limit their liability in the future. And. You know We're talking about this, right?

And anytime you're purchasing property, it's ultimately it's a negotiation. And you can ask for certain things, the seller can ask for certain things. You guys come to an agreement, you sign a contract that stipulates how the deal is going to go down.

So.

You You've got the right to request, hey, I want a general warranty deed. But in my experience, especially dealing with a lot of these bigger builders, these national builders, you know, they've got their contract. They've got their terms that they're willing to agree to. And a lot of times, they're just going to tell you to kick rocks if you make that request. And they're going to stick to their guns and they're going to say, hey, if you're not good with a special warranty D, then, you know, no worries.

We're not going to sign a contract. You can't buy this property, basically.

So you've got some leeway to ask for it. But. A special warranty deed isn't the end of the world, right? Like, that's not to say that you're getting screwed over or that a builder's even trying to do anything dishonest. It's just a lot of these folks are going this route, like you said, Josh, just to kind of limit exposure, which there's a low likelihood of any exposure for them there.

But they're building so much property, they don't want to take that risk. Yeah, I like that.

So if I'm buying, like if I was buying, if Joe was selling his house and I was buying Joe's house, if I was just buying from a normal average person, a third party, I would expect to receive Title via A general warranty deed. I would not accept a special warranty deed from Joseph in that situation. If I was. Buying a house from a builder, I think you have to be prepared that you may just get a special warranty deed. The likelihood that this really affects anything down the road is very slim.

But I. Yeah, it's not anything to lose sleep over. Or, you know, if you really, if you really like a house, it's not anything to make you not look at that house further. But if I was buying from a builder, a special warranty deed would. Would be Acceptable in most cases.

And then the, you know, the other one that you hear people, some people call it by the wrong name, right? It's a quick claim deed.

Sometimes you hear people call them quick. Claim, but it's a quick claim deed, and that deed has no warranties, right? Right, Joseph, that's. Yeah, so a quick claim deed is basically: I'm giving you whatever interest I have in this property. I'm not telling you I've got good title.

I'm not telling you that I own 100% interest or there's not some kind of crazy encumbrances on it. I'm just giving you what I got, and I'm making no representation as to what my ownership is. And you are accepting the risk of that. You're getting what I've got, warts and all. And you can't come back and look to me to correct anything.

I'm making no warranties.

So.

It you know, it kind of is what it is. Yeah, so a quick claim deed would never be used, and it shouldn't really be used in like a normal transaction where you're buying, where you're buying a house from a. A third party, or you're getting stuff from a builder, quick claims usually used to settle. matters, right?

So if you're getting divorced and your spouse is going to give you a quick claim deed for their part of the the residence, that's that's acceptable, right? They don't you don't really need warranties in that situation. You know, if um If a family inherited property and they're You know, everybody inherited one-eighth, they're trying to get all the property to one person. You know, a quick claim deed would be fine. You don't really need warranties in that situation.

But, um, You're not going to see a quick claim deed in your standard. Purchase transaction where you're buying a new home. But that's the difference between those, and that comes up a lot. Because a real estate transaction can be very simple or it can be very complicated. It's rarely in the middle.

You know, you either buy a house and it goes great, and there's no problems, there's no title defects, everybody works together well, and you get closed, or it's terrible, right? The attorney finds a title defect. Sellers got to make repairs. They don't get made on time. The lender's behind.

It seems to either all go great or all go bad for folks. But. Okay. Anyway, yeah, that's general warranty deed versus a special warranty deed versus a quick claim deed. All different ways you can take title.

But that question comes up a lot of different ways, a lot of times a year. Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer handling listener questions. Again, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Again, warranty deed versus quick claim deed, the latest. We're going to come back on the other side of the break and wrap up the program.

I want to remind you that during the course of the show, we have complimentary consults on estate planning. To grab one, again, no cost, no obligation, just dial 919-7727000. Call us up, 919-77270000, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will line up one of those complimentary consults. You can always check out the website as well, w.lawyer. That's wh.lawyer.

One more segment to go. We're back right after this. We are back on Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing lawyers here in North Carolina.

They're the managing partners of the firm. Check out the website, it's a great resource for you. wh.lawyer, that's wh.lawyer. Offices located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Rina, Castonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick.

My pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. We have complimentary consults on estate planning.

So, if you've got questions about estate planning, you've been thinking about it, haven't really gotten the ball rolling, this will certainly get you started in that direction. All you got to do is call 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000, and just say, Hey, I want one of those complimentary consults on estate planning. The attorneys will line you up. Again, you can also check out the website, w.lawyer.

Josh. You know, we were talking about football earlier, and you know, football's starting, and everybody's excited, but it's coming. I feel like There should be a national, two national days off added for football. And one is the day after the Super Bowl. Super Bowl being on Sunday night.

Everybody has to go to work Monday. We just need to give up. And call that Monday a national holiday. Name it after somebody else. Call it whatever you want.

Yeah, call it whatever you want to, but uh, no one, no one's really happy about going in Monday morning, even if you don't care about who's in the game or you even care about football. We just need a day off for that. And then we do, I think there should be a national day where everybody does their fantasy draft. This is the day you do your fantasy drafts. Then all the servers would blow up, right?

Yeah. We've got to get better servers to make that work. That's right.

I fully agree with you, man. Yeah. And it seems like somebody could easily make that Monday after the Super Bowl a national holiday. Because, like, I can't just say, hey, the firm's shut down, right? Because the courts are open.

If the courts are open, we're open. Our attorneys have to go to court. We can't phone it in.

So it's not up to me as a business owner, right? The government has to step in and make that kind of thing happen. Close the courts on. Monday after the Super Bowl. We really need everybody listening.

who has a vested interest in this to Get your pens and your paper. And draft a very heartfelt letter to your local Your local representative, don't do that, pushing for this change. I'd never, I never, I have no ambition to ever run for public office. It's not something I want to do, it's not something I can ever imagine myself doing, but if I did it. I would run on a very limited platform of like three things.

And one of those would be two of the things. That would be two of the things. The other would be getting rid of when the clock's falling back. What do you call that? When the clocks go ahead and fall back.

Daylight savings time. I think that's great, man. I think that'd work for you. We need more. But I will do nothing else.

That's my promise to you as an elected official. These things. I will literally do nothing else. I will do nothing else. I'm going to take it really easy the rest of my life.

Watch out, Josh. You're going to get written in. You're going to get written in on votes. You know, I'm not doing any campaigning. I will do these three things: compel our high water.

And then I'll just play fantasy football the rest of the year. Yeah, people will respect that, man. They'll know what they're getting from you. And I think there's a lot of value in that. There's no unknown, man.

You've made it crystal clear. These are the things I care about. Everything else, someone else will have to deal with. That's right.

You've got to have a day off. A National Fantasy Football Day, number two. Monday after Super Bowl, national holiday. Yeah. Nothing.

For nothing else. Yeah. Well, let's let our listeners know that this fantasy league that I have now joined, it's a different league, different style of league, but there are two new teams, and one of the new teams is a couple of your sons, Josh. And not only are they in the league, we have to show up a little bit early because we have to decide who's going to select first off the keeper list and explain to our listeners the very, very sophisticated way we are going to determine who gets the first and fourth pick and the second and third pick in that scenario. I should tell the listeners: if your attorneys invite you into a fantasy league, it will be very well run, very organized.

It'll have lots of rules and procedures. Yeah. And so to make it fair, To make it fair, you have to play seven points. Games of rock, paper, scissors with my children to see who wins and can pick their keeper first. I was going to do at first I was best of three man.

I was doing best of three and I was like, well, that's not fair. And then I thought about five. I was like, no one does best of five. And I was like, best of seven. That's what it is.

Yeah. That's going to be exciting, man. I'm looking forward to that more than I am. You might have to Facebook live that. Yeah, I might check out after that, you know, that's gonna be a hot point.

The age of your boys, Josh, real quickly. Mikey and Jake are the ones that are going to be playing. And see, Mikey's going he's a junior in high school, and so he's 16 and 13. 16 and 13. They're going to co-manage one of our expansion teams.

And you feel like they're capable of running the table and winning the league. Oh, yeah. Or they're a 29-year-old man if you put them together. That's true. That's a good point.

And they're going to draft on each other's shoulders. That's the way this works. They've got a tree-like style right there. Yeah. Howard?

A church coat and a fake cigar. And we're putting Mikey on top, man. Mikey's a big boy, man. We're going to make two carry him around all day. Yeah.

No, man, I think they're probably a dark horse favorite to win this thing. All right.

Well, they got something we don't have, and that's the luxury of. Free time and being young kids, man.

So I agree, man. They're dangerous. And I'm hoping that if they start doing too well, you'll just punish them, you know, maybe ground them and help us out in that way. Yeah, they're going to make their money on the waiver wires, my guess. But I'm going to start rehearsing my rock, paper, scissors.

Haven't played it in a number of years. And we can actually read it into Chat GPT and figure out what the best order to go in. That's awesome. I love that. We use it to solve a lot of issues around the house.

It's a go-to. As long as you don't use it in court, right? You don't, Your Honor, we'll rock, paper, scissors for this emotional. Yeah, that's going to be Josh's fourth item to add to his platform for the political office. We will solve all disputes with.

All the clients are like, what are they doing up there? What are they doing? Yeah. All right, guys.

Well, another edition of Judica County Radio is in the books. Want to remind you: there are complimentary consults with estate planning. You can call the firm and secure one right now, 919-77270000. That's 919-77270000. If you've been thinking about estate planning, haven't really gotten the ball rolling on it, this is a great opportunity for you.

If you have an estate plan, maybe you want somebody to take a look at it, this is a great way to do it too. Call 919-77270000. That's 919-777777777777. 772-7000. You can also visit the website wh.lawyer.

That's wh.lawyer. Another edition of Judica County is in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll 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.