Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, going to dive into real estate, estate planning, and probate. We've got listener questions that's coming up next. You're listening to Judica County Radio. Whitaker and Hamer present. Judica County.
with Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hayner. Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and they're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And they've placed offices all across our great state down at the coast, Moorhead City, over near Charlotte, Gastonia.
You've got a few Quake Verina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and the Cap City, Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. We get into listener questions. If you've got a question you'd like the attorneys to address at a future date, just send it to us.
Questions at judicacountyradio.com. That's questions at JudicaCounty Radio.com, and during the course of today's show, we have complimentary consults in and around estate planning.
So stay tuned, we'll tell you how you can get those. Again, no cost. No obligation.
So, gentlemen, before we dive into some real estate questions. How was the week? Josh, you're up first. Did you guys watch the y'all watch the Super Bowl? Who was it?
Y'all into the Super Bowl? Did you watch that? Yes. I call it bits and pieces. Started at 6:30, ended around midnight.
It was. Awful. Yeah. It's a very exciting game. A lot of...
Yeah. People are calling it the most exciting Super Bowl ever, aren't they? If you're a kicker, five field goals. I couldn't care less about either one of those teams, man. You know, usually I can...
I can fake care about one team, right?
So you have somebody to root for, but I don't like the Seahawks.
Well, that's what gambling's for. You know, you put some money on one of the teams and then you're in. How did everybody not bet on the Seahawks? Like, how can you go into that game and not bet on the Seahawks? I bet on the Seahawks.
I bet on the Seahawks. What are you talking about? I'm not a fool. It's exactly what I did. But it was about when you looked at or when I looked on DraftKings, it was about fifty-fifty for the for the teams you know, so Well guys, when it was nine nothing, three field goals, I had no confidence that the Patriots were going to be able to do anything.
No. There was nothing that gave you any indication they were going to pull it together. And. I mean, yeah. All credit to the Seahawks.
That defense. Yeah. Legit. Pretty good, man. Have you seen how many viewers there were by any chance?
Did y'all see how many viewers there were for the. I feel like every year it's the most watched. A couple thousand? Hoover. Yeah, I know the halftime show they were saying was like 100 and some odd million.
I mean, it was like 138, 148 million people tuned in. That's why I like this show on a Saturday. Best halftime show of all time. What is your best Super Bowl halftime show all time? The best.
Which one was it? You can say Bad Bunny if you want to. No, U2. I mean, and Bad Bunny was great, but U2 right after 9-11 was. I don't even remember that one.
Yeah, Josh. If that's not your answer, you're not an American. Oh, I already know my answer. My answer is the best answer, but what is your answer, Joseph? Um next answer.
It's not you too. I don't know that it's you two. Yeah, it's you too, man. I'm an American and I care about America after 9-11. If anyone ever asked you what is the best halftime Super Bowl show of all the time.
I thought you were going to say Prince. You're going to say some kind of Simpson knockoff. No, no. There's only two acceptable answers, and that's Michael Jackson, which is the true. best super or I will accept prince I would even accept Maybe a Tom Petty.
Tom Petty, that would be. You'd let that go. I'd let that go. I wouldn't make fun of you.
Well I think as a society, as an uh as an American, The only two acceptable answers are Michael Jackson or Prince. All right.
Well, so We didn't say those, so I guess we're not Americans. Nah. You've been demoted to. Unfortunately. You've been demoted to Canadian or.
Yeah. Yeah. Well All right, so so one hundred and twenty-seven point something million viewed the game. Halftime was between one thirty-five and one forty-two. How does halftime go up?
People just tune in for halftime. A lot of people who don't care about football and just watching. What do you mean, how do you know? If you're not watching the game, if you're not in a household where the game's not flipping back, they're flipping back. Or they're sitting in and they're watching the ads, which a lot of people do.
Sure. That's what some people do, man. Right. But say 127 million people have turned on the Super Bowl. They're watching the whole Super Bowl.
How do 3 million more people tune in for halftime? Because it doesn't have a time. You know what I'm saying? Like, you don't. It's not like halftime happens at this time.
Yeah. Well, with social media, people start tweeting or posting and then people go go to the T V once they see it's on and Bad Bunny is not speaking English. Oh goodness. I thought he w he wasn't speaking English. Hmm.
I thought that was just a thick southern accent the whole time. Yeah, it was really cool. It was really cool to see. It was like, you know, it was like when, when did China have the Olympics? You remember that when China had the Olympics and they had that open ceremony?
Their opening ceremony was. Crazy. Do you remember that? It wasn't real long ago. Yeah, vague.
I have a vague memory of that. Yeah, they had an opening ceremony and they had like a whole lot of people and everything was choreographed and it was crazy. It was amazing. I didn't understand anything that was being said. But it was still cool.
But that's kind of what this was. They could have been making fun of me personally and I wouldn't know. Yeah, you didn't realize that was Pad Bunny's whole platform. His songs in Spanish making fun of Josh Whitaker. 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.
Yeah, yeah, well, I guess that was longer ago than I thought of man. Really? Oh, eight? Seems like just yesterday, man.
Well, the game was boring. We know that. We've established that. Unless you really enjoy defense. And even still.
But I was watching it with my boys, and so we were talking because we were trying to fill. The hole that the boring Super Bowl left. Yep. You know? And, and, And I asked my kids this question, it ended up being an interesting question.
So I never asked Joseph. What is his favorite anything? Because Joseph Morgan will come up with a favorite, which I appreciate, but not Joseph. Right?
So I asked my kids. Or they asked they kinda asked me. This question is not what your favorite movie is, right? I don't care what your favorite movie is. Take your favorite movie and shove it.
This question is what movie have you seen the most times in your life? Not your favorite movie. You could hate it. But what is your what movie have you seen the most? And I'll tell you, I came down I got it was a tie.
It's either Billy Madison Or Nacho Libre. I think those two movies I have seen the most in my entire. Like hundreds and hundreds of times.
Okay. Oh, good. Maybe Major League is a distant third place.
Okay. But that's the question I have for you guys today. Not a legal question. for our legal talk show. I don't think Joe watches movies.
Joe, do you have one? I watch. I I watch a lot of movies, man. I watch more. Dare I say I watch more than both of you guys combined, potentially, Ryan.
All right, so what's the movie that when it's on, you end up watching it? I mean, you can't turn it off. I mean, that's usually the movie we're talking about. That's not really the question, right? Like, if to answer the question, there's several that I'll just put on.
They told us to stay away from our favorites, so we're staying away from that. They specifically on the question that Josh asked when I was a young boy. When I was a young man, There was a Mark Wahlberg movie called The Big Hit, and it really resonated with me as a young. Like 11-year-old. I watch that movie all the time.
If you've ever seen that one. It's underrated. It's John Lu movie. It did get a lot of love from the critics, but uh Yeah, check it out, man. It's good.
I can't talk about a lot of the reasons it's good here because it's a little more mature than this show will allow. But. It's good. Check it out. Yep.
All right, Morgan. What movie have you seen the most? It's probably It's probably pretty woman. Titanic. No.
I know.
So you've probably seen Pretty Woman the most of any movie. Yeah, Pretty Woman, Hoosiers, Notting Hill. I mean, that's. Yeah. If you like Christmas, if you're like romance, Josh, if you like romance, sit down and watch Notting Hill with your lovely wife.
I've seen Home Alone like 10,000 times. Yeah, yeah, that's a rotational Christmas movie. That's a good point. White Christmas. Uh Christmas story.
I'm not a Christmas vacation guy. Everybody's like, oh, I can't believe you don't like that movie. I'm just not a child. I don't do a lot of fan. I don't do a lot of fan.
Oh, wait, Caddyshack. Yeah, Caddyshack's got to be up there.
So. A lot of this comes from like Billy Madison. We didn't have cable for like a year or two in college, so you'd come home from work or school and eat or whatever. And so you put in a VHS tape. And so Billy Madison.
Was was in the it was just in the VCR for like a year. And so anytime you turned it on, you just picked up Billy Madison wherever you left off. But I think that's why I've seen Billy Madison more than. Any other movie. of all time.
But anyway, so this is when you were a child? No, it was when I was in college. You were in college. Got it. Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore were in the rotation pretty heavy.
And now they still, that's all they show on TV, right? I think they show more things than Billy Madison had. It's all Billy Madison. Every channel. What kind of service do you rave?
Major League. That's Billy Madison's cable service. Avengers in games on, too. They're always on TV, you know. But uh Yeah, Morgan.
Today we got more listener questions. All the listener questions.
Okay. And we fix them up a little bit, we make them. A little more interesting, change the facts.
So we swerve them a little bit, but that's. That's what we're going to do. Me and Joseph are going to sit here and answer legal questions.
Okay, well, let's go over the complimentary consult. We make this available each week, but Josh, just kind of walk us through. If they call our number and they grab one of these consults, no cost, no obligation, what are they getting? Yeah, if you call if you call our number um Leave a message or talk to one of our paralegals or our staff. And what we're doing is we're doing free consults for estate planning.
And Personal injury, right?
So, if you want to get your estate plan done and you want to sit down and talk to one of our estate planning attorneys, you can give us a call. We'll talk to you for free, give you our opinion on what you should be thinking about for your estate plan. If you've been in a car accident, right? If you've been in a car accident and you've been hurt and you have some questions about that, we're also happy to meet with you for free. To talk to you about what your case looks like, to give you our opinion on your.
On your case. And so that's kind of what we're doing this week.
Okay, there you go. Complimentary consult available with Whitaker and Hamer. Again, 919-7727000. The number to call. You can get signed up for that, 919-77270000.
You can also visit the website wh.lawyer and get signed up there as well. We've got more Judica County coming up on the other side. Again, it's going to be listener questions, real estate scenarios coming up next. Again, you're listening to Judica County Radio. We are back on Judica County Radio.
Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, are your hosts and they're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Offices placed for your convenience around our state: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verena, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. We get into listener questions, and if you've got a question you'd like us to address on a future program, you can send it to the show: questions at judicacountyradio.com.
That's questions at judicacountyradio.com. And complimentary consult in and around estate planning. Also, if you've been injured in an accident and want to know about next steps, complimentary consult available to you as well. Just call 919-77270000. That's 919-77227700000000000000000000 7,000, or visit the website wh.lawyer.
All right, so here we go. The deed was supposed to be transferred.
So here's the scenario: My dad passed away five years ago. Before he passed, he told us he had deeded his house to me.
Okay, I've been living there, paying the taxes and insurance, but I just found out the deed was never recorded and the house is still in his name.
Now I want to sell the house. What problems are we looking at?
Well, you know, this is a problem. You know, and a lot of these real estate questions are Or or or Someone's passed away, and a certain here, five years have passed. But time passes quickly, as Morgan and Joseph know. And a lot of times, the problem when you do something. And our question asked, he didn't do anything wrong technically, but.
But a lot of these problems that crop up Take a while to figure out, right?
So, my first thing here is: if your dad passed away five years ago. You should have figured this problem out by now. Yeah. That's the, you know, five years passing since your dad died. I'm sure the dad probably had some other things that probably needed to be wrapped up state-wise.
And somebody should have looked at this before now, right? That's the first thing I would say, Joseph. Yep. Yes. But You can't.
You just gotta operate on the facts as they're given, right? That is good advice, but. It's not an uncommon situation. Yeah, yeah.
So, and here we, you know, we've got, we're missing some facts, right?
So he's saying, hey, my dad passed away five years ago. I thought he deeded me the house, he didn't. And I've been living here. I've been paying taxes. It sounds like a deed exists, right?
So it says, I found out the deed was never recorded. And the house was in his name when he passed.
So it sounds like maybe. In our fact pattern indeed was prepared. And just never recorded. That would be good news. Joseph Vadid still I mean five years has passed Um But if there's a deed still around, what would you do with that, you think?
Well, you know, if you have, I mean, it's, I guess it's better news than having nothing, right? But uh. The the issue that you're gonna have is the fact that You know, you've got this deed that's signed by your father who's now passed away, right? And so. You're an attorney, Josh.
You know, what can you even do with that deed at this point, right? Um. Yeah, yeah, if it was if it was um I don't know. That's a rabbit hole. I don't know if I want to go down right now.
But, um,. If you got a deed, we'll just say if there's a deed existing, that's helpful. You should probably sit down with an attorney. And talk about what that means and what it doesn't mean. Because there's other facts we need here.
And that's one of the facts we need is when your dad passed away. Who inherited, right? Who were his heirs? Did he have a will? Did he not have a will?
Does he have five kids? Are you an only child? Right, those are facts we really need to give this person. Good advice. Yeah, yeah, because that's what's going to be relevant, right?
Like having the deed, again, helpful, but at the same time. Yeah. Yiki. He's not alive, right? And so who.
He never deeded that property out. Depending on what his estate looks like, someone else could have an ownership interest in that property. And the fact that you've got that deed doesn't do anything to that person's ownership interest.
So you could have a very, very tricky situation. You could have a not that tricky situation. There's just, we need more information. Yeah, the information we're missing: are there other heirs, or are you the sole heir? If you're the sole heir, This is an easy fix for an attorney, right?
You can fix this. There may be some other facts that complicate it, but if you're the sole heir, Grady. You don't have that big of a problem. You got a problem, but you ain't got a big problem. Still got a fix, but yeah, it's an easier fix.
If you have four or five brothers and sisters, I'd imagine, and then I'd imagine this would have come up, right? If you had four or five siblings and then your your dad died, And the dad died owning the property. I feel like this would have come up by now because you got other people who have an interest in the house. You're going to have to talk to those people and kind of figure out the best path forward. But um The deed, if it exists, is still helpful, but that's a tough question without.
without more facts. But that person needs an attorney. Yeah. I don't want you my j I I don't want you to pay me an attorney if I can't really help you. That's not my goal in life.
Um, is to get people in the office to pay me money that I can't really help, or I don't put you in a better situation. This person. needs to go talk to an attorney immediately. And flesh this thing out. Yeah, this isn't something that he's going to have an easy.
He can't just go down to the clerk or the register of deeds and. Ask some questions, get some help, and get it sorted easily. That's something, like you said, you're going to need some professional help with. And Joe, it's probably good to mention, you know, when you go down to the courthouse, A lot of the clerks down there, clerks being the folks who work at the courthouse, right? The clerks are the ones who are working.
At the courthouse, a lot of times you run into very helpful clerks who are very knowledgeable, but the clerks can't give you legal advice. They can give you pamphlets. They can kind of... tell you yes, you should be in this office, not the criminal office, right? They can give you guidance like that.
But they legally cannot give you legal advice. Although as helpful as they may be, they're not. Attorneys and they're not allowed to give you legal advice. 'Cause I hear that a lot.
Well, the clerk told me I needed to do this, and I was like, Well, the clerk was trying to be helpful, but they probably didn't know this and what you just told me, and that your dad died five years ago owning this house. I don't feel like we did a good job with that question. I think we nailed it. I think we absolutely nailed it, man. I I would disagree with you wholeheartedly.
Josh, you're such an Eeyore. I don't know if we did it. Life is meaningless. We're going to move on to our next question. I do want to go ahead and just say we have the complimentary consults in and around estate planning.
Also, if you've been injured in an accident, an automobile accident, you can get some advice and it's complimentary. That first appointment, 919-77270000. Again, 919-7727000. You might just not know what steps to take when it comes to stuff like that. But as far as estate planning, very important to have that in place.
Complimentary consult for that as well. 919-77270000. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. All right, next question: joint ownership, but one owner has passed away.
So two siblings bought a rental property together and it was 10 years ago. One has passed away and did it without a will. The surviving sibling has been collecting rent since then. The deceased siblings' kids now want their share. Who actually owns what?
Alright, so we have uh We have two brothers who bought a rental property together And they've got a tenant in there. And so it's income producing rental property. And then we've got one brother who passed away without a will. And from the question, we know the brother. Had Kids.
So had some.
So uh so so Still got a tenant in there, still collecting rent. Hmm. What do you think, Joseph? That was so much factual buildup. What's the actual question again?
I had to reread it in my brain. But two brothers own property together. One brother has died.
Okay. That's the basic of it. That's the basic. All right.
How do they own the property? Step one. It's question one. We gotta look at the deed, we gotta determine how title was vested, right? Um And just to give some Very exciting, almost as exciting as the Super Bowl background legal.
This is more exciting than the Super Bowl. Yeah, obviously. Um. Two primary types of uh joint ownership, right? Uh i if we simplify it.
You've got joint tenants with rider survivorship, which means if you got two owners, they own it that way, one of them passes, the other takes. It's a non-probate asset, it just automatically goes to the other owner. The other type, which is the default in the absence of it being stated otherwise, is going to be they're going to own as tenants in common. And in that scenario, That property is going to go to the heirs of the person who passed away.
So it doesn't just go to the other owner.
So big distinction there. That could drastically change the answer to this question. And I would guess. I would, if I had to guess, because it's not in the question, so I do have to guess. I would guess they own this as tenants in common, right?
So one both of the brothers put money in. They want their heirs to get the benefit of their investment.
So I would assume they own it as tenants in common, meaning Like you just said. If one of the brothers dies, his heirs are going to inherit his 50%. It doesn't sound like he has a spouse in the picture, but we know he has kids. And so those kids are going to inherit his 50%. And so they're entitled to any profit.
from the date of death. uh to to the present, right? Yep. Yep. And um That's right.
They're They're entitled to it regardless of what they've done in terms of if they haven't administered an estate. If they want to do that, that's something they want to get taken care of and cleaned up. But they still have an ownership interest as well. And so they are. Part owners of that property.
So the hope would be that everybody's decent and Understanding of that situation, and that other sibling who's been collecting the rents would understand that. And, you know, it'd be a Fairly simple fix of just distributing some funds and working some things out. But in the absence of that, you know, if this other owner did. Play hardball, didn't like his brother's kids, then you could be looking at a situation where someone's got to litigate to get that sorted out. But they could do that and win.
Well, they did this wrong too, right? These are two brothers buying investment property. They should have formed an LLC and dropped this property in an LLC for liability protection, one, because they're not living there, tenants living there. But also that would have made this Problem a lot easier to solve if one were to pass away than and not necessarily, you know, it could. But again, that assumes that they they Put together their business formation documents correctly and they didn't create any sub-issues.
By not having an operating agreement, not having membership interest stated clearly. Yeah, that would be the best play for more reasons than the one that you just mentioned, Josh. Several reasons. Yeah, you know, and and again I don't mean to harp on this, but No one including me, no one likes to pay attorney's fees. But paying an attorney to set this up properly.
Would not have cost a lot of money. Forming an LLC, getting the property deeded into an LLC. And we've seen all these bad things happen.
So when we prepare an LLC for you, we're. Putting this stuff in there needs to be in there to make this as easy as possible when life happens, right? When these things happen. Um But anyway, yeah. That's what I got to say about that.
We are in the middle of listener questions here on this version of Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts, the managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Comprehensive consult in around estate planning. And also, if you've been injured in an accident, you've got questions about how to proceed, comprehensive consult for you as well. Just call 919-77270000.
That's 919-77270000. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer, sign up there. We've got more at Judica County. Coming up. Uh Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm.
And again, they're the power behind this program, Whitaker and Hamer. And again, our hosts are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices placed for your convenience in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Tuquev Arena, Gastonia, and down on the coast at Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. If you've got a question you'd like the attorneys to address on a future program, you can always send it to us.
Questions at judicacountyradio.com. That's questions at judicacountyradio.com. Complimentary consult in or out of state playing, but also if you've been involved in an accident and you don't know the next steps, maybe there's an injury involved. Call, grab one of these consults, 919-772-7000. Again, it's complimentary, 919-77270000.
You can also visit the website wh.lawyer. All right, next listener question, guys. Will says one thing, accounts say another, and here it is. My dad's will says everything is split evenly among three kids, but his life insurance and bank accounts name only one child as beneficiary. Is that allowed?
I'm gonna come back to that question in just a minute. Did you guys see the Hornets Pistons game? Did y'all watch that? Yeah. I've been watching it.
I'm a Hornets guy, man. Big Hornets. The thing. The Fisticuffs. It was crazy.
Yeah. I was uh the the NC State Louisville game was was not a good game. And I flipped over to the Hornets game because we've been watching a lot of the Hornets here lately. And uh big big fight in the Hornets game. Yeah, yeah.
I put a very, you know, me and Joseph from time to time. We'll we'll bet. On the sports, right? Yeah, because every now and again. Yeah, because it's above board.
I put a very small bet. on the Hornets. to win it all. Right, very small bet. But because the odds are so crazy, because the Hornets probably aren't going to win the NBA championship, although they're playing very good.
Hold your tongue, man. I hope they do. True fan. True fan. Yeah, I put a very small bet, but because the odds are so against them.
The bet would pay off twenty thousand dollars. If you want to get in on that action. Morgan? If you've been watching the Hornets. Morgan.
What what would you get paid if you put twenty thousand down? Oh my god. I don't know. It was like 20,000 to 1 odds. Ah, okay.
What is that? I don't know what that is. I'm not a mathematician. I'm not a guy who does a lot of math. What do you want from me, man?
Yeah, it's not. It's a lot. Come on, Josh. I'd like to think it'd be enough to take some time off from the radio show.
Well, and the IRS would want their chunk, so you couldn't take too much time off. Or just do more radio. Why would you want to take time off from this? Just double down. Yeah, just double down.
Buy more time and just do more. That's what I think.
Well, that was the craziest. I was watching it with two of my boys, and I was like, I've never, I can't remember the last time a Hornets game had a fight in it. Like, when was that? Yeah. I don't know, man, but uh I like the Hornets.
And I like the direction of the team. Very young team. Very fun to watch. They went from sellers to Buyers, because they were on that win streak, and they think they've got a shot to make a run. Hence your bet, Josh.
It might not be a frivolous bet. You might have. Opportunity to see this team do something now, win a championship. Wow. Where are we going if you win?
I'm not going anywhere. No, no, I said we. I said we. Yeah. It's a show.
Yeah. Do Judica County from I don't know, the Bahamas. Yes. Key West. It's the only anti- We can do it shirtless.
We can do the red shirtless. Where did that go? I already do that. We don't need to go down that road. All right, we had a question here.
The question, Morgan's question, was: Dads keep passing away in these examples. I don't like this. It's like Disney or something. My dad's will says everything between his three kids, right? He's got a will, he says everything I own to my three kids.
But his life insurance and his bank accounts name only one child as the beneficiary. And the question is: is that allowed? And the short answer is yes, but we'll talk about it. And that happens. A lot where maybe one of the three kids is kind of in a position to help take care of an elderly parent.
Here it's the father, and they'll get added to accounts, and they'll get added to um. to things like that. But um So we've answered the question. It was a yes-no question. And the answer is yes, this is allowed, but why is this allowed, Joseph?
We answer the question, man. What do you talk? What's up with these follow-up questions, man? We we answered it.
So the will Right, the will only controls Probate assets that are in the estate.
So if I say I have three kids, I say everything to my three kids. And whatever goes into probate, that's what the will controls. But the trick is, the will doesn't control everything. The will doesn't control. non-probate Assets.
Which is the goal. You want to have as many of those as possible. We've talked about it 82,000 times on this show. If you come and talk to an attorney, our goal is to make all of your assets non-probate. We want to avoid probate.
And so a lot of times we have to, that's part of our process is explaining to people your will. Hopefully, you're going to have a will. Everybody needs a will, but hopefully, you don't need it. Hopefully, you die with no. probate assets.
That's the goal of any good Estate planner, estate planning attorney. And so here Maybe he did have some probate assets that did get split up with the assets the question's asking about, the life insurance. and your bank accounts, those are You can name beneficiaries and that's kind of a contract between you and the life insurance company and you and your bank. And you can say, hey, if I'm dead, I want this kid to get whatever's in the bank accounts. I want this kid to get my life insurance.
And that's what's gonna happen. When you when you die and they get a death certificate, those those Life insurance and the bank, they're going to cut a check. to your beneficiary, which in this example is one of the three children. And that happens a lot. Yeah.
And the other heirs are never happy, usually never happy about that, but that's just the way it is. And let's say here, just to make our question stand out more, that the father didn't have any probate assets, right?
So let's say that's his only asset was life insurance and bank accounts, and that all went to the one child. They don't even open up an estate because he doesn't have anything else. He doesn't have a car. He doesn't have real property. Um Then that's it.
That one kid will end up getting everything if that's all that. And that's it. You know, there is there's nothing you can do outside of like very narrow scenarios if you had. I mean And this is like such a long shot. Like, you'd have to almost have a situation where you had undue influence and you can app prove some kind of fraud.
Like, he was forced into making those changes. But in the absence of that, it's not like you can contest a will because there's no will to contest. There's nothing there. And you. Yeah, it's just it's it's gone.
And I think that's why one of the things we talk about a lot is A well-crafted estate plan isn't just the documents that you get from an attorney's office. Because, again, this guy could have had the best will ever drafted, and it's of no value to him. Unless, again, that was his intention, right? Like, if he specifically intended. For it to happen like that, that great, that's what he wanted.
But. You're gonna have a sad kid, man. And that's probably why you see, you know, we talk about. We get a question from time to time: like, I don't really own that much. Do I need a will?
Yes, everybody needs a will, but more so, you need to talk to. An estate planner. even if it's just once, and even if it's just us for free. Like, here's what I got. What a price.
Here's what I got. It's incredible. What complimentary? What do I need to do? And um You know, everybody has everybody in their mind at least.
Whether you own millions and millions of dollars of stuff or you don't, everybody kind of has an idea: like, this is what I want to happen. When I die, and then you have to have a plan. For the most part, it doesn't just happen. Right?
What in your life, Joseph, has just happened without a plan? Oh, man, don't ask me that. I've actually been the beneficiary of a lot of just happenstance type of stuff, man.
So I ain't the one to ask, man. We'll edit this out then. This backfired. I don't recommend that, man. I mean, I don't know how it's worked for me.
It's not a great plan. It's just real radio. It's not a great plan. It's not the way to go. Look, we're going to edit this out and just talk about it at Hornets Fight play by play for about that.
That's a better play.
Well, listen, Junica County Radio, we do offer up those complimentary consults in and around estate planning. We're talking about that during this segment. 919-77270000, as Josh said and Joe backed up. I mean, it's just important to have these conversations. If you don't have an estate plan, grab one of these consults.
If you do and want a second opinion, grab one of these consults. 919-77270000. That's 919-7727000. No checkbook involved. That means complimentary.
And you're not obligated to become a client. You can also. Visit wh.lawyer. That's wh.lawyer. Judica County.
We're going to roll on on the other side. And again, more listener questions in and around estate planning. We'll start there. That's coming up next. You're listening to Judica County Radio.
Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and the firm, of course, the power behind this program. And both Josh and Joe are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices placed for your convenience all over our great state: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fucquave Arena, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on.
And we have confirmed consults in and around estate planning. But also, if you've been in an accident, possible injury, don't know what to do, grab one of the consults and come in and talk about it. No cost, no obligation. 919-7727000. That's 919-7727000.
You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer, get signed up there as well.
Next question up, guys. And this is. In and around estate planning. Outdated estate plan meets new families.
So here it is. My mom's will was done before she remarried. She never updated the will. She just passed away. Unfortunately, she passed away.
Her new husband is still living in the house. What rights does he actually have?
So this is uh So this question's no bueno, right? This question is uh You don't you don't want to be in this In this position, but it it it happens it happens quite a bit, right?
So at least the dad didn't die in this question. Yeah, I know, about time, man. I know, man. Morgan, you'd be just murdering dads left and right. Yeah, we're getting a just bad mojo.
I have to do that a lot in consults. I have to do that when we're talking about an estate plan. I have to kill off in our hypothetical. Yeah, I have to kill off somebody and be like, well, what do you want to happen? You.
You die on the way home today. What do you want to happen for you? You're going to get a lot of consults.
Well, I have to kill off somebody when we do the conspiracy. You guys choose before you come in. If you're coming in as a couple, you decide who you want me to kill off first in our hypothetical estate plan. The mom all right the mom got remarried. which is great.
She found she found some happiness, she got remarried. I'm sure it was very festive. But in all that in all that celebrating, she never updated her estate plan. That makes me think she had an estate plan, probably left everything to her To her kids, right? It's a kid asking this question.
So I'm going to assume she has a will that leaves everything to her kids. She never updated it after she got remarried. She just passed. Her new husband is living in the house, which I assume. Is titled into the mom's name, right?
So the mom probably owned it. And her soul name before she got married. The new husband is in the house. What rights? Does he actually have?
So the new husband is not in the will. The new spouse is not on the title, not on the deed to the house.
So, I think a casual observer might think the husband doesn't really have a lot of. Rights in this situation.
Okay. But Joseph, they would be wrong. They would be wrong. And I think the starting point for that conversation is. is what Let's talk about the husband's w the int what what interests the husband has, right?
Um Because 'cause he does. He does have an interest. That's right. I think it's very important that we highlight the fact that he does have an interest, and he's got. what's called a marital interest.
Joshua. Bios it That's right. Yeah, if you go way back, it's uh It's born out of the North Carolina Constitution and some case law, but you cannot. even by accident. Even on purpose, you cannot disinherit.
a spouse. Right, you and your spouse get separated for 20 years, you don't even know where your spouse is, and you die. That spouse is still going to inherit. Spouses have very heavily protected. rights in North Carolina, and they're going to inherit Something.
It depends on what you have. Depends on what you die with. But one of the things they can definitely do is they can Uh electronic.
So, in this situation, all we know is that the mom died. We know she owned a house. and the spouse survived her. And um There's a will. That names the kids, right?
So in this situation, what the spouse would do is it would take their, it's called an elective share. But they can basically The the husband at the very least is going to have a a life estate. In that house. Yeah, would you say at minimum?
So The husband can live there as long as he wants. The husband's going to have a life estate in the property at the very least.
Now, what practically happens in this situation is all the heirs get together. And usually just work something out, right? That's what usually happens. Um. But if they don't and they don't get along, the husband is going to take his elective share.
Which again at the very least Is going to be a life estate in the house, and it may be more. You know, if she died with more assets. Um you know, it may it may be more. Uh but at the very least He's gonna keep he's gonna keep taking it easy in that house. Taking it easy.
Maybe he's doing a lot of work around the house. He may not be a lazy guy. He can't make decisions.
Well, it doesn't matter, I guess, right? Yeah. Either way. That's right. Um But yeah, and we talk about that all the time.
You know, if you, you know, a lot of times we talked about the Brady Bunch, right? This is why we did the estate plan for the Brady Bunch. And the reason we picked the Brady Bunch is because both of the Brady's were on their second marriage. They had kids with their first spouse. and you don't want to accidentally disinherit a spouse.
Or kids. Um, and so you have to think through, we have, you know, you have to think through these things. You have to. Put a plan together, Joseph. You have to plan.
Yeah. Yes, you do. You have to plan. What better way to plan? than sitting down with an attorney, a handsome attorney, if you get Josh Whitaker, for free, man.
Complimentary. Complimentary appointment. It's a consult. 919-77270000. Maybe some questions have popped up about your overall estate plan.
If you don't have one, maybe you should put something in place, get it in writing, maybe start that process. This is a complimentary consult. Again, leave the checkbook at home. And you're not obligated to become a client, but you'll obviously get some great information. 919-77270000.
919-7727000. Information pertaining to your situation. Again, 919-7727000. You can also visit the website wh.lawyer. All right.
Next up, do you have a preference? I don't.
Okay. Here it is. Uh trust exists.
Alright, it's there. But nobody funded it.
So here's the question. My dad created a trust. This was years ago, but never transferred his house or accounts into it. Everything is still in his name. Does the trust still avoid probate?
Uh Um Well the so the trust is usually when you make a trust with a with a competent attorney.
So when you create a trust, funding is one of the things. You talk about what you want the trust to do. And you put the trust together, and usually the attorney is going to talk to you about funding the trust. What does that look like? And usually, it's funded with at least, you know, what, $10 cash or something.
So the trust. The trust will usually be in existence, right? A truly non-funded trust doesn't exist, right? But usually it's funded a little bit, and so I'm gonna assume that's what the attorney who drafted this trust did. And so the trust.
exists. Um But just if there's nothing in it. Yeah. And if there's nothing in it, then... You know, what what what what benefit Does it really have?
A lot of times when I'm talking to people, and we're talking about a trust, and I've said this on the show before, but I think of the trust as like this magic. Box. Box. Bucket. Yeah, yeah.
Bucket for a box. I like bucket food. I think of it as magic box. And anytime you take an affirmative action, right, you have to take an action to put something in that bucket. But once it gets in that bucket, it's going to avoid probate.
It's a magic bucket. It avoids probate, but you got to actually put stuff in it. Nothing gets in there by accident. Right. If it's real property, you got to deed the real property into the trust.
If it's a boat or a vehicle, you got to go down to DMV and change the title. If it's a bank account, you've got to change. Your bank account, like nothing gets in there. By accident. And so, in this situation, what's going to happen is.
Uh you're gonna have to probate the will. I imagine the will is what we call a pour-over will, right?
So that will just leaves everything to the trust. And so everything's gonna get to the trust, which is good, because that trust probably has some pretty specific directions. on on on what's going to happen. But yeah, you're not avoiding probate anymore. Yeah, and that's the whole point of the trust.
I mean, there's other benefits as well, but you're getting none of those benefits. You just got a really fancy bunch of sheets of paper. Um That's it. Yeah, and I've had people come in where we're kind of revisiting, like they have an estate plan and we're revisiting it. And so they'll bring me the binder the last attorney gave them.
I'm like, oh, you got a revocable living trust in him. They're like, yeah, I don't know what it is, and you can't do anything with it. And I was like, well, your attorney. I mean, and maybe that attorney was telling them what to do and it just didn't. He didn't use the sweet bucket analogy, so it didn't make It didn't make as much sense, you know.
It didn't make the connection. Yeah. Gotta use that bucket analogy, man. That's pretty key. It's it's incredibly important.
You've got questions about your own estate planning situation. Maybe the light bulb's gone off and you need to get rolling on this. A complimentary consult with Whitaker and Hamer is available. Call us 919-77270000. Again, not paying for it, and you're not obligated to become a client, but you're going to get some great information as far as estate planning.
919-77270000, 919-77270000. You can also visit wh.lawyer. We've got one more segment, final segment coming up. Judica County Radio continues right after this. Yeah.
Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners of the firm at Whitaker and Hamer, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and Whitaker and Hamer, the power behind this program. We've got offices all over the state: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuguai Verena, Gastonia, and down on the coast at Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. If you've got a question you'd like the attorneys to tackle on a future program, Notice football words, tackle.
Questions at judicacountyradio.com. Send it to us. Questions at judicacountyradio.com. And there are complimentary consults in and around estate planning. But also, if you've been involved in an accident and you don't know what to do next, And you've got questions, you can grab one of the consults as well: 919-772-7000.
919-7727000. You can also visit the website, w.lawyer. All right, next question up, gentlemen. Estate has more debt than assets is the category, and here it is. My mom passed away with credit card debt, medical bills, and a house with a mortgage.
Do the kids inherit the debt? Is the big question. You know, this is an interesting question. You know, we get this question. We have a lot of, we do a lot of estate administration and probate.
Um and so a lot of times when people pass away we'll have a consultation with the heirs to kind of figure out what what we're dealing with. And one of the things that we'll ask you about Is, you know, what kind of debt are we looking at? You know, were they in the hospital for a long time? Um you know reverse mortgages, credit card debt, you know, um That's an important part of the estate. Um and certain debt Uh Kind of does it.
I don't know if inherit's the right word, but certain debt you do have to deal with, right?
So, in our question, There was a couple of different kinds of debt: credit card debt, medical bills, that's what we call unsecured debt. And then there's a house with a mortgage, and that mortgage is going to be a secured secured debt and a mortgage there's going to be a lien on that house. And so the kids or the heirs, we'll say the kids, they're going to inherit that house subject to The mortgage, 'cause there's a lien.
So they kind of do inherit that debt, I guess, to a certain extent. Joseph, I don't know if that's the best word for it, but. I mean, that's what happens, right? You know, I mean, they inherit the property, the property has the debt.
So, yeah, it's their, it doesn't just go away magically, you know?
So let's say that house has a value of $500,000. And let's say the mortgage. Is $300,000, right?
So they're going to inherit that house subject to that mortgage. They're going to have to figure that mortgage out. That mortgage is going to have to get paid off. or refinanced or something. Um But here's the trick: the credit card debt and the medical bills, you don't quote unquote inherit that debt.
But When you open the estate for your mom, those creditors, if they file a claim in the estate, They're going to be able to get to some of the assets, right? They're. You're not, you know, you're not, the kids are not personally responsible for that debt. But that debt can become a problem for, in our example, the equity in the house, right? Um and and those if those If those if those debts are big enough and and there's attorneys involved for the The owners of that debt they might be able to get to that equity in the house.
So, depending on how the numbers work out, this might be a wash, yeah, to the kids, right? There may not be. That mortgage is going to get fully paid off one way or the other: foreclosure, refinance, selling the house. Um and then the rest of the debts If there's equity in the house. They're going to have an argument where they can get to it.
So, in this example, If there's enough debt, the kids might not inherit anything.
So they didn't necessarily inherit the debt, but it may end up where the mom didn't have any. to leave the kids after the debt was taken care of. If that makes sense. That's a fantastic it made sense to every single person listening, man. And I feel like everyone's lives have been changed by that.
I feel like when I'm listening to the radio and I'm going down the road and I'm listening to the radio, I got like a. Max, max 30-second attention span, you know, like when you're driving. Yeah, well, that's kind of scary. I don't want to be anywhere. Yeah, that's why Josh gets in 72 recs a year.
Three a week. But like, I'm trying to listen to an audio book. An audio book came out about football. And so I'm trying to listen to it in the car. I guess a lot of people do that.
Like, I usually listen to like. Music, or maybe some news, right? Yeah. I'm struggling keeping up with his audio, but. Because I'll listen to it.
I drive a lot in like twelve minute segments, you know.
So d t anyway. You guys aren't paying attention. I'm listening. I'm listening to you. Your seconds things have already expired.
I was going to say, I feel like I'm listening to an audiobook in the car right now. I'm just imagining you listening to an audiobook going off into Dreamland and smashing into somebody because you're dreaming. I really disconnect in the car. It's yeah, you've never done that though? You've never been driving and like really disconnecting, like when you get where you're going, like, I don't even remember.
You just don't autopilot? Yeah. You don't remember that? I don't drink as much as you, Josh. The um I don't know if I got any more legal questions in me today.
That's all you got, man. You did good. You did. You really carried us. I don't know.
I I've just noticed something. Joe, you're such a good hype man. Thank you for joining us. He is. That's what I'm hearing for you.
He really lifts you up. I mean, it's like That's what he's got me in the firm for. It has nothing to do with my legal knowledge or prowess as an attorney. It's all I just hype him up and he likes that. It's good stuff.
It's good stuff. We want to remind you that here on Judica County, we do have a lot of fun, but we get into the legal issues and you've got questions about possibly estate planning, or maybe you've been in that car accident. Hopefully, not anywhere near Josh when he's driving. But if you've been in an accident, you've got questions about how to proceed, you can grab one of these consults as well.
So, estate planning or a recent accident, 919-77270000. Leave me in the checkbook at home. Just come in and talk about it. It's a complimentary consult with Whitaker and Hamer, 919-7727000. You can also visit the website wh.lawyer.
Get signed up there. Again, offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuclave Arena, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. Closing thoughts, Josh. I'll hit you first. Joe, you're after that.
There are certain times where you just have to talk to an attorney. Right. Like, there are certain times where you just got to give up and go to the doctor. I had to do that. I just, I had to go to the doctor.
Certain times you just have to go talk to a lawyer, even if you don't like it. Like, I'd like to think you'd enjoy talking to me and Joseph, right? If you had to go, you had to call a lawyer and you call me or Joseph here. Yeah. It's not that bad.
No, it's not. I talk to you guys once a week. It's awesome. But sometimes you just have to do it. There's things that, you know, like we were talking about that earlier.
Like if I sprain my ankle, I don't go running to the doctor. I kind of wait and see when the swelling goes down. And, you know, there's things you can kind of figure out on your own and you can kind of get through it. Maybe. Maybe it's not the best, but you kind of can get through it, right?
Sometimes you just got to talk to a lawyer.
Sometimes you just got to talk to a doctor. All right, Joe, put a lid on it. What do you got? All right.
No, man. Good show. I enjoyed listening to Josh. I think he taught me a lot. I think I'll be a better person and attorney because of this.
And I'm going to eat some food, man. That's what I'm really looking forward to. Lifting us up. Thank you, Joe. All right, another edition of Tudica County Radio in the books.
Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker, Hamer, Law Firm, are your hosts and their practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Again, those offices located convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. Again, complimentary consult at any time. Just give us a call: 919-7727000, Estate Planning. And if you've been in a recent accident, don't know how to proceed, 919-7727000, 919-7727000, or visit the website wh.lawyer.
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 inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at jmw at mwhlaw.lawyer.
