Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, your host Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. We are going to discuss waiting too long on a number of different topics. And in the legal world, you don't want to do that. That's all coming up next, Judica County Radio. Whitaker and Hamer present.
Judica County. With Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hamer. Welcome in to Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys right here in the great state of North Carolina. They have placed offices all across our great state: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verena, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick.
It's always a pleasure to jump on with the attorneys and we hit these different topics. We also give you an opportunity to get on their calendar. A complimentary consult will tell you more about that as we move through the program. But, gentlemen, before we dive in on waiting too long on certain things, how was the week? Josh, you go first.
You know, it was good. You know, we had, we're in the studio on. You know, during the week. And so we always talk about the last weekend, but you're probably going to. listen to this on Saturday, Sunday the following weekend, but um So we're coming off the three day, the three day MLK weekend and I watched a lot of sports.
That's what I did. I started the week out Saturday and went to the State Georgia Tech game and watched State lose. And then we went to the fun game, right? You enjoyed it? That was terrible.
It was terrible. And then we left that game and went directly to the bar to watch the Bills lose with our Bills fan club. But that was a fun game, right? You enjoyed it. It was terrible.
It was terrible. And then I don't really remember Sunday. I think Sunday I just slept. And then Monday I went and watched the Hurricanes beat the Sabres, which was fun. Yeah, that was a good game.
Oh wait, did you didn't you have a special VIP at uh Shady's? Morgan came and and joined us to watch The bills get uh Well, we can say they got screwed, right? They got shafted. They absolutely got shafted. That was a reception.
He was down. And they ruled it an interception. That was the ball game. It was crazy. I haven't talked to anybody who was like, no, they made the right call there.
That was terrible. No. No, they missed several things, man. That's a tough way to go. Um And then the icing is of course you know, Bonex breaks his ankle.
Fluke-like.
Well, yeah, there's a story there somewhere because he walked off the field, he did all the interviews, and There's a story circulating that in the celebration in the locker room, he was injured. Yeah. Can't celebrate too hard, man. Apparently, that's a lesson you got to learn. I've got I talked to a lot of Bills fans, and there's a working theory that at the very end of that game, a lot of bets went towards Buffalo to come back and win it.
And the call came in. The call came in from Vegas and they were like, Can't let it happen. Yeah. Yeah, that's the money. It cost me some money.
I did too. I lost. Cost me some money. Which is what's truly important.
Well, the timeline makes sense because we got to Shady's. I was excited for this game. Josh was in his, he's got his own private room at Shadies. The kids are in there. I was allowed to go into the private room, and there were some other things.
I've been in there. I get to go in once every 10 times that I go there. But now that I know, now that I know that Georgia Tech. Had waxed NC State in basketball right before that game. That explains your demeanor.
Josh. I was already depressed. I was depressed going in.
Well, and we've explained to our listeners that you're married to a Buffalonian. She had a great week, right? Sports. Great week. Yeah.
Sure. She was beside herself the entire game. And I would imagine that I'm glad I was in the private room because the angst in the bigger room. Oh, man, that'd have been tough. Got a couple hundred Buffalo people in there.
The The I have been an NC State fan and a Panthers fan and a Hornets fan for so long. You're so well conditioned, man. You can't take losing, you can't take it personally. Yeah. Well, you were took, you were dumb.
You were dumb. I walked in, I'm like, Josh, how you doing? That's all right. If I took every NC State. Hornets, Panthers lost for the past ten years personally, I would be dead.
Yeah. Your body can't handle that kind of shock and anxiety. It's good training for you to pull for all those teams, man. It really hardens you as a person. And um I think it prepares you for a tough life.
Iron sharpens iron. You can roll with the punches a lot better. And. Yeah. We're walking into Shadies, and Michelle is like, please don't do anything.
To embarrass us. And I was like, what are you talking about? And walk in the door, and I just yell out, the champ is here. And the whole bar turns around. And uh and Josh is just like mm I had no idea that State had just lost his face.
You thought he was just depressed to see you. Yeah, I guess. I guess. Gotta pay up, baby. Anyway, anyway, we had a wonderful time despite the outcome of the football game.
But Shady's is a great place. We enjoyed it. Good crowd. It was a good crowd. The The other thing I was thinking about is, you know, we're recording the show midweek, and so this is going to play You Hear Us.
We met a couple days earlier to record this show, and everybody could be under what, 14 feet of snow? Yeah, what's up with that? Yeah, we had travel plans, but I just canceled them. We're going to. We're gonna do soup and sourdough and watch a bunch of football.
Can we do something about that to make it not Happened. I feel like people, Josh. I feel like we can handle the snow. We got to dodge that ice.
So we'll see how it. Hopefully, can we handle the snow? I think.
Well I don't know. I think I can. Yeah, you personally. Yeah, it's not you that I'm worried about, man. But uh I gotta go get my ice melt today and uh Make sure we got some sleds, right?
You get 14 inches of snow, you gotta have some sleds, some tubes, something.
Well, you don't have a hill. What do you do? Just drag them high in the truck? Oh, I got a big hill. We got a big hill.
Oh, you got a big hill? That's nice. Yeah, you should come over. I was going to say, thanks for the invite. Nah, man, you got your invite to the private room at Shady's.
That's it for you for the week. Yeah. Well, this week, hopefully, you guys are hearing us and everybody's comfortable, and we just got snow and no ice. A moderate amount of snow, and you're having some coffee, but we're going to talk about. Um legal delaying Not doing what you're supposed to with your with your kind of your legal affairs, right?
Waiting too long, ignoring. Court dates, you know, that's kind of our theme today. And so we've got some listener questions that all kind of revolve around. I didn't do this when I was supposed to, or I missed court, and so this kind of waiting too long and how it can hurt you. It is I don't know if it's kind of our theme, that is our theme.
That's a good theme, man. That's a top-notch theme, man. In your depressed state from this weekend. I'm glad that it produced. A real banger of a show.
Well, I was telling my boys, I'm like. I didn't play in any of these games. I just sat on my butt and I watched them. And somehow I'm exhausted. Yeah.
Somehow I'm too tired. Took a lot out of you. Too tired. You're emotionally invested. And that's what happens.
Speaks to your incredible physical fitness levels. But uh But yeah, that's what we're gonna do today.
So we have again, we've got a number of questions coming up from the legal realm. If you wait too long, And how things could go for you, so that's why you don't wait too long. We'll talk about that coming up on the program. Again, Judica County Radio, we've got complimentary consults on estate planning. Josh, real quickly for our listeners, explain what's going to happen if they grab one of these.
Yeah, yeah.
So, we always do the free estate planning consults as part of the radio show.
So, basically, you give us a call. Our paralegals, our staff will reach out to you and set you a time to talk to me or Joe. Uh about estate planning, about trust. You know, power of attorneys, things like that. And you get me and Joe's opinion.
On what you need for your estate plan, and like Morgan always says, that's free. We're not going to charge you a consult fee, you get to talk to us and get our. Advice for free. And then, if you want us to prepare your estate plan or take you through that process or get a trust in place, we'll Tell you what the flat fee is for that service.
So we try not to hide the ball and make everything as plain and easy and understandable as we can. And uh we enjoy doing that. We enjoy talking to folks who Listen to us talk about our weekend and these legal topics I come up with. Yeah, it's all about getting your legal stuff in order when it comes to estate planning. And you can grab one of those complimentary consults simply by calling our number 919-7727000.
That's 919-7727000. You can also visit the website wh.lawyer. You can get signed up there as well. These are complimentary, meaning you're not paying for it and no obligation to become a client. 919-7727000 or visit the website wh.lawyer.
We've got more Ajudica County coming up. We are back on Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices placed all over our great state. Check it out on the coast, Moorhead City, down near Charlotte in Gastonia. We've got Fuquay Verena, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and the 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 address on the radio program in the future, just send it to us, questions at judicacountyradio.com. That's questions at judicacountyradio.com. Again, complimentary consults on estate planning available during the course of today's show, meaning you're not paying for it.
And again, not obligated to become a client, but you can get your affairs in order. Call our number, 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000. Or visit the website WH177707770777000. Dot lawyer.
All right, Josh, where are we going?
Well, Morgan, we get in the habit on the show here, me and Joseph. We end up talking about estate planning, estate admin, probate assets. We get a lot of listener questions on that. We get a lot of calls on that. And so sometimes I feel kind of like we're a broken record talking about.
Estate planning and estate admin, and probate, and executors, and whatever, and trust, and those are all very important. We find most people need to have that discussion. But today, I wanted to start with some things that the firm, some legal issues that come up for a lot of folks that our firm does also handle. Um that we don't talk about as much. Maybe a broken record, man, but it's a good record.
It's like you're putting on the best record you have and playing it back over and over again.
Okay, now I love that, Joe. Do you have a song from your past that you played to the point where you still love it, you still love it, and you still play it, and you still love it as much? Is there a particular song? Do your song? We've talked about this on the show, man.
I don't have a favorite anything.
So that's where we start. There's plenty of songs, though, man. I like a lot. I like most every genre of music. Uh I'm not a huge country guy.
Um But there's plenty of them, man. There's tons. I couldn't even give you one. Josh can. Oh, come on.
You just said it. You got to give me one. Yeah. One song. What was your first record if you had a record?
I think uh when I was a kid I think I got like a I think the first C D I ever got was like a Weezer C D. Yeah, there you go. I'm not like a huge Weezer fan, but I think the first record I remember we had records when I was a kid, and the first record I can remember getting was that Mickey You're So Fun song. Oh, yeah, and you love that song, man. The song really embodies your personality.
It was the only record we had in the house, so we just listened to it like that song is you. You know? Our second record was Thriller.
Okay. Which is you know, everybody can agree is One of the best records of all time. Yep, okay. Right. I mean, we can all agree on that.
All right.
So here's our first listener question. Again, our theme today is kind of waiting too long. What happens if you don't take care of your legal matters when you should? And so we've our first listener question is basically like What this will like, this is our question. What happens when I ignore a traffic ticket?
Right. So we get different versions of this question. We kind of. We kind of combine them all together to get one that doesn't have a lot of specifics, and that's good to talk about.
So basically, you get a speeding ticket. That comes with a court date. You don't go to your court date. You forget about it. It happens.
What's going to happen? That's my question to you, Joseph.
So you get a speeding ticket, doing 12 over. Yep. Speeding tickets are counting by county, so every county is a little bit different.
So this is kind of general advice. But there's a general, there's state statutes that. are not county specific. And a traffic ticket twelve over, that's an infraction, right? That's not a criminal charge.
That's an that's an infraction. It's not a huge deal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so you'll say let's say I missed my court date.
I already had plans to be in the in the at the beach and I don't make my court date. I don't hire an attorney. I don't do anything. What do you think is going to happen? I can tell you exactly what's going to happen, man.
You're going to take a small, very insignificant problem and you're going to turn it into a potentially much bigger problem. Um you what's gonna the first step of that process is uh you've you've essentially failed to appear, right?
So you you'll have uh an FTA filed against you that says that you didn't show up for for your court date. Um And that's not necessarily in and of itself the end of the world, but you ignore that, and the problems just like an exponential problem factory where they just continue to increase. And you're going to end up in jail, man. Yeah, you're going to get a letter. You're gonna get a letter saying, Hey, you had a court date, you didn't make it, failure to appear.
And let's say you throw it in the trash or you don't see it or whatever, eventually, your license is going to get. Suspended.
Now, this whole time, if the if the again, this is county by county, they could issue a warrant for your arrest. I don't think most counties are going to do it for 12 over, but they could, and some counties do.
So you can have a worn out. Eventually, if you don't take care of it, your license is going to get suspended. Maybe 60 days later, your license gets suspended. And then you're going to get pulled over a lot once your license is suspended, right? And then your next speeding ticket's not just a speeding ticket, it's going to be a speeding ticket.
driving with a with a suspended license and uh You know, and then you don't handle that. It's just, it just steamrolls. And I've seen people, normal, everyday people working. Um, good people taking care of business. Like the listeners of the show.
That's right, taking care of business. And then, uh, you know, our attorneys get their driving record, and it's eight pages long in different counties. They got different problems, and you really have to go back to the beginning and work through it. And, uh, you know. Paying an attorney to handle a traffic ticket, again.
I understand no one wants to pay attorneys' fees, but paying an attorney to handle a traffic ticket, not too expensive these days. But being an attorney, to look through four pages of all of your failure to appear and your. Driving with license suspended or driving with license revoked, and it gets expensive really fast. Yeah. Yep.
And I've seen people, yeah, just traffic tickets, or they get a traffic ticket out of county, and then, of course, they're not in that county. When the court date comes, they didn't hire someone to handle it, they just miss it. It's a slippery slope. It's a snow. It's a snowball.
Yep. That is crazy, man.
So, you know, very simple traffic ticket. You know Yeah, it's worth. I tell family, I mean, even if you're not using us, uh, Pay somebody to handle that traffic ticket. Pay an attorney who knows that county, who knows what the district attorney's office will do and won't do, what they reduce, what they won't reduce. Do you need traffic school?
Do you need some volunteer hours? You know, what do you need to make this ticket? you know Not become a big deal. Because at first, it's not a big deal. I mean, unless you get like 50 over, you know.
I was going to say, I've got an example for you, and I won't name names, but someone that's very close to me related. On their way to the beach a number of years ago, and it was a holiday weekend, taking a back road. One of the apps took him on a back road to avoid some kind of traffic on one of the interstates going down to the beach. And he was going through a smaller town and he got pulled. He got zapped and he was going over and Uh he immediately called uh Me?
And we were talking about it and talking about it with his mother, so it was my son. And we immediately got in touch with someone that knew that county. And knew an attorney that that's what they did. And so we did our due diligence, as you suggest, Josh and Joe, and that's just find someone that knows the territory, knows the layout, the lay of the land. and let pay a little more, but let them handle it.
And that's exactly what we did, and it was a zero headache. I mean, it was a little bit pricey, but it was so worth it. Yeah, yeah.
And and you know, um you know, we handle our our attorneys handle, you know, all kind of our immediate area, Wake and Johnston and and Harnett and and some other counties, but um Yeah, don't let don't let something small like that Man, I always I w I get so mad at myself when I let something that shouldn't be a problem. Become a problem. Like, that's when I really get mad at myself, you know. And it's so easy to do, man. It's so easy to do and to procrastinate and put things off.
And but you can't. If there's one thing you don't bury your head in the sand, we talked about it before. A civil lawsuit, if you get sued, don't just put your head in the sand. It doesn't just go away. And a ticket, you know, any any ticket.
It it's not It It's not fun to deal with. It's not fun to spend whatever amount of money it's going to cost to deal with it. But I can guarantee you. the amount of problems will grow if if you just put it off and and and don't deal with it. And again, our example where you're ignoring a pretty, pretty easy 12-over ticket, that's kind of the example we were building off of.
You know, if you continue, you could lose your insurance. You could be kind of an uninsurable driver and You know, even if you stay an insurable driver, your rates are going to go up. You're going to be dealing with points and. You know, if that's 12 overs your first ticket, you could probably make it go away. Yeah.
You know, there's a lot of different, you know, we don't have to go into that now. There's a lot of different ways to handle your first, second. maybe even your third speeding ticket, you know, without without killing you. But um But anyway, so that's that's delaying a traffic ticket. Man, we get that call all the time.
That's one of the easiest things for people to ignore because it's just. You're busy. You may not live where you, like, like Morgan said, you may, anyway.
So that's that's traffic tickets. Uh so that's that's that's the consequences of delaying dealing. with a simple Traffic, you know, traffic ticket. Then sometimes. There's other things that go along with getting pulled over, you know.
DUIs and stuff in the car that shouldn't be in the car, or concealed weapons, or if you're going too fast, you can get careless and reckless. all other kind of things that can happen, but I guess today's probably not the best day to go into all that.
Well, and again, it's more about the overall message: don't delay it. Go ahead and take care of your business as soon as possible. Because, as Joe has pointed out, and so is Josh, I mean, things do pile up and it can get pretty bad.
So, make sure you're dotting the I's and crossing the T's, and just take care of your business. If it's somewhere, obviously, outside of our area, you know, contact an attorney or maybe go through your own attorney to find an attorney in that area that can help you with your situation. Again, this is all about helping you with particular legal issues. And right now, the traffic and criminal matters we're talking about. Josh and Joe, do you have an area you want to go into next?
I'll tease it and we'll take a break. Yeah, next, I want to go into. Personal injury.
So, you know, when attorneys say personal injury, you've been in a car accident or you've been injured. And um kind of delaying that waiting too long to talk to an attorney Delaying getting your potential personal injury case started. All right, personal injury is up next. We want to remind you: we have complimentary consults in and around estate planning. Simply call our firm 919-772-7000.
Again, these are no cost, no obligation. You can see if you're on track with your estate planning, 919-772-7000. Maybe you've been thinking about it. You've got some questions to ask. Man, take this opportunity to test drive Whitaker and Hamer 919-7727000.
Complimentary consult on estate planning. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. We got more at Judica County. We'll talk personal injury coming up next. Welcome back in Judica County Radio.
Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Managing Partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. And again, they have placed offices all over our great state. And remember, they're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verena, Gastonia, and down on the coast at Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick.
Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. Want to remind you we do have complimentary consults in and around estate planning. Simply call our number, 919-77270000. Say, hey, I'd love one of those consults. And again, no charge for that and no obligation to become a client.
You can find out more about estate planning if you haven't started. Great way to get the ball rolling, or if you just need some second opinion. 919-7727000 or visit the website wh.lawyer. Personal injury.
Josh. So Personal injury. We've had a couple of shows where we talked about personal injury, but personal injury is basically a negligence claim. That's when you're in a car accident. And personal injury kind of connotates that you've been injured.
Sometimes you're in accidents and you're lucky and you just walk away. You've got some damage to your vehicle. That's the property damage. Component of your case, and the personal injury part is if you've been hurt.
So we'll have a lot of folks call us and they have some property damage issues. Your insurance company or the other insurance company doesn't want to give you what you think your car is worth. And usually, you don't get an attorney involved. on just the property damage side usually it doesn't It doesn't make sense to pay an attorney or get an attorney involved in something like that. It could.
But yeah, generally, I would agree with you. It doesn't doesn't make sense. But all the attorneys on T V, you know, there's all the attorney commercials all day long, and most of those attorneys practice Personal injury law. If you've been in a car accident, some of them are workers' comp, if you've been injured on a job, some of them are, they help you get disability. But for the 90% of the commercials that are aimed at you during the day on TV are all attorneys who make their living.
Doing, you know, handling personal injury claims and and and And what I always tell people: you know, if you call Whitaker and Hamer, if you've been in a car accident, we want to know what's going on as soon as. possible. You know, you don't have to call us at the accident scene. You know, you want to. It's easier today.
You know, we got so many cars that have cameras. People have their phones. You know, back in the day, the personal injury attorneys would tell you to keep a disposable camera in your. You know, in your glove compartment, but nowadays you have your phone, so you can take video of where the cars are, you can take pictures, you could even take videos of witnesses. Like, there's a lot of things you can do.
Um But you don't want to wait too long getting an attorney involved because a lot of times this evidence is lost. Right, you get a new, you know, you get a new phone, and you didn't back up your pictures, so you've lost your pictures, you lose numbers of witnesses, you um. Memories can get fuzzy. You don't really remember what happens, you know.
So, usually, you want to get in touch with an attorney right away if you've been injured. In a car accident. And Joe, I guess I kind of talked about what happens the longer you put it off. Um, is I think I think evidence gets lost. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean, that's that's You hit the nail on the head there and uh You know, it's a funny thing in some ways because with personal injury claims, you know, you said it, man, evidence can get lost.
So, you want to reach out to an attorney so you can get those things straight sooner rather than later. But at the same time, with personal injury claims, a lot of times You know, that attorney may not necessarily be able to substantively do anything for you at that point because with these claims. They're generally going to wait until you've been completely released from treatment. All your medical treatment's done, and they've got. You know, whatever your damages are going to be, they've got those fully quantified.
So you need to reach out to them quickly. You know, make sure that you've got everything in order. Make sure that you have everything that you need and you get the facts sorted out early. But it could be. and is likely to be.
But a pretty long process from that point forward. But yeah, get in touch with them quickly and Throwing it back to you, Josh. You could talk about. If you wait too long, what do you run the risk of? Yeah, and if you're You know, the one thing while we'll talk about that too, but one thing I wanted to throw out there, if you're hurt bad enough.
Right? You know, attorneys are really good at valuing. Your personal injury case, right?
So, if you've got whiplash, you've got a sore neck, you've been to the chiropractor, you know, your attorney can work with you to say, Hey, look, I think your case is probably worth this range, this is what we'd go for. We would want to try this, or we wouldn't want to try this. You know, they can kind of dial you in, you know, but if you're And we've had those, right? We've had those million-dollar cases where you're kind of crushed by a tractor trailer, you break some legs, or you have some irreversible damage that you're just going to have to deal with. And if the accident is severe enough, Your attorney may want to, on your behalf or with you, hire an investigator to kind of go out there and look at skid marks and things that aren't going to be there forever.
Right. And so, depending on the severity, you may want to get someone out there looking at things that time will erase. And you want to get the best skid mark expert that you can, man. That's very important. Yeah.
I know you had looked into that career before becoming a career. It didn't work out. It didn't work out for me.
Okay. But. But yeah, and then your attorney is going to start helping you build your case right out of the gate. But personal injury cases ripen. Right, you know, your attorney to value the case really needs to know what your long term is, is this something you're going to recover from?
How much physical therapy are you going to need? How much work have you missed? You know what? What insurance coverage does the other party have? Do you have underinsured?
There's a lot of factors that kind of go in. To an attorney working on your personal injury case. Guys, let me ask you a question. Is there a process? That you would recommend that if somebody has been in something like this, how do you vet the attorneys?
Because they get. inundated. With mailings, probably social media, whatever is going on in their life. Um how do you vet an attorney?
Well, I would tell people in this scenario, and we've talked about this on the show before. how attorneys get paid, right?
So we've talked about how sometimes attorneys will charge you for certain things like estate planning. That's usually a flat fee. Once the attorney meets with you and figures out what you need, he'll be like, hey, he or she will be like, hey, this is what this will cost.
Sometimes in litigation, if you and your neighbor are suing each other over like property boundary or something like that, that's usually a retainer where we can't quote you. You know, we don't know exactly what all will go into it.
So it's like, hey, you give us a retainer, we're going to bill you hourly.
So All that to say personal injury is usually, almost always, handled on a contingency.
So you'll hear the attorneys on TV say, Hey, you don't, you don't, we don't get paid if you don't get paid, you know, and and The point being to answer your question, Morgan, is most attorneys do personal injury consults for free. There's no charge. And so you can meet with as many personal injury attorneys as you want to. And see who you think's the most experienced, who can handle your claim the better. I don't know of a better way, maybe Joseph does, but I don't know of a better way of vetting your attorneys besides telling you you can meet with more than one attorney.
Yeah, I would just go to the attorney whose radio show that you're you listen to. That's my starting point. But I was going to say, that's really good advice. I mean, just because you talk to a particular attorney doesn't mean you have to go with that attorney. You can interview others.
That's right. Yeah. You're not locked in. You're not stuck in the event that that's what you end up doing.
So that's 100% correct. Our firm Just to throw it out of there, our firm handles personal injury cases across the state of North Carolina. We're not really. Uh you know, we we we've got personal injury clients all over the state. And that's something that we've done a lot of for a long time.
My first internship. In law school was with a personal injury firm, and and so we've spent a lot of time cultivating that practice. I'm not a big fan of T V commercials, even though I'm sure those work just fine. You don't have to call the people on T V. Yeah, but but but at the same time, a lot of times the people on T V are the the folks who are are doing it.
at a high level and you know have a lot of proficiency. in the field.
So, I mean You don't have to call those folks, but like just the fact that someone's on T V doesn't necessarily mean like They could be fantastic. They're not us. We're on the radio. That's what's really important.
Social media, too. Don't forget that. Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. Um But but yeah, so you're worried about losing evidence.
Uh, you know, the insurance companies are all gonna your insurance company, the the person that faults insurance company, everybody's gonna be reaching out, wanting you to sign things, wanting to get medical records.
So you gotta be really careful what what you sign. I mean, preferably nothing, right? Until you talk to an attorney. Uh but people are going to be kind of bombarding you. And there's some decisions that probably need to be made early on.
So, waiting on personal injury, waiting on your personal injury case. And of course, if you wait too long, and I've seen this happen, we get people who'll call us and like their statute of limitations has already expired, right? You have three years. to file a lawsuit. you can work on settling it for two years and three hundred and sixty four days.
But after three years, if you haven't settled your lawsuit or you haven't finalized it, your statute of limitation runs, meaning you can't You can't do anything about it anymore. And so, waiting too long on a personal injury case, waiting more than three years, is real bad because your personal injury case is gone. Yeah, so That's a bad day. Not if you get on it early, right? Not if you play on it.
If you get on it early, it's a good day. But if you don't get on it early, and you lose your y your statute runs. That's a bad day.
Well, and we're a society that tends to procrastinate.
So, I mean, if you learn anything from the show today, you know, make sure you're working with an attorney that you feel good about and get to it earlier as opposed to later. You don't want to miss the statute of limitations. You don't want to miss that three-year window, especially when it comes to personal injury. We are going to take a short break. Josh and Joe, where are we going next?
I think in my notes, I want to talk some about ignoring. Letters Or violation notices from your HOA, right? Homeowners associations, I want to talk about. Ooh. that.
I just like saying, Ho-a, H-O-A. That's what we'll talk about, ignoring some possible violation letters in your neighborhood. Judica County Radio will tackle that coming up next. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They are your host, complimentary consult on estate planning available during the course of this show.
Simply call 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer again, complimentary and no obligation to become a client. Offices located convenient for you: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuque Arena, Gastonia, and down on the coast at Moorhead City. More Judica County coming up.
Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Their names are on the buildings. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices, where you can find those signs with their names on them, Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verena, Gastonia, and Moorhead City.
Now, we hit questions, legalese questions, on the course of the shows. And again, you're going to have your own situation that you're going through. If you've got a question you'd like the attorneys to tackle on a future broadcast, send it to us: questions at judicacountyradio.com. That's questions at judicacountyradio.com. We're about to talk about HOAs, and if you get a letter, so stay tuned for that.
I want to remind you. Complimentary consult on estate planning available during the course of this show. Just call 919-7727000. That's 919-7727000 or visit our website, WH. Lawyer.
Josh. So, another question that we get a lot, another call we get here at the firm a lot, is problems with your. Homeowners Association.
So, not everybody lives in a neighborhood. I don't have an HOA. You don't have an HOA, Joseph. No, I do not, Joshua. Morgan, do you have an HOA?
We live on a private road. I almost wish we had someone that would talk to a couple of our neighbors because the the post trash day I'm not gonna you know Name where we are, but we've got a couple of these very large cans out in the middle of the road, and they just don't pull them in at night. It's just Again, I'm glad we don't have an HOA. It's a small headache. You can be the HOA, man.
Just walk over there and talk to 'em. Lay down the law on them. Morgan's. Yeah, we we we don't do that. Too many, too many people with Too short of tempers.
So we'll figure it out. But I get the HOA stuff. Yeah, so that HOAs, homeowners' associations, not every neighborhood has one.
Some people, some neighborhoods have kind of lax ones that don't really do a whole lot, don't really charge a lot.
Some people have HOA dues that are very involved. Um Uh some HOAs can be kind of aggressive. Right. But if the HOA sends you a letter. You don't want to throw it in the trash.
You don't want to put it on the desk and get to it later on because it could have a couple things in there. One of the things it could have is a notice. Yep. Right. So say you live in a in a in a aggressive HOA, like Morgan fantasizes about, and you've left your trash cans out for too long.
Yeah. And you got to notice a violation. Um A notice of violation could quickly depending on your HOA, depending on your covenants, depending on your bylaws. could quickly turn into a uh daily fawn. All right.
And it will, it very most likely will turn into, if not daily, a periodic fine. And that's where you see these just absolutely astronomical unheard of HOA assessments coming from. And a notice of violation usually is what sets off or starts time limits that you have to be heard. About the violation, to have a hearing, to have an administrative review. You know, different HOAs call them different things, but basically, once you get a notice of violation, Depending on your HOA, you could have 30 days or 45 days or 60 days in which to notify the HOA that you want to be heard.
You disagree with this notice of violation, you think it's unfair, unwarranted, or they got the wrong house, they really meant to get your neighbor, you know, whatever it is. your your HOA is going to have a uh uh a time limit. And so, if the letter sits on your desk for three weeks, you know, and you finally get it open, you may have waited too long, depending on your HOA. Um And yeah, you don't want to ignore HOA funds because you know, HOAs they can, you know, we've talked about this before. But they can put a lien on your house.
Daily fines can get you. Mm-hmm. We uh the western part of the state, I recently saw one where um Daily fines have been accruing for a long time. The guy, the homeowner, thought they had taken care of it but i guess never really followed up And um Daily fines have been accruing for a long time. A new HOA board comes in and sees it and is like, hey, we need to put a lien and foreclose, and things get real serious real quick.
If you haven't paid attention. Yeah, it'll get out of hand on you, man. I've got an example for you. I I do a show out of Denver, Colorado, and they had an HOA situation where they went on vacation and they had painters come into their HOA neighborhood to paint their home. They had selected the color.
I guess the issue was they didn't go through the HOA to. Tell them what the color was.
So the painters come in, they do their job, and you wouldn't think that the color would be that big a deal. But apparently, in certain HOAs, it is. And the blue that they selected looked great on the sampler card. But when they put it on a big fat house, It was way too blue.
So they get back from vacation. They have a super blue house, and they have been notified by HOA. That it violates the HOA, and they had to go and repaint. Their house. We're talking about a major expense.
But anyway, they were in violation. Yeah, so ma so major ways have um You know, you have to get that approved, right? You want to put a shed up, you want to put a fence up, you want to paint your house, you want to get a new roof.
Some HOAs require. That they approve materials and colors. And if you don't, they have a lot of power to make you. Uh, like you said, Morgan, make you change that kind of thing, and some HOAs don't. Care.
So it's very important to know what kind of HOA you live in and what you're dealing with. Uh but yeah, we see that happen all the time where people You know, have to reverse those kind of things. Yeah, it's not uncommon at all, man. But an HOA lien is serious. An HOA foreclosure is serious because they can sell your home.
uh you know at a foreclosure auction subject to your mortgages. I think we've talked about it on the show before, but um Yeah, you don't wanna you don't wanna put off HOA Correspondence. You want to deal with that. Right at the beginning. Because that, like traffic tickets, that kind of spirals out of control real quick if you ignore them.
Well, there's an opportunity for you to get on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer, and it is a compromised consult in and around estate planning. Simply call 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000. The lawyers are busy working on the next question that we're going to talk about, and we'll transition into our next segment after we broach that question.
So we want to remind you, the compromise consult can be had. You can go to the website as well, wh.lawyer. It's no cost, no obligation, meaning you can come in and talk with the attorneys about estate planning. Maybe you haven't started, you want to get the ball rolling, or you just need a second opinion on something that you're doing. This is complimentary, and again, you don't have to become a client.
That means no obligation. 919-772-7000. That's 919-772-7000. Or you can go to WH.lawyer. All right, so Josh and Joe, we can either do one more question on HOAs or we can transition maybe first question of your next category.
Yeah, you know, this, I wanted to bring this one up. We've kind of got a real property heading for questions that we've received. And I see this come up a lot. And Joe, I know you do too. Um but here's the question.
I inherited Real property, and again, when we're saying real property, we're talking about land, we're talking about houses, that's real property. uh years ago but never changed the deed. Uh what problems what problems can that cause now? And that's for an attorney, that's a loaded question because we're missing some facts, Joseph. That is correct.
We are missing some facts there.
So, are you going to. Are you going to give us the facts? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, so I think you're teasing us.
Is that what you're doing? You're teasing us for the final segment. Is that what you're doing? Yes. That sounds like a thing that we should do.
Real estate and property will be our next topic. We'll do that in our final segment of Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They are managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm right here in North Carolina where they practice law. And they placed offices everywhere: Moorhead City, Castonia, Fuque Verina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and of course the Cap City, Raleigh, North Carolina.
I'm Morgan Patrick. Want to remind you that we have complimentary consults in and around estate planning. All you've got to do is call us 919-77270000, and they will sign you up for one of those complimentary consults and schedule it at your convenience. 919-77270000. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer.
We've got more Judica County coming up. on the other side. Uh Judoka County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They've got offices in our cap city, Raleigh, also Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fucuverena, Gastonia, down near Charlotte, and Moorhead City at the coast.
Conflimentary consults available on estate planning. Check it out, 919-7727000, or visit the website wh.lawyer. Again, 919-7727000. Just say, hey, I want one of those Complimentary Estate Planning Consults, and they'll sign you up. 919-7777777777700000 77270000 or WHO.
So here we go. We are talking real estate and property. Yeah, so our question was: I inherited property, real property, years ago. But never change the deed? What problems can that cause now?
And me and Joseph were talking about how if this. this person who asked this question was in front of us, we'd have a lot of follow-up questions. Because the one thing we need to know is Hu Jin Herod. It from And was there an estate ever opened? for that person.
Yeah, 'cause if i assuming an estate was opened and you know there's no other weird facts that we're not accounting for, there's a high likelihood you have no problem at all. that there's just no there's no issue. Yeah, we deal with a lot of people who come in, and their grandfather inherited property from his grandfather, and it's been in the family six, seven generations, which is always great. You know, the real property stays in the family. But then we go to try to figure out who owns it now, and they'll tell me, well, I had two brothers, one pre-deceased me, there was an aunt involved, she didn't have kids, but my dad's brother had.
Two kids, and you end up making this family tree, and everybody's inherited. Small percentages of this land, but we have no real proof because when granddaddy died, no one opened up an estate. And the further, I mean, you get 20, 40, 60, 80 years removed. from some of these deaths, and it's almost impossible. To kind of figure out that family tree.
That information, if it's not memorialized on the public record in the form of an estate. Or a deed that kind of explains what's happening. Like a lot of that's lost to. time. Yeah, the longer the farther removed that you get from it, you know.
That's this is the thing about people, Josh. You may not know this, but they die. They do. And you could have it just, again, it's another thing where. The issues increase exponentially as time goes on.
More people pass away. Information gets gets fuzzier and gets foggier.
So, um. you know, It can get really tricky really fast. I think about, you know, when my my my My paternal grandmother Died when I was in high school. And I think about. How much family history Was lost just when she passed away.
And now you can go on to ancestry.com and some other websites that try to aggregate information, but it's still a puzzle. Yeah. You have to put together. And at some point, there was someone in your family who knew it back a hundred years, you know, and then when you lose them, That information is just gone. And if you go generation after generation after generation without properly documenting.
Who inherited this? What happened to that person? Were they married? Did they have kids? Um It just gets really, really tricky, and there's ways to fix it, and there's things that you can do, but none of them are.
cheap and easy, right? They're time consuming, expensive, cost a lot of attorneys' fees. Um So that's the delay there. And we deal, me and Joe are always neck deep in real estate transactional and Tidal issues, and you know, people hiring us to cure tidal defects, and we deal with that a lot. And um Again, it it doesn't have to be that way.
Yeah, I think people nowadays are kind of more astute with with that see that more often than maybe Back in the 30s when your great-grandfather passed away, and no one back then, no one did anything because you knew everybody and you knew. Who owned the property at that time, you know? But yeah, the family tree just keeps expanding, right? And there's more people and. One cousin might be in jail.
Somebody might have an IRS lien. You said that like you said that from like it was personal experience. That's no personal experience.
Okay. All right.
But around the holidays, one relative might be in jail. One cousin might have inherited and they might have an IRS lien that's attached to their 128th. interest and that's going to be a complication and it just goes on and on and you know the the family member who's been paying the taxes for the past twenty years wants to see that money come back and um It's just a mess. It can be a mess. Yeah.
Yeah. But that's one that we see a lot where people kind of wait. Um Too long. People either take care of it right away or they wait way, way, way, way too long. And then we have to.
Just stop procrastinating, people. That's the nothing else. None of us here procrastinate. Yeah, I was going to say: have a plan, work with an attorney, get her done. That's right.
But that ends up, and we'll talk about that another day, but that ends up. That would be a good segue into kind of talking about real estate litigation and petitions to partition and. You know, trying to cure title and adverse possession and all these other. real estate law buzzwords that um Are pretty practical. A lot of people have to deal with it, but I ain't got the energy for that today.
Well, the next question is: what do you have the energy for as to wrap the show? He's closing his ass right now for his. When I was a younger man, when I was a younger man. I'd go to school. I worked multiple jobs.
I feel like I could stay up for days. Right. And now I'm a much older man who tires out much easier.
So let me ask you this, Josh. If you're in the middle of your day and you're working hard and you've got maybe a little bit of a gap between appointments, do you ever power nap? And if you do, does that help you? I used to be very good at taking naps when I was younger. I cannot nap now.
I f just can't do it. Can't do it at all. I bet you could do it, man. I bet you if you really put your mind to it, you just, let me tell you, you just close your eyes. And you wait.
And you fall asleep after that. Put on some nice Dreamscape music. Yeah. Somebody always walks into the room. No, no, no, no.
You lock your door, put it on the computer, put it on the pewter and and just turn the lights down. Send your kids to military school.
Now, do you have a do you have a couch that you can stretch out on in your office?
Well, that's a that's the first thing you need. Yeah. You gotta work on that. I used to work for an attorney. I was always very impressed.
He built his building, right? He built his office, and he had his office. and he had what looked like a coat closet. But when you open the coke closet, it was like a huge bedroom. Wow.
And he worked, you know, he. I don't know how his work-life balance was, but he had like a bedroom and a TV, and there was a shower in there.
So it looked like it was a coat closet, but it was really. It was like a house back there. Like a hidden DC. I don't have DC. That's right, I don't have that.
I got the floor. I got lay on the floor. I'm not going to. I don't know. Maybe you design something at one of your offices that you have your own bunker and you can just sneak away and take those power naps.
Those bunkers get expensive, I hear. Yeah, that's what's the word on the street. That's what I heard. I think if there's a nuclear war or something, I think the Whitakers are toast. I don't know if you'd want to be around after a nuclear war, so I'm just saying.
I hope we never learn that. Emergency food. That's all I got. All right, guys. We are wrapping up this edition of Judica County Radio.
It's all about legalese questions. And again, if you've got questions, you need some answers. We've got consults in and around a state planning. You can simply call us 919-77270000. That's 919-77270000.
Also, if we've hit a nerve on any of these topics and you've got some questions, maybe you're delaying things and you don't need to be doing that, give them a call. 919-7727000. That's 919-7727000. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. That's wh.lawyer.
Another edition of Judica County in the books for Josh and Joe. I'm Morgan. 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 enquiry to Joshua Whitaker at jmw at mwhlaw.lawyer.
