Estate Planning: What You Need to Know

Coming up on Judica County Radio, your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Going to get into some questions. You've just lost somebody, a family member. What do you do? We'll get into those questions.

Probate, court process. We'll talk about that. Money, debt, and creditors, family conflict and disputes, real estate questions, also making the show today.

So we got a lot. Don't go anywhere. Judica County starts right now. Ha ha ha! Whitaker and Hamer presents.

Judica County. with Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hamer. Welcome in to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, and they practice law right here in the great state of North Carolina. They placed offices for your convenience all across our great state.

Moorhead City down at the coast, down near Charlotte and Gastonia. You got Fuquay Verena, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and of course, Cap City, Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to be on with the attorneys. If you've got a question you'd like the attorneys to Answer, go at in a future show.

Just send it to us: questions at Judica County Radio.com. That's questions at Judica County Radio. And we will have complimentary consults available on estate planning during the course of the show.

So stay tuned, and we'll let you know how you can get signed up for those.

Well, we get started. Josh, what's up? I just, you know, we're sitting here. We're sitting here in the studio and We're coming off the first weekend of the playoffs, the NFL playoffs, and I'm sad the Panthers didn't uh Couldn't make it happen. Had a good atmosphere.

Yeah. Me and Joseph watched that together. We were sad. It's your fault. Yeah.

Well, I will say this. Um and I know it's It's, you know, hindsight 20-20 or just the the compliments that come after a loss. doesn't really do much for you this season. But everybody that I've heard. He's talking about the future, the coaching, the players.

It looks like the franchise is set up. To play better football and be consistently in the postseason, which I think that's a nice tip of the cap if you're a Panther Fan Nation member. Much more uh A much more optimistic view of the future than Mm. you know, we've had recently, but I agree. Definitely Josh's fault.

We we were watching the game together as a unit. Inside of his very fancy bar, and things are going great. Panthers playing very well. And he decided to To get up and to walk outside. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.

So you're one of those. You're superstitious. You're superstitious about stuff.

Well, the whole team, you could see it affected the team, man. It really knocked them back.

So for clarification. At the bar. I have some double doors that you can open up, and you go kind of stand on the sidewalk and still see all the TVs and everything. It was a little hot.

So I opened the double doors and stepped out onto the sidewalk, still still viewing the T V. But Joseph says that's the that was it, man. That was the turning point. When I actually exited the building, even though I could still perfectly see the T V, still holding the same drink. But not physically being in the building.

It was your physical presence, man. I don't know that the Panthers lost the game when we were all physically present in that inside of the building for the duration of the game.

Well, if nothing else, we've learned an important lesson last year. We have. We know we're glued to our seats. Maybe we just camp out in the bar for the entire season. We've learned something about Joe's personality.

So if we flash forward 30 years and we're in a survivalist mode, don't leave the house if you're with Joe. No, man. And it's not, it's science. You know, it's just scientifically based findings. You know, you've done the research.

I've done the hard research, which was. Sitting in your bar watching you get up, and then the Panthers lost, and through the scientific method. I formed the conclusion that that's the reason why. That's what it was. Uh the um So the next day, you know, if you listen to the show, you know my my wife and my oldest son, they're big Bills fans, my wife being from Buffalo, and they were able to pull it off.

So that's so that was that was good for them, man. Good for them. Lucky for you to have two teams right now. The one thing though that I've you know watching watching uh watching h her and and the Bills fan club that she's created Josh Allen Josh Allen. The I tell you what, if the Panthers had Josh Allen, it'd been a different story.

I don't know, man. Have you seen Bryce Young before? No, I can't see him behind that offensive line. I think for Bryce Trunk, they need to start referring to him like with L I L in front, you know. Lil Bryce.

Little Bryce. Lil Bryce. Little Bryce. Like a rapper. That might help him, man.

Yeah. Give him some edge. Look, but he did much. He he's He did. He didn't get land.

He had a good playoff land. I thought he played very well. Um But I'm always a little jealous, you know, how the fans call themselves the Bills Mafia. That's like a cool name. You know, I'm a big Panthers fan, big NC State fan.

I guess NC State, we got the Wolf Pack, right? You're in the Wolf Pack. Yeah. But the Panthers just keep pounding, which I think has a just that's weird.

Well, it's it's from Sam Nills though. Yeah, rest is so I I like Sam. I mean I love Sam when he played. Um Yeah, we don't have a cool name like that that I need to work. We could work on that, though.

We could put it in the workshop. We could get our our uh Judith scientists working on what's a group of Panthers? Is that a is there a name for that? Panthemonium? Yeah.

We're going to keep workshop and we don't want to keep that one's not ready yet. I don't think it's quite ready. Yeah, I don't know. Panthers are solitary, right? They don't travel in packs or anything.

I don't know.

Well, we know they mate. We know they get together. They do mate. That is. We'll do a deep dive.

Yeah, we're working that out. We're working it out. Um Alright, for this week, for this week, what I wanted to do, we try to theme, it may not come across this way. But we do try to theme these shows and kind of concentrate on one kind of legal topic. And a lot of times we talk about estate planning because we offer, like Morgan says, we offer the free estate planning consults.

And this is a big time of year for folks to come to us and get their estate planning knocked out.

Sometimes we'll talk about personal injury, like really, like what happens if you're in a car accident, what do you need to do? You know, sometimes we'll talk about business law, LLCs, corporations. You know, we try to mix it up and give some good general. Knowledge to folks who may listen in to us. And today, we're going to kind of concentrate our listener questions on.

Estate administration, right?

So, this is when you have a loved one, your parent, your spouse. Your sibling, somebody has died. And In death, we're gonna go look at their: do they have a will? Do they not have a will? What are some steps?

To kind of some first steps to take when someone you love that you're gonna be a fiduciary for. Has kind of passed away. And so, Morgan, that's kind of our. That's kind of our goal today is to kind of get through some kind of basic questions on on estate administration, estate probate.

Okay.

Well, we've got a lot of questions to get to. We'll do that. Just checked. Panthers are solitary. You are correct, Josh.

They don't move around in a herd or a pack.

So we need to kind of create something. It's going to change the mascot. Yeah, maybe. That might be the easiest pass. Probably the easiest, yeah.

Yeah, because I mean the last time I checked the last time I checked, 11 versus 1 doesn't turn out very well. And if you're solitary, maybe we need to find a A group, a pack animal that we've solved the riddle of what's wrong with Panthers, man. All right, Judica County Radio is going to roll on on the other side again. We've got some questions coming at you, and stay tuned. We also have those complimentary consults when it comes to estate planning.

Call our number 919-77270000. Sign up for one of those, 919-77270000. Just leave a message, contact information, they'll get back to you. Again, you can also visit the website wh.lawyer. Get signed up for one of those complimentary consults on estate planning.

We got more at Judica County Radio coming up. Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices placed convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verena, Gastonia, and down on the coast at Moorhead City.

I'm Morgan Patrick. Each and every week, it's all about legalese. We've got some questions today, and Josh, you're going to start it off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, this first set of listener questions all kind of come from.

You know, someone is someone has just passed away. You know, you've you've you've made arrangements, um And you you've got to figure out You gotta figure out what what to do next. Um And we meet with two or three people today on my calendar that are going through that. They've lost a parent. You know, a sibling, and they're the ones that are going to kind of be tasked.

with with handling the the estate. And I think for a lot of people, when this happens, and they haven't done it before, you know, Joseph, it can be a little bit overwhelming. Yeah, and that's a common You hear that a lot, man. We hear that a lot in estate planning consults, right? Like, folks come in and they sit down with you.

and they're fresh off. having to administer an estate for one of their loved ones has passed away. And one of the first things they tell you is, like, hey, I'm doing this now for my dad or my mom, and it's a nightmare. And. Um I it it's I don't want to have to go through.

I don't want my kids or whoever I'm leaving behind to have to go through this. And. It does not have to be a nightmare, and Um But I think a lot of times when this happens, you're so emotionally vulnerable. You're. the emotions, everything you're dealing with, it just kind of Multiplies the stress, and it just makes everything more difficult.

So it probably seems worse than it is for a lot of folks. But at the same time, if you're in a situation where someone's passed away and they've They've left you nothing, no no kinda help. No assistance, and you're having to pull everything together, and you're having to administer this estate. It can be a very. Daunting task.

Yeah, and hopefully, what's happened is: you know, let's say a parent has passed away. And um The hope is you know if they have an estate plan or not, right? You know if they have a will or not. They told you where the originals were were kept. Because that's the first thing you have to figure out.

The first thing you have to figure out is: hey, does this person who just passed away. Do they have an estate plan? If they do have a state plan, do I have copies? Do I have the originals? And so the hope is you already know that, right?

If you don't know that, that's step one: figuring that out. And if you if you don't already know Um You know, you can reach out to their attorney if they have an attorney.

Sometimes you're just going through their. Personal effects, right? You're going through their office, you're going through their lockbox, you're trying to figure out if there's a safety deposit box. And sometimes it's a little bit of a mystery if you don't already. No.

And that's one of the first things we tell folks, too, again, you know, tying this back to estate planning. Uh One of the things that we discuss with folks when we prepare their estate plan is that this estate plan is only as good as. your beneficiaries being able to find it. understanding you know what your intentions are and and the more Information you can arm them with and give them ahead of time and let them know that the better and easier it's going to be on everyone. when it comes down to to administer that plan.

Yeah, so you're gonna. Hopefully, you know the estate plan. That's part of, like, like Joe said, that's part of what we, you know, we send you away. If you come to us and you do an estate plan, we send you away with a binder with all the originals, and we send you away with an electronic copy. We tell you to forward it to your.

Your beneficiaries and the people who need to know this was done. And so, hopefully, that's what happened. If it didn't, you're going to be doing some hunting. To see if you can find one or if another family member knows about it or you know, kind of kind of going to be Nancy drewing it, right? To try to figure out like that.

Yeah, I try to figure out if there is one. But after you search, after you look. Um If you have one or you don't have a one, a will or an estate plan or a trust, if you know Uh you're eventually just going to have to open an estate, right? You know, if you The deceased, if they have like a trust or something like that, you'll probably want to consult with an attorney to see what your specific next steps would be. Um But if you've got a will or you don't have a will, eventually you're gonna have to go downtown to the clerk's office.

And you're gonna have to open up an estate. And so, um We kind of answered our first question already, Joseph, but the first listener question I had was. My mom just passed away, and I'm listed as an executor. What am I supposed to do first? Right?

So, my mom just passed away, I'm listed as an executor. What am I supposed to do first? And in this question, We've got some good news because if she's listed as executor, that means she has her mom had a will, and our question asker. Our listener has the will and knows, That she's listed as the executor.

So that's good news, Joe. That is good news, man. And just. I think it's kind of interesting, man, that you went Nancy Drew versus Hardy Boys there. I think that's kind of telling about you, what you're referencing.

That probably does, right? Yeah, pretty telling. But, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, correct, Josh. That's a good thing. If you know. That's half the battle, right? Knowing and understanding that this is, you know.

This is something that you're expected to do, that you're qualified to do by the documents, and knowing where those are. That's that's big. Wait. You said knowing's half the battle. You know what that made me think of.

Nancy Drew? No, no. G.I. Joe? G.I.

Joe. Yeah, I knew that. And it wasn't every G.I. Joe. At the end of.

Some G.I. Joe's. I would say one.

Some informational G.I. Joe's. Yeah, I'd say one out of 10 episodes of the cartoon G.I. Joe. They didn't want to run it into the ground, man, like we did estate planning on our show.

They wanted to space it out a little bit. I think that's a good idea for. I wonder if we could. I I wonder if we could uh create one of those using AI, uh Uh Knowing's half the battle for a state plan. Yeah, catchphrase type of thing there.

I like that. I like that. But I'll actually use the trademarked. G.I. Joe characters to do it.

Oh, yeah, we could do that for sure. There's no legal ramifications whatsoever, man. I'm sure. I'm sure we're more within our rights to do that. I'm sure one of these AI models could.

change what they're saying, you know, or What's the one you remember the most? You didn't grow watching G.I. Joe like I did. You're a little bit more. No, no, yeah, but the toys, the toys were still around.

No, I meant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it looked like a cartoon series for me. Yeah, yeah. It was a cartoon series.

I do know that. I know that. Johnny Quest for me, Josh. I mean, that was a little bit before your time. That was mid to late 60s.

Johnny Quest actually was a thing when I was coming up, too, because you had. The Cartoon Network showed it all the time. And there weren't many sh channels for a child to watch.

So I got a 70 quest. In the 70s, Hanna-Barbera made every cartoon you saw on TV. Yep, that was one of theirs. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

That was everything. But no, what I was actually asking, and we're all like slightly off ears-wise, where we don't share the exact same thing. But that's good. That is good, man. It gives us a lot of perspective.

Well, it's bad for my question that I was going to ask, which was. I mean, we would talk about The Simpsons every week. Yeah. I was gonna say, so the G.I. Joe, they had at the end of the every one out of every ten episodes, they had knowing half the battle, and then one of the G.I.

Joe guys would come out and they'd be talking to kids. And they'd be like The kids were doing something wrong, and they'd be like, Hey, this is wrong.

Now you know, knowing's half the battle. That was the point. It's a little 20-second thing they did, teaching moment. But I was going to say, which one do you remember the most out of all those segments that they did? Oh, yeah, and I know zero of them.

So you're going to have to share with us the one that you remember the most. There's two that are tied. One was Roadblock came out. And the kids were spray painting inside a garage. And he was like, if you're spray painting in a garage, you gotta open a window.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wait, is this vandalism or are they just painting? No, no, no, they were doing some kind of project in their garage. And Roadblock saw them somehow and came in there and like lifted the garage and was like.

No indoor spray painting. That was something they wanted kids to know about. I think that's very important. And that's some good wisdom, man. And sharing that with our children, listeners is also.

It's a good thing, man. All right, that was one. What was the other? The other one, I can't remember. I was just trying to remember it.

The other one had something to do with taking prescription drugs that weren't yours. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Prescription drugs before you spray paint in your garage. Right?

With the windows down. Yeah. But it's just like, you know, like these judge, like roadblock or uh Or, uh, you know, snake eyes, or somebody would be walking down the sidewalk and just see these kids about to get in trouble and be like, hey, kids.

Sounds like a cool group though. Roadblock, Snake Eyes, what other names do we have? It seems like a waste of highly qualified special operative soldiers to just be basically the commuter. Should they be murdering bad guys? It was a different time, man.

It was a different time. Who are the bad guys? The bad guys was Cobra. Cobra, yeah, okay. All right, all right.

I didn't want to say I was I was thinking Foot Clan. I was thinking uh yeah, you're turtles. Yeah, yeah, you're turtles. And you want to talk about ch Ninja Turtles. That was a big one.

That was. Yeah, see I just I like the turtles, but that was. I had just gotten too old for the turtles when the turtles came out. Of course, you like the turtles, man. You're not a monster.

They're coming back, right? They never left, brother. Turtles never left. What are you talking about?

Alright, so we've answered one question. Let's try to squeeze another question in. All right, do it. Um Well, this question is.

Well, you know, I'm not even gonna do it in the, this is something I was about to talk about for our first question. You know, time's important. You can't put. I don't want to say this to give people the thought that they can kind of put this off because you do have to move expeditiously. When someone passes away, there's kind of like a line drawn in the sand.

And so You know, a lot of bills aren't. You don't have to worry, like, I don't want people trying to pay bills out of their pocket. You know, if there's credit card bills, there's a car note, you know, there's a mortgage, you need to let all those people know, like, hey, in our example, the mom had passed. And the and the daughter was going to be listed as executor. You give notice, you let everybody know: like, hey, she's dead.

You know, here's her death certificate, she's passed, we're opening up the estate. Um you know I've run into some situations where people get panicky. And they start paying the deceased person's bills out of their own funds. Once someone's passed away, until an estate's open, you're not going to be able to get into their bank accounts. Their bank accounts are going to kind of be frozen once the bank knows they passed away.

You're going to have a couple of weeks there where not a lot is going to get done. Until you can kind of figure out What you know, and we talked about this before: about what assets are probate, what assets are not probate, is there a will, isn't there a will, is there a trust? But once you figure all this out, you know, things are gonna kind of be frozen in time for a couple of weeks. And and you have time.

Now you don't have six months. Right. But like if the mortgage is due, you just like, hey, I She's passed. We're working on getting the estate open, you know, and and And so you'll have some time to kind of get it figured out. And attorneys are really useful during this time period, too, because we just know this stuff.

We deal with it every day. And if you're confused about what your next steps are, there's an easy way to figure it out, you know. But, um.

Well yeah, let's go ahead and give them our phone number for estate planning consults. These are complimentary. No obligation to become a client. Get things worked out before there's a future mess. Because you really need to take care of this, and so many of us kind of kick the can down the road on situations like this because it's the end game.

We don't think about it, but planning is so vital. Here's the number to call: 919-77270000. That's 919-7727000. Complimentary consult on estate planning. You're not paying for it, and there's no obligation to become a client, but it can be a fact-finding mission for you if you've got questions about estate planning and you need some help.

919-7727000. Also, you can visit the website wh.lawyer. You can sign up there, wh.lawyer. We've got more Judica County questions coming up. You're listening to Judica County Radio.

We're back right after this. We are back on Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, right here in North Carolina, where they practice law. They've placed offices all over our great state: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Pukequave Arena, down near Charlotte and Gastonia, and down on the coast at Moorhead City. If you've got a question you'd like the attorneys to address on a future program, just send it to us: questions at judicacountyradio.com.

That's questions at judicacountyradio.com. And remember, during the course of the show, complimentary consults on estate planning. Again, everybody needs one. A lot of you are procrastinating on it, but this is an opportunity, no cost, no obligation, to either get the ball rolling or just ask some good questions about estate planning. Call 919-772-7000, get signed up there.

Just leave your contact information and they'll get back. You with that complimentary consult 919-77270000. You can also visit the website wh.lawyer. Josh. I was thinking a little bit during the break.

You know, we had talked about. You know, the Bills fanbase has a really cool name, right? The Bills Mafia. And we were talking about how the Panthers don't really have that. What do you Panthers nation?

That's kind of generic, right? What are Panthers fans known as right now? I don't know, man. You tell me. Panthers Nation, I guess.

I don't know.

I mean, as long as you're not. Gosh, what was the cologne from. Anchorman. Oh, we can't. Oh, yeah, we can't.

Sex Panther. Sex Panther. That's not like a Water Panther. I don't think that's going to be. Sex Panther.

Yeah. Illegal in 400 countries. But I was thinking about what's the worst NFL mascot that I could think of? And so, what I came to, and this is no offense to the team or its fans, but be careful, right? The Browns, right?

The Cleveland Browns, it's a terrible. Mascot, right? The Browns. It's not like a stain. Yeah, it's not great.

Right. Sure. But They have a good their fans. What are their fans in? Where the fans are.

The dog pound? The dog pound. That's cool. That's awesome. That's all.

So do you have just a terrible mascot and trade it to have a cool.

Well, I think I think the Cleveland Browns Gave us permission. They are the ones who were the trailblazers here. They're like, you're not stuck with your mascot. You can do whatever you want to do. You can do whatever.

You can be whoever you want to be, Joseph. You can have that secondary mascot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

So maybe that's what we're not. We're not. What you're saying is we're not. Our hands are not tied by the fact that Yeah. We don't have a cool, easy, obvious tie-in that we can use.

It's like Philadelphia Phillies. I mean, they don't have a. Horse running around. I mean, it's. They got the Philly Fanatic.

They have the Philly Fanatic, who is just a. Fantastic mascot, a legend. Yeah, I'll give you guys that. That's true. That's true.

Which is the Panther and Sir Per's great. I don't think anyone's hating on Sir Perr, you know? No, Sir Perr's alright. Yeah, Sir Perr, yeah, alright. Do the Hornets still have the.

I guess they don't. I haven't seen them. What happened to the Hornets used to have the Cyber? What did they call the guy who dunked? Who's in all blue?

You know what I'm talking about? I yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I don't remember the guy's name. But I would assume they don't, because I mean, you watch Hornets games. You haven't seen him. If you haven't seen him, then he doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah. Because the Phoenix Gorilla used to start doing the trampoline slams, and then we had like the Cyber Hornet or the. I don't know what he was called. Big fan of trampoline slams personally. Yeah, too many knee injuries.

Makes me wince, you know? All right. All right. We're going to finish some of these questions. Are we?

Maybe. We're going to finish some of these questions. I think the most important question is answering that Panthers question, but I think so. It's up for debate. We need something, man.

And like the Raiders.

Well, the Raiders had a good logo. What are their people called? Um I I let's see. Because they got the spikes and the, you know, they got a good thing going down there, but I guess they're just raiders, right? I mean, they're just pirates.

Yeah. Yeah. The Raider Nation.

So, yeah, that's also generic. Yeah, I don't like that. I'm not a fan of that. They could do better. They're better than that.

Yeah, they are. They are. Got a great color scheme. Team's not very good. They do have a great color scheme.

I'll give you that. They got Tom Brady, too. Don't forget that. That's another thing they have. I mean, he's not playing.

He's not a good-looking man. But yeah, he's a handsome fellow. Good at football. The Las Vegas Tom Brady's. That's it.

The Brady's. The Goats. Yeah. The Goats. The Brady bunch.

There you go, man.

So, we talked about, we did answer a couple of questions. We managed to answer a couple of these listener questions during our last segment.

So, you know, someone passes away, you've got some time. You don't need to pay their bills with your personal assets. You need to figure out if they had an estate plan. Did they have a will? If they did, where is it?

Where can you get your hands on the original? You need to figure out what their estate plan was. Was. All right, so let's say you figured that out, and in one of these listener questions, we get this a lot in a lot of different ways, but very simply, the question is. do all estates have to go Through probate.

What do you think about that, Joseph?

Well, you know uh No, I mean, if you have to open an estate, then by nature, you're talking about involving the probate process.

So, in that sense, I mean, I guess, yes, but. I guess the better way to look at it is: if someone that you love or that you're the beneficiary of passes away, do you have. to to go through probate and the answer to that question is no you don't Um and and the reason you would not is because of well planned and and carefully crafted estate planning. Um which we we ironically offer. at our law firm.

Believe it or not, Josh.

So I have people come. I have consults all the time where people. come sit down with me and um they say, Hey, you know, my In this situation, the mom passed away, so we'll just, our first question, so we'll just keep that rolling for. consistency's sake but just they'll be like hey my mom passed away You know, I found Here's the will I found. I've been to the bank with a death certificate.

This is what they told me. You know, this is the deed to her house. There was and wasn't a mortgage. Here are the refund checks that I've. gotten, you know, she has this vehicle These are the airs, you know, and we kinda just put it all on the table.

And I usually have some follow-up questions like, well, does she have? 401k, you know, was she in assisted living? Have they refunded that month's, you know? you know, whatever, and and we kind of we kind of ask some questions and then we kind of figure out Does this will need to be probated? Does this estate need to be administered?

Or Um May maybe he doesn't. Maybe it doesn't. Yeah, no, that's true, man. And you raised a good point. When we prepare estate plans for folks, Our starting point is generally Let's make as many things as humanly possible non-probate assets.

Let's take as much as we can. And let's keep it out of the probate process because, again, it's always going to be easier to not have to go to the courthouse. To not have to involve the clerk if you can avoid it. But we will still equip folks with everything they need to do that, right?

So you'll still. even if we're preparing a trust-based estate plan, And the whole point of that trust is to avoid probate completely. We're still going to give you a will just in case, right? Just as a catch-all. in the event that you acquire more property that doesn't go into trust.

We we still want it. You still need to get everything back to trust and have the option to do that if you need to.

So we'll still give you that. as part of the process. Yeah, so the answer is No, not all estates have to go through probate. Many don't. Right.

We only go through probate if the assets don't pass Outside of probate, you know, if there's something, you know, and if you've planned out your estate, the hope is. Almost nothing has to go through probate. That's what we preach about here, right? If you set up your trust, if you do this, you do that. then when you die, everybody knows exactly what's gonna happen.

You don't need probate, and everybody just keeps Moving. Yeah, and so we we talk about that in in the consults. You know, when I when I was growing up, If someone had a revocable living trust or a family trust, I just thought they were the richest people who ever. lived, right? You know, we associated Or I did.

Maybe I was the only one, right? But I associated trust with the super, super rich. And that's not. But that's not the deal anymore, you know. Most most people, if you own real property, Um you know, most people will benefit From a trust.

And you're not the only person that thinks that way because, again, we sit down with a lot of folks and. There's so many people that are turned turned away and and don't at least themselves before they come in to talk about it, they don't consider the trust option. Because they think It's only for rich folks. It's if they're not fancy enough. They don't have enough assets, and that's just not the way that it that it that it works.

So that answers that question. And then I'm going to follow up with kind of a related question real quick. The second part of that listener question is: can Probate Right. You know Probate means probating a will. Probate means going down to the clerk's office and opening up an estate.

That's what probate means. And so can probate be done without hiring an attorney? Um And Joe, I guess that's the question. I'm posing all these questions to you. Can probate be done without hiring an attorney?

Absolutely. For sure. Yeah. People do it every day. It's not something that you absolutely have to have an attorney for.

There's no requirement for you to have an attorney. Uh it it's it's it it is often the case that An attorney that knows how to navigate the process is going to make things a lot easier for you, but that it may not be. it may not be practical in your situation. You know, there may not be sufficient assets to make it worth it. To hire an attorney for you, or it may not be complicated enough to warrant hiring an attorney.

There's There's no requirement to do that, and there's plenty of folks that that. do it themselves. And it's not It's not rocket science, man. You know, and we've got.

some fantastic clerks that work down with the clerk's office. that Will help you out. We got a lot of help, self-help packets that counties will give out to you to make that easier for you.

So again, it's not the end of the world. It's just. It's time, it's energy. It's It's not as easy as the alternative, which is having no probate assets and still still getting everything where it needs to go. Yeah, two things I want to say to that, Joe.

The first is. If you're an executor, or you're the personal representative, or you're the administrator, those are all roles that you could play. When you're in charge of an estate, you are a fiduciary, right? We talk about that term on the show. You owe a duty to all the beneficiaries of that estate.

that you're gonna you're gonna get all the assets that need to be You know, collected, you're going to pay off the debts that need to be collected and you're going to distribute to them as much as possible. You're going to do it right, and you're not going to miss anything.

So, you have this fiduciary duty. Yeah, you act on their behalf in their best interest. Yeah, and usually, you're one of the beneficiaries, right? Usually, the executor, the administrator, the personal representative, the trustee, you're usually. One of the beneficiaries, so you know, you owe that duty to yourself, too, but.

If you mess up a fiduciary role. If you do something you're not supposed to, if you're negligent, if you miss an asset. Um You know, you don't split everything up exactly right. You could be sued. for violating That role, and that's not really a big deal if all you've got is a car that you're dealing with, right?

Or if you've, you know, you've just got a couple of bank accounts that don't have a lot of money, like Joe said, if there's not a lot of assets, there's not a lot of risk. But when you're acting in that role, You know, it's kind of like, you know, and you do something wrong, not knowing. The law or not knowing it's wrong is not a defense. Like you do something wrong, this beneficiary gets shorted 30 grand. They can come after you for that 30 grand.

So, there's some liability there, one. That's the first thing I wanted to point out. Second thing I wanted to point out, because I think this confuses a lot of people who don't deal with attorneys. On a day-to-day basis, attorneys can charge Differently, right?

So let's say your mom died, you're the executor, you come meet. with the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer and say, Look, I'm gonna need some help. probating my mom's estate. When you go to that attorney, the attorney should tell you how they're going to charge.

So in this situation for a state administration, Attorneys can decide they're going to charge a flat fee. Right, they're going to say, Hey, these are the assets we have. This is how I expect it to go, this is our timeline, we'll charge. blank amount of dollars to to do this. Attorneys can also say, hey, this estate looks a little difficult.

There's some unknowns, and some attorneys might charge. hourly. Right, and say, hey, I expect it to charge this much, but this is what I charge an hour, and I'm just going to bill you. My time as we kind of work through your state so you can. You know, your attorney could flat fee you, your attorney could bill you by the hour.

That's kind of how an attorney would charge for this type of thing. Yeah, and if you're going the hourly method, again, it it's it's very important to get as as good of a sense as you can of How much time the attorney projects this is going to take again, because That's the type of thing that can You know, it in the end, surprise you. And that's something we really try to avoid here, right? Like you we we never want to surprise someone and hit him in the head beyond what we've disclosed. Uh but Make sure you get as much of that information as you can.

And in fairness to an attorney who's gotten themselves in that situation, they may not know the extent of what they're dealing with. It may end up taking far more time than they originally anticipated. And that's just the nature of how things go sometimes. But. as a client that's entering into that situation.

Ask questions. Make sure you've got as much of an understanding as possible about. what what things look like and and what potential pitfalls are there and Just the more you know, right? Isn't that what they say? They say knowing is half the battle.

Yeah, that's what they say. That's what they say. Yeah, that's what they say. I tell you, a lot of good questions today. We're going to continue with the questions coming up on the other side.

If you've got questions about your own estate planning, we've got complimentary consults available with Whitaker and Hamer. Simply dial 919-77270000. Again, call us 919-77270000. Leave your contact information, and they will get back to you with a complimentary consult on estate planning. You can also visit the website wh.lawyer.

That's wh.lawyer. We've got more Jitica County Radio coming up. Welcome back in. It's Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.

They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And they have offices placed around the state for your convenience: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuqua Verena, down near Charlotte and Gastonia, and down on the coast at Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to be on with the attorneys. Want to remind our listeners: if you've got a legal question you'd like the attorneys to answer for you and talk about and discuss, you can send it to us: questions at judicacountyradio.com.

That's questions at judicacountyradio.com. And those copyright consults, again, available at any time, just call, leave your contact information, and hey, I want one of these estate planning consults, and they'll sign you up: 919-7727000. No cost, no obligation to become a client. 919-7727000. You can also visit the website, WHO.

Dot Lawyer. Josh, more questions. Joseph, what what do they call You're you're in your Duke Blue Devil gear today. What What do what if what are fans of Duke called? Uh Duke fans?

Just Duke fans. Yeah, just Duke fans. You know? Once obnoxious? Carolina fans, Morgan.

Obnoxious? I would agree. Yeah. I don't like this nation. The baby blues.

Mm-hmm. You guys should do more with the blue heaven thing. You guys should. We do. a lot with a lot.

They sell everything. Because if you're a state fan, you're you're in the wolf pack. You're You are the wolf pack. You are a member of the wolf pack. Yes.

That's the pack. Yes. Okay.

Yeah, which seems which is the coolest of what I've I mean, what I'm hearing. You think so, man of wolves? You know? Yeah, wolves. They're all right.

Yeah, they're all right. What what devil devil they they use the brotherhood they use yeah well the brotherhood but you got I feel like you have to be a actual player on on the team To be in the brotherhood. And funnily enough, I don't think the brotherhood extends beyond basketball. You know, as a as a Duke football fan, Yeah. Mm.

You don't see a lot of brotherhood references in association with Oak's football team, which is crazy because. They're playing for the national championship basically.

Well, let's think about that. Welcome to Hell. I like that. I like that too, man. I like that too.

There's a lot of potential, but we just glossed over the fact that, again, Duke is essentially. playing for the national championship. How do you figure that? I'm confused.

Well, if Miami wins the national championship, I read somewhere in a book. That the conference champion of their conference will get rings as well.

Okay.

That's what I heard. I mean, I think that's what's fair. I think that's the fairest. Think I do, you know. Maybe maybe maybe the the all the Duke lawyers could file a some sort of class action lawsuit.

Yeah, I am a lawyer and don't do a lot of litigating, but I might dust off the old litigation for a few for that. It's a good cause, man. That's a good call. We talked about this a little bit early on, but I want to come back to it. Um So, in our example that we've kind of been doing, an adult daughter's mom passed away.

And that adult daughter is going to be the executor in the will, and that adult daughter has come to sit down with us. To kind of get an estate administration and a state probate consult. And so we've been talking about. We've been talking about assets and things like that. You know.

We need to talk about what to do.

So let's say the adult mom passed away. She had credit card debt. She had a car note. She had uh you know a mortgage Um You're not going to use your personal assets. to pay those bills.

normally. Um You're gonna get an estate opened. The clerk's going to recognize, in our situation, the clerk's going to recognize the daughter as the executor of the state. and issued letters. And those letters you can take to a bank, you can take to Wherever you need to take to, and you now represent the estate.

You can collect assets, monetary assets. Put them in a state account, you can start. Um paying the things that you need to pay. But not all debt automatically has to be paid. This is where it gets a little.

You know, this is asset preservation. You know, like what debt has to be paid? What debt? Can only get a share of the assets, you know, unsecured debt versus secured debt. This is where a lot of people will get a little bit confused if there's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of assets.

Yeah, and it can be confusing, right? And that's why we talk about the fact that.

Sometimes there are situations, we talked about the fact that you can technically. handle a state administration on your own. But there are certain situations where things can get a little more tricky where it does make sense to involve an attorney to help you out. Yeah, so and again, we talked about you're in a fidu, you're operating in this, in our situation, the daughter is the executrix, the executor of the will. And um You know, she's going to have a fiduciary duty to any other beneficiary that you just don't go paying just because, you know.

Her mom, when she died, the people that she owed money to. are now creditors of the estate. And there's only certain assets they can they can go after depending on what they have leans on. Uh you know and and Even if there's enough money, you might not be paying off all the debts. And um You can't waste.

estate assets. And so it can be a complicated Calculus to figure all this out. Yes, that was fantastic wording and alliteration, too, man. It was an alliteration, that's what I was going to point out. Incredible, hanging on every word.

Yeah. So I I see that a lot of times where people have kind of freaked out. and paid utility bills and paid all this stuff out of their own pocket. Hoping they can be reimbursed, and then maybe you find out there's not enough money to reimburse you, and no one has to pay you back for that stuff.

So that's. Yeah, I've seen that happen a time or two. you know Bills stress a lot of people out. Yep. But when you die, You know, it's different.

And you gotta look at it differently.

So that's uh Money and debt and creditors, we we talk about that a lot. This is the other thing I wanted to bring up in the same conversation. Can medical bills wipe out an inheritance? That's the next question that this. This listener asked: Can medical bills wipe out an inheritance?

Let's hit it after the break.

Okay, yeah.

Sorry, I forgot we were up against the break. That sounds good. That sounds good. All right. So, again, the next question up when we come back is: can medical bills end up wiping out an inheritance?

We'll talk about that when we return. Just a reminder: complimentary consult on estate planning, simply call us 919-77270000. That's 919-7727000. Contact information, leave it there. Just say, hey, I'd like one of those complimentary consults on estate planning, and they'll sign you up.

You can also go to the website, wh.lawyer. Again, the number 919-77270000. WH.lawyer, sign up there. More Judica County coming up. Uh Yeah.

We are back on Judica County Radio. Your hosts are the attorneys, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, offices all over the place: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuque Verina, Gastonia, and down on the coast at Moorhead City. If you've got a question you'd like the attorneys to address on a future program, you can send it to us. Questions at judicacountyradio.com. That's questions at judicacountyradio.com.

And again, complimentary consult available on estate planning. Just simply call 919-7727000. Get signed up there. Just leave your contact information, 919-7727000, or you can visit the website wh.lawyer. Josh.

You know, we were talking about you know we've got a we've got a deceased person here it was it was somebody's mom that we've been kind of doing And this mom had she died and she owed people money, which Happens a lot of the time, right? You got a mortgage, you got a car note, maybe you got some credit card debt that needs to be. Paid off, so people die owing money. And we talked about how you, as the executor, the administrator, the personal representative, you're not going to pay those. out of your own pocket.

for all the reasons that we talked about earlier. Um those people become creditors of the estate. And it's legally defined what they get paid, who they get paid from. They have to prove their claim. But right before the break, we talked about medical bills.

A lot of times, when people have passed away, If we're lucky, that's how I want to go, right? I want to just be in my bed. And then getting strangled. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Just making sure. Right. I don't wanna I I don't wanna spend like forty two months in the hospital. I don't wanna go to I don't wanna go to hospice. That's that's a blessing.

The like that's the American blessing, right? You just you live your life, you live a nice good life one day You die in your sleep. Go out on your terms, yeah. That's the dream. All right, we can, I'll give you that, man.

That makes that that sounds better than the than the alternative. Right. So but so but that doesn't happen to a lot of people, right? A lot of people spend some time in the hospital. We got a lot of folks who, you know, have to fight battles with cancer and all the other diseases that are that are prevalent today.

And so you end up usually you die with some medical bills. Right. And and we have to figure out How those are gonna get paid. And so the question the listener asked. Was can medical bills wipe out my inheritance?

And I think the answer to the question is. Maybe. Potentially. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. It depends on what is actually in the estate. Yep. Right, and that's one of the things me and Joe keep harping on. If you've met with us and done your estate plan, our goal is that there's really nothing in your estate.

Again, that's the beauty of a trust, that's the beauty of a good estate plan, is when you die. There's actually not any assets in your estate. Those assets have automatically gone on to the next generation, and we're not that worried about medical bills. Um if everything's been done right, we're not that that worried about creditors of the estate, most of them. Um And that's why estate planning is so important.

Because yeah, if you end up spending your last 12 months in the hospital, and you don't have Medicare, you don't have good secondary insurance or you know, you're you're just accumulating these bills, they can wipe out a lot of A lot of your inheritance, and we've seen that happen, and sometimes. It's unavoidable.

Sometimes it's poor planning. Uh But planning takes care of a lot of that stuff. That is correct. And that's why it's so important, man. You know, we talk about.

the importance of making the process efficient. and making the process less stressful. But yeah, that's that's That That's a great point, man. Making sure that you still have assets. You should get when you become an attorney When you go through the law school, you pass the bar, you're an attorney.

You should get like a cool Code name. Like G.I. Joe guys all had a code name. You didn't know their real names, they had a code name. Yeah, I like that.

Or like Top Gun. Yeah. All right, okay.

Now you opened it up. We don't have a lot of time here, we got a couple minutes. But Josh, you're obviously thinking about it. What would be your code name? And Joe, you contemplate your code name.

Don't say it right now. Josh, you're first. I always want to do something with sizzling. I want to incorporate sizzling into some sort of code name. That's it.

It sounds like something you would make spam, and it would be a recipe. Siciline was like fake bacon back in the day, wasn't it? Wasn't that what sizzline was? It was a thing. I think you just made it up, man.

Nah, Sizzline was a thing. How are you gonna work Sizzline into your name? Oh, Sizzaline Jones? That's a thing, you know? That's like a cool code name.

Yeah. Wow! What about you, Joe? I'm still stomped by Sizzline, man. That really threw me for a loop.

You didn't give the name though, Ciceline Jones? Yeah, yeah. Complicated first name, real simple one syllable last name.

Okay, okay. Um attorney. Yeah, but attorney. Attorney Ciceline Jones? Yeah.

Okay.

You have to come back to me, man. We don't have a lot of time here. I think you got like a minute and a half. Maybe, man. When you.

Well, tell me this. While we're talking about, Sisiline was a fake, like fake meat, basically. That's what it was. Okay.

But I was having this conversation with someone else. When you grew up, did you have spam in the house or did you have treat? Were you a spam family or a treat family? Neither of us. Oh, I mean we were spam.

man. That means you had money. That's what that means. Sizzline. Sizzline.

There's no uh, it's just sizzling. It was marketed as less fatty bacon. Yeah, it's fake bacon. Made from a mix of meats like pork shoulder and turkey. Like spam.

It was spam bacon. Yeah. It was good. Yeah, yeah, it looks. I'm looking at it.

Do they still sell it? Uh Come on! I don't know.

Can't get some on eBay. It doesn't appear. Yeah, you can get some on eBay. It's probably legal in the States and banned around the world. That's pretty much how our food system is.

It's because they don't know what's good. Yeah, they don't know. What do they know? They don't know the food scientists we have here.

Some of the brightest minds.

Well, the good news is, Josh, your corpse is still going to be around 100 years from now. That's right, preserved on the inside. That's right, mummified. Mummified. All right, we are up against it.

Listen. We've got complimentary consults on estate planning with Whitaker and Hamer. Simply call 919-7727000, 919-77270000. No cost, no obligation. Get on track with your estate planning, 919-77270000.

Leave your contact information. Just say, hey, I want one of those consults on estate planning, and they'll sign you up, 919-7727000. Again, no cost, no obligation to become a client. You can also visit the website, and it is a resource, w.lawyer.

So check it out, wh.lawyer. You can get signed up there as well. Another edition of Judica County Radio in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll see you on the radio next week.

Better stay. 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.