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. Gonna get into some legal questions. The missing 300K from grandma's account. The contractor's drone, and we'll also get to the forgotten ex-spouse. Those categories and much, much more coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio.
Whitney. Judica County. with Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hayman. Welcome in to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners.
Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And again, it's all about getting you legally prepared for any issue you are facing. We get into these discussions. We also want to tell you that we have offices all over our great state, Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verinik, Estonia, and down at the coast, Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick.
Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. Gentlemen, before we dive in on topic number one, question number one. Josh, how's the week?
So far, so good, Morgan. I um I'm trying to bring the energy this morning. I uh I was up and down a lot last night, and I didn't get my normal partying. Yeah, I was going to say, reasoning. Did you eat late?
What happened? No, it was a long work day, right? It was a long work day, and I got home and wound up. I watched some World Cup, which I don't usually do, but that was the only thing on. Uh And then watched some baseball.
My boys were there. Watch some baseball. And. Went to bed. And then just up and down.
I don't know the rhyme or reason. Nothing's really bothering me, but uh. 'Cause I think you ate something. I ate steak. I had some steak.
It, um. I had some steak. Hey, late. The boys, you know, in the summertime, they got football, they got working, you know, they get home late, so we eat. We eat later, but some steak, but maybe that was it.
Maybe some digestion. When you get older, you really feel the die the digestion, right? That's not a young man's problem. That's an old man's problem. You know how your body doesn't digest, man?
Well, it just takes longer. That's why with the people in there, like when you get to be 108. You start eating some mush because your stomach doesn't have to work. Pudding is your favorite thing. Pudding is your favorite thing.
Well, what about you, Joe? Doing great. Ouch! Is that good? Is that enough?
Short. You need more. Short and to the point. I'm doing fantastic. I've got no complaints.
All right. That's good. The. You know, I was watching. I was you guys, this is not gonna Joe's not gonna know anything about this.
But sometimes, you know, I'm flipping through the channels. That that makes my kids angry 'cause my kids don't flip through the channels, right? My kids, they're they're the streaming generation, they go watch exactly what they want to watch when they want to watch it. They don't have this need to kind of get the remote and kind of flip through the channels to see what's on. They think that's ludicrous.
Right. I don't know, Morgan. You're probably a flipper. I don't know about judges. I am.
And I have the problem of, like, if I find something, like, it's an old nostalgic movie that I remember from many, many years ago, I'll end up watching a little bit of it, maybe a lot of it. But yeah, certain movies pop up, I end up watching those. But yeah, I'm a scroller. Yeah, I can't do a lot of flipping these days. Used to, but uh I can't just decide what I'm going to watch.
You know, I can't just say, I don't want to. Unless it's a sporting event. And it's a timeframe. That's right. Other than that, I'm just like, uh.
That flip around. Anyway, I'm flipping around.
Sometimes I get stuck on the MTV classic on there, and they'll be doing the 80s block, or 80s.
So I was like, oh, I'll watch this video.
So I'm flipping through and they had the well, I guess they had the 90s. I guess that was in the nineties when Voice to Men, right, broke out. Yep. What was their big breakout song, the first song where they broke through? Anyone?
Voice to Men. I know a lot of their songs. I couldn't with a gun to my first. Motown Philly was like the first song where they had a video, and it was like a top. Hit, and you know who their producer is, right?
Voice to men, who was their producer? I didn't know this was going to be a. I came prepared to answer legal questions. This is a legal question show. It was Biv from Belle Biv DeVoe, right?
That was their producer. Of course.
So he was putting together this. Yeah. All right. And so he's featured prominently in the first video because that's what happened. I saw.
I saw Motown Philly. You know, my boys were sitting in there and I was making them watch this song. I was like, oh man, you don't, this was a huge song when I was growing up. And your boys are starting to worry about you now. That's right.
So we're watching it. And now I'm explaining, like, hey, that's Biv from Belle Bib DeVoe, because they're familiar with some of Belle Bib DeVoe's work, right? Yeah, yep.
So, you guys aren't nearly as familiar with this video as I hoped you would be, but the reason I'm bringing it up is as they're going through the video, they're showing other artists. Like, right, they'll just show this clip of this other band. And I guess at the time, Biv was. Producing all these bands, and we're like, hey, this is going to be a big song. Let's get all these bands in there.
And there's like a, you guys probably don't remember based on our conversation this point. This is not going the way you hoped it would because of us, man. I feel like the first band they show. The first band they show is ABC. Another bad 3D?
No, it was another bad creation. It was like little kids. They had a song called Aisha. It was a big song back in the day. Anyway.
So they show ABC. I can't remember, there was like another band that you knew they were. They were already kind of popular or had a song. And then they show this group. It's all white guys.
And a group's name is called Sudden Impact. All right. It's like five or six. It looks like they're going to the prom. It's five or six young guys.
They're in like tuxedos. And are you going to tell us you were in this band? I was not in this band.
Okay. This band, as far as I know. Go ahead. I was going to say, obviously, it didn't have a lasting impact, but it was sudden. Yeah, it was at the very end, and they like, I don't know, they had like a move, like it showed them, and they all punched or something.
They all had like this little move they did. And then it went on with the video. I don't know, I don't remember sudden impact. ever doing anything. Right, and they're memorializing this very popular video.
Motown Philly, that video will probably play until my age group dies out, right?
So 30, 40, 50, like the. You know, it'll be like hearing the Beach Boys on the radio, right? You're just going to hear Motown Philly, you're just going to see this video, and his video. for three seconds. Sudden impact.
As far as I know, I have not googled it. They really didn't do anything. Mm-hmm. And that just bothers me. Yeah.
Sudden, but not lasting. I'm not linking this to anything, it has nothing to do with the law, obviously. It's just always bothered me. That I know whose sudden impact is. But I don't know that they ever did anything.
Maybe this is what kept you up. Maybe tossing and turning. Yeah, possibly. I think what really kept me up now that I'm talking about it. I got one of these square I sleep I'm a side sleeper You got a side sleeper stomach back, what do you do?
Are you spooning? What are you doing? No, I'm just a side sniper. I rotate. Everybody has a rotus back.
Back. Back. Back. Okay. Yeah, I side sleeper, man.
I'm uh A side sleeper. It's the only way. It's the only thing that works for me personally.
So I'm a side sleeper, and I was like cramming a bunch of pillows. Between my head and the bed, right? Because none of them were the right size. I'd have like three pillows, but I had to fold one in half to get the right. leveling off action.
And so I bought this big square pillow. That's been great. It's like a cube or something. I can't remember what it's called. My kids broke it.
Broke it in half. What? I think that's my problem. I think that's why I'm not sleeping good. How did your kids break a pillow in half?
I don't know. Kids break stuff all the time. You heard, man. They've been at football practice all day. They're coming home jacked up.
Yeah, just wailing. Whitaker family around. Look, man, I said ABC BBD. That was a relevant reference, and you just brushed that off like it was nothing, man. It was.
It was in poison, right? ABC BBD stands for Another Bad Creation in Bel Biv Devo. Oh, was that? As it filled it, yeah. Did you Google Sudden Impact?
No, but I want to because that sounds awesome, man. And I want us to come up with our own sudden impact style punch motif.
Well, I get a Clint Eastwood movie when I Google Sudden Impact.
So for better or for worse.
Well, we're going to have to suddenly take a break here in a second.
So let's talk, Josh, just real quickly, the complimentary consults, categories. Give us that info, and then I'll hit the numbers. We'll take a break, come back and get some legal questions in. We don't seem to talk about it enough when we get started, but me and Joe are attorneys. We're the managing partners of Whitaker and Hamer, a statewide law firm.
We do this show because we like to sit down and have some fun, and we do eventually talk about the law. But we have this set up where if you contact us and say, hey, listen to the radio show, we're going to do we do a free estate planning consult, right?
So if you want to talk to me and Joe about wills and trust and power of attorneys, you can talk to us about it for free. Get our opinion, our learned opinion on estate planning. If you've been in a car accident, if you've been injured. We'll talk to you about that too. We do free consults.
So just, you know, you can contact us using the information Morgan's about to give you, and we'll give you our. Yeah, that's worth something, right? Or a learned opinion for free. Absolutely. Complimentary consult available.
You can call this number 919-77270000. That's 919-77270000. You can also visit WH.lawyer. Complimentary consult in or around a state planning or possibly a personal injury case you're involved with. And you've got questions.
919-77270000 or visit wh.lawyer. Got more Judica County coming up. Yeah, yeah. Judica County Radio, again hosted by Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, the power behind this program, and their practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They have offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuclave Arena, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City.
I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on, and we are going to get into some legal questions. And these come from basically all over the country. And we're going to see how the attorneys would handle them.
So, gentlemen, your first category is the missing 300,000 from grandma's accounts.
So here's the question. After grandma passed away at 91, the family discovered that over the last three years of her life, nearly 300,000 had been withdrawn from her accounts. The withdrawals were made by a grandson. who held power of attorney, He says grandma wanted him to have the money because he helped care for her. There are no gift letters, no checks, with any kind of memo lines, and grandma's will leaves everything equally among the six grandchildren.
Does the grandson probably have an issue here? Maybe some trouble here. I wonder, you know, I wonder, you know, before the break, we were talking about. For no real Reason Right, we're talking about boys to men. We were talking about specifically their video for Motown Philly, and we were talking about how there was a band that they just flashed to called Sudden Impact.
as far as I know I have not done anything. That I've seen, you know, music, video, yeah, yeah, whatever, right. And I wonder. For our listeners who were listening to that first segment. I wonder percentage-wise, there has to be a percentage.
It was like, yeah, I always wondered about sudden impact. You know, like, I, you know, there's got to be a percentage that.
Okay. That know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Remember the video. 0.05%.
And then there's a, well, that's what I'm getting to. There's a percentage that's like, what, you know.
Okay, I remember Voice to Man. I never saw the video. I don't really remember Josh's rambling on right so that's a certain percentage But then I wonder how big the percentage is there that like don't know who boyston men are. Don't know what Motown Philly is. Not familiar with Bel Bedevo.
Just completely didn't know anything. Like, we could have been speaking Greek for like 10 minutes.
So I wonder what the percentages are. All right, I've got to throw this in since you brought it back up. The next big boy band that vanished without a trace. Uh this article came from 2021 from the Daily Beast. And I have to do something to unlock the article.
But there's a picture of and they're not punching, they're pointing. They're pointing. Maybe it was just a big point. Maybe it was a punch point. Yeah.
Sudden boom. That was it.
So I'll try to find some more information. A ton of members, man. A lot of guys. It looked like a prom picture. It looked like a bunch of guys were at the prom in their tuxes, and they just.
Hey, we're sudden impact now. Yeah, here we go. Let's, uh, where's Simon Cowell and just form a boys band?
So, um, oh, you. You asked us a question. Yeah, the question: Grandma passed away at 91. Family discovered that over the final three years of her life, nearly $300,000 had been withdrawn from her accounts. The withdrawals were made by the grandson, who held power of attorney.
He says grandma wanted him to have the money because he helped care for her. There are no gift letters, no checks, and no memo lines of any of that. And grandma's will leaves everything equally among the six grandchildren. Does the grandson probably have an issue here, a problem for himself? Um Yeah, yeah.
So in our, we get questions like this every other week or so, and they're all, the facts are all just a little bit, a little bit different.
So here the withdrawals were made by the grandson. The grandma wanted him to have the money because he helped Keller. All right, so. The big thing in here is we we have no this looks like a self gift. Right.
So the grandson is not, you know, if he was using this money to support the grandma, you know, he'd make checks payable to the, or there'd be payables to like groceries and health care. And so those money is just going directly to the grandson.
So from an attorney's perspective, This is uh this was like a self- Gift. Right, power of attorney. um is gifting himself money. And the first thing you have to look at in North Carolina is the actual document, right? Me and Joe always say that.
Is there a lease? Is there a contract? Where's the document? First, we're going to look at the document. And we know there's a power of attorney here, right?
And there's a written, according to our question, there's a written power of attorney.
So the grandma. In theory, went to an attorney and said, Hey, I want to make my grandson my POA. Grandson's usually an odd choice. Like normally it'd be The grandmother's daughter or son, right? The grandson's father or mother.
So here we've somehow skipped a generation. You know, and the grandson is the POA. And in North Carolina, for a POA to be able to self-gift They have to have sp specific permission to do that in the power of attorney. and most normal power of attorneys When you talk to an attorney, the self-gift is not automatic. We talk to you about that.
Do you want. Your Attorney, in fact, do you want your agent? Do you want your grandson to be able to? gift himself. Money.
And if you do, be prepared for them to take $300,000 from your account. Yeah, most people don't. The only time that's very popular is like if you have a very small family and your power of attorney is your sole daughter. And she's it. She's the one getting everything when you pass away anyway.
You know, self-gift might make sense, but a lot of times when there's several heirs, like there were here. Um Self-gift doesn't make a lot of make a lot of sense. Um And so here That's the first thing we have to check for. Does the grandson even have the right to self-gift? Because.
The odds are he probably does it. Yeah. Um And even if even if he does, you know, that helps him. But There there still could be a question there, 'cause that's that's a fairly excessive Yeah, it's going to be scrutinized, right? It's going to be scrutinized.
So even if he has the power to self-gift, which I hope he doesn't. Um And sometimes, like, these are the small things, like, if you just pull a template online.
Sometimes these things don't make sense. Or, you know, you don't have an attorney there to tell you why this is a good idea or why this might be a bad idea in your specific situation. Usually, I would think more than 50% of the time, self-gifting is not something you really want your agent to be able to do. Give themselves. Gifts of your money, of your real property, of your personal property, you know, so.
Here, I hope the grandson did not have the power to self-get, then, if he didn't, he's in big trouble because he couldn't have done any of this. If for some reason he does have the written power to self-gift, then it's still going to be scrutinized, especially depending on how much. um of the estate he's he's gifted himself. But yeah, self-gifting, that's something that comes up when we talk about a power of attorney. Yeah, and you specifically, like you touched on, man, if you've just got a general power of attorney and there's the you don't have a specific that specific language stating that you can give yourselves gifts, then even a small amount of money that benefits you is going to be a problem for you.
A lot of people are really, a lot of people that we sit down with are really concerned about handing over control to someone else of their. Money of their assets before they have to, right? And so a power of attorney is a necessary evil because you need it in place so that when that time comes, somebody can step in and do what needs to be done, pay your bills, do whatever needs to be done. Adding the self-gift is a big deal. It's giving them more control than you have to.
To get by.
So, you know, your attorney should talk to you about that if that's something you're interested in. And sometimes it makes sense. But it's definitely not every time. And so I think that question was probably designed for us to talk about. self-gifting in the in a POA context.
I want to jump back to your sudden impact storyline. There is a Docgy series, 10-part series, back in 2021, Waiting for Impact, a David Holmes passion project.
So apparently David Holmes and Josh Whitaker on the same page here. Apparently, more than just Josh. Very interested in Sudden Impact. I tell you, who appreciates that, though, is Sudden Impact, man. I don't think they've got a lot of folks shouting them out on the biggest radio show maybe in the world.
Yeah. Highly rated. They're going to make a resurgence. This is their comeback. This is where it starts.
This is where it starts. Everybody starts to find the docuseries and they bring them back from somewhere. All right. We need to take a short break. Complimentary consult with Whitaker and Hamer available.
You can call the number 919-77270000. 919-7727000. Estate planning, personal injury case. Got questions? Get a consult 919-7727000.
Or you can visit wh.lawyer. We're back with more right after this. We are back on Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick.
The offices for the firm are located across the state for your convenience: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fewquafarena, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. We're getting into legal questions. I already talked about the missing $300,000 from grandma's accounts and what to do there. And again, one of the grandchildren took out $300,000 over the last three years of her life. And we had that discussion, but we also had the discussion about sudden impact.
Uh a band that really never was. Uh there is a docuseries out there. And it's a situation where Josh has become wrapped up in it. But I'll say this: it's better, and Dave Holmes did this passion project. It's a limited series.
You can find it on YouTube. He was also part of his podcast, My Favorite Murder. He did that too. But he really looked into Sudden Impact, so you can go find that. But at least this band, even though they apparently didn't really produce much, They were legit.
And now, if you were in the late 80s, early 90s, if you guys remember Milly Vanilli, there were a lot of people that followed Millie Vanilli. They went to concerts, they bought the albums. I believe they had a couple of top five hits, and they were faking it. They were lip singing the whole time. And there's going to be way more people that remember Milly Vanilli.
Well Middle Evil Vanilli objectively was pretty huge, right? Right, and MTV was a big part of of what they were able to accomplish and how many people they were able to fool. But it was absolutely that was that was I mean, that was a gut punch. Oh yeah, I like 'em, but it's not them. I don't know that it matters, man.
I don't know that it matters. 'Cause you know, the what what was uh Oh man, what are the big Milly Vanilli songs? There was the I don't know the exact girl. I know it's true or something like that. Yeah, that's literally exactly what it is, Morgan.
So I don't think you can pretend that. I didn't buy it, though. I don't know what it is. I don't have a tattoo on my chest. I never.
Well, did you see?
So I didn't really follow it. I'm not really a political guy, but you know, they were supposed to have the concert series for the US 250 or whatever. And it was a bunch of has-beens or whatever. But one of the performers, when it listed, it was like 10 days. It had the guy from Poison Vanilla Ice was on there.
So it was that kind of. Milli Vanilli was listed as an artist on the original lineup. And I was like, is this. Is this a joke? Because one of them's dead.
I think one of them unfortunately committed suicide.
So, one of the Milly Vanilli guys, I believe. Maybe committed suicide, so I think there's only one left, and they didn't sing their own songs.
So when you say Millie Vanilli is going to be performing... Who is are they?
Sounds like it was a drug overdose. Oh, okay. All right. Well, that's better news than that. Better news?
But Millie Vanilli. I'll listen to those songs right now, man. I'm not turning Girl, You Know It's True. And they had one about the phone number. Don't forget my number.
I can't remember what it's called. I'm not going to turn this off. Blame it on the rain. Blame It on the Rain was the big one, man. I would listen to Blaming on the Rain.
Like, I'd cut the radio show off. That's our next segment. We should just play Blame It on the Rain on the Rain. Nine times in a row. All right.
So we have gone off the rails. We've talked about Sudden Impact. We've talked about Milly Vanilli. There's an opportunity. We are going to get some more legal questions coming up on the other side.
You can grab a complimentary consult with Whitaker and Hamer Estate Planning. If you've got questions, maybe you're involved with a personal injury case, you've got some questions there, grab one of the consults. No cost, no obligation. 919-77270000. That's 919-77270000.
You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. We've got more at Judica County Radio with Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer coming up on the other side. 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 the great state of North Carolina. And they placed offices for your convenience across our great state, down at the coast, Moorhead City, over near Charlotte and Gastonia. You got Fuquai Verena, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and the Cap City, Raleigh, North Carolina.
I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on. Want to remind you there are complimentary consults in and around estate planning. If you've got questions, or maybe there's a personal injury case you're involved with and you don't know how to proceed and you've got questions there, grab one of the consults, no costs, no obligation, 919-77270000. That's 919-77270000.
You can also visit the website, WH.Lawyer again, Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm. For life. All right, so legal question number two, gentlemen, the category. The contractor's drone. And here's the question.
A contractor uses a drone to photograph progress on a construction project. The drone captures images of neighboring backyards, including one homeowner sunbathing by her pool. The photos later appear in marketing materials. does the homeowner probably have a claim here? We've talked about this before, too, but you have in your home.
You have a reasonable expectation of privacy, right?
So we talked about, I think we had a question a while back about ring cameras. And, you know, your neighbor's ring camera foc you know, uh Getting, you know, you're coming and going when you park in front of your house and you go into your front door. And how you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your front yard. Right. Um Usually.
The facts can change. I put up a, you know, if you had a fence or, you know, you had, anyway. But normally, you don't have it, and in most subdivisions, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your front yard. In your house, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, you know. And then, so here's the backyard, right?
This lady's in her backyard, she's sunbathing. We don't know if the yard's fenced in, we don't know what the neighborhood looks like. Um But I'm assuming you know it's a pool, there's probably a fence. If there's a fence, I would argue, Joseph, that she has an expectation of privacy and You know, the part of this question that puts it over the edge is: these photos were used in marketing materials.
So, these photos, somebody didn't just take them and. And have the photos. They actually use them in marketing material without her permission, and she's in it. And that's, I mean, that's going to be a no-no, right? I mean, that doesn't even.
That's not good, man. That's not good.
So, does the homeowner have a claim? Yeah, probably. You know, um. She could sue for her likeness and whatever being used in a commercial manner. And what are the damages?
That's hard to figure out. You know. All right, guys, let's move on to our next question. And the category is. The forgotten ex-spouse.
Here's the question. A man divorced in twenty twelve. remarried in twenty fifteen. passed away 2025. His life insurance still names his first wife.
His will leaves everything to his current wife. The policy is worth one. million dollars. Who probably gets the money? You know, before we answer this question, you know, um You know, life insurance is an interesting part of estate planning.
It's a non-probate asset, right? Life insurance is just a contract between you. I get a life insurance policy on Morgan. I think I have one on Joseph. Right.
you get you can it's just a contract. And if Morgan, if you drop dead, if I get a 20-year term policy on you for a million dollars and you drop dead in year 19, I'm going to get a check. For a million dollars. It's just a contract. It doesn't matter if we never talk again after today, right?
And and you know, anybody can own the policy. I can own a policy. Morgan, you probably have life insurance. You own a policy. Yep.
Right. And so when you own the policy, the beneficiary can be almost anybody, really. I mean, Economically, it doesn't make sense, but only in a few situations. But life insurance is its own animal. Your will does not control normally.
Life insurance. Your trust is not going to control. Life insurance, you've purchased life insurance and you have a contract, and there's a named beneficiary, it's usually your spouse. Or are your kids? It can go into a trust, it can do other stuff, but the point is.
You know Just here personally, I've had some folks that I know. on the younger side, like fifties, pass away recently. And life insurance is very important.
So, when you sit down with us, we don't sell life insurance. We're just lowly attorneys.
So, we're going to ask you about life insurance. Do you have any? How do you want it handled if you die tomorrow? Do we need to pull this into your trust? We're going to ask you questions about life insurance.
But we don't really talk to you about getting life insurance, right? If you have it, you have it. If you don't, you don't. A lot of times when we talk about estate planning, we're not really We're focused on what you already have, what positions you already have. We're not like Joe's not selling you life insurance.
Yeah. We'll tell you it's a good idea and why. But yeah, we don't. It's not yeah, so but the life insurance is important. Right?
Because usually, when you die, if you have a family and you die and your family's used to having your check come in. When you die, it stops, right? Your employer is not going to pay you. If you run a small business, it's probably not going to make as much money when you die.
So income when you die is going to fall off. And that's what life insurance is designed to do. Place Replace your income, and there's all kinds of life insurance, term. Whole, universal, all types of life insurance. But I don't know there's anybody out there who doesn't need some some level.
Of life insurance, and I can't sell it to you. Uh I'm not a salesman, but But here A guy died. And that's one of the first things we talk to you about. Like when your spouse comes in, or whoever comes in after you die, your kids, whoever it is, they say, hey, you know. He's dead.
What's our first step? Your first step is like, hey, does he have life insurance, right?
So that's step one. Step one is to get some sort of life insurance, whatever you think you need to replace your income or take care of your funeral or whatever you think you need. It is to get it. But once you get it, you got to let the beneficiaries know you have it. We've seen people die and not know if the dead person has life insurance, right?
So, step one is to get it, whatever level you need it.
Some people are worth more dead than they are alive, right? Because they get tons of life insurance.
Some people, you don't really need that much life insurance. It just depends. But step two is letting your estate planning attorney know you have it so it can be referenced, letting your spouse or your kids or your beneficiaries know that you have it. Because they don't know you have it. That's no bueno, right?
It's not good. And then if we add a step three to that equation, it's. Make sure that the beneficiaries are properly designated and update that as your situation changes because. Non-probate assets is something we strive for, right? Like, we want to make as much of your property as we can, not subject to probate, so that the process is easier for your heirs, everything flows better, there's less legwork.
So that's a good thing, but If you don't have the proper beneficiaries designated, it can be a nightmare, like in this scenario, where y y what you intended to happen is not is not going to happen now. Yeah, so this life in our question: a man bought life insurance. He named his ex-wife at the time, his current wife, wife number one, as the beneficiary. They get divorced, he gets remarried. The insurance policy he got for a million dollars and has been paying for, right?
Normally, you're paying monthly or quarterly for your life insurance.
So, he's been paying the premium. But he drops dead, right? Drops dead. Because that's what happens. Like, most of the time, you, you know, sometimes you like, hey, you got stage four cancer, you got six months, you got a year and a half.
Sometimes you have time to prepare. Most of the time, you don't. And especially the people who die young, a lot of times it's heart attacks, it's you know, accidents, it's things like that, where you're just, you're just dead. One day you're not dead, right? The next day you're dead.
And um And here, he had plenty of time, right? Plenty of time to get this life insurance policy changed. He gets busy, life gets busy, he didn't do it. This million dollars is gonna go to his ex-wife now. Hopefully, his ex-wife gets along with him and that money can get to where it needs to be.
But sometimes that's not the case. That ex-wife's going to take that million dollars and. Dance on his grave. Yeah. Yeah.
There's a lot of grave dancing in our field. Important to have read the fine print, obviously, have the beneficiaries correct, have those updated, review them on an annual basis. Numbers a call for a complimentary consult with Whitaker and Hamer. Maybe you've got questions along these lines. You can get them answered.
919-77270000. That's 919-7727000. You can also visit wh.lawyer. We have more legal questions coming up on Judica County. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.
They're located right here in North Carolina. That's where they practice law. They placed offices for your convenience. Cap City, Raleigh. We got Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verena, got the area covered.
Also, down near Charlotte in Gastonia and over at the coast, Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on. Want to remind you: we're getting into legal questions. You've got some maybe questions about estate planning, maybe a personal injury case you're involved with.
Got some questions there. Grab one of our complimentary consults with Whitaker and Hamer simply by calling 919-7727000. That's 919-7727000. You can also visit the website. Good resource for you.
wh.lawyer. Get signed up there. WH.LAYER. All right, gentlemen. We are going to our next question.
The HOA president's backyard is the category. Here is the question. An HOA fined multiple homeowners for sheds visible from the street.
Meanwhile, the HOA president has an unapproved shed that violates the same rule. When challenged, the board says his shed predates the restriction. No records exist. Can homeowners probably challenge the fines? Hmm.
Well, you know, just some remedial stuff here. And HOA is a homeowners association, right? You move to some neighborhoods. They'll have a homeowners association. They can be varying levels of strictness, right?
You might live in a subdivision that has an HOA that really just maintains the sun. Cut some grass, you really don't have. many restrictions, right? And sometimes you have a lot of restrictions, right? And some people like it both ways, right?
Some people want to live in the subdivision that has like almost no restrictions. And um Some people like I don't like trash cans out the next day, and everybody should cut their grass the same length and have the same kind of grass, right? There's neighborhoods where you can only plant certain kinds of grass. And so you have these HOAs, you have different levels of restrictions here. It sounds like it's in the middle of the road.
They don't like to have. visible sheds from the street. That's what they don't like. Um I don't like doing man. It's a tricky fact pattern, right?
Yeah, I don't like it. You know, um. That happens, though. I mean, there are, you know, HOAs lose records.
Sometimes, you know, we have HOAs who don't really enforce their covenants until. You know, a new board comes along, and they're like, Well, we weren't supposed to have visible sheds this whole time, so let's start enforcing it now. This could be completely 100% true. Like, this HOA president could have put this shed up. before This was enforced.
I don't know how much that really matters, you know. I I'm kind of with the homeowner here. Um Predates the restriction. Like our question kind of hinges on what predates the restriction. means Because usually in North Carolina when you buy a house, the restrictions are on record.
Yeah. And that's not to say, you know, the covenants themselves are on record, but you can often have. you know Boards within a subdivision that create additional restrictions above and beyond what's shown there.
So, I mean, that's again, that's not outside of. the realm of possibility that that could happen. But how bad do you want? This is what I'd ask the homeowners. How bad do you want it?
How bad do you want? I mean, because so, you know, the homeowners told the HOA about it. They said the shed predates the restriction, they're not going to do anything.
So the next step, I mean, they this guy's gonna have to sue his HOA. Ryan, or some legal fees. involve like how bad do you want to you know, be a thorn in the HOA side here, you know, and some people the answer is I'll spend any of my days. There's that I will bankrupt myself. That's right.
This HOA has made it personal, and I'm going to. And here, I think you could probably apply some pressure with some litigation and. probably get them just to it's easier for them just to fix the issue, I would think. But, um You know, HOAs are tricky. People either really like their HOA or they really hate their HOA or they want an HOA and don't have one or they have one and they don't want one.
But an HOA serves a purpose. And um You know, it is what it is. But here, if this client was in my office paying to talk to me about this, I'd be like, You know what? What are you willing to spend on this? Like, I'll give you my opinion.
We get a lot of things like this. I had one a long time ago. We had one where, um You know, it was kind of down at the beach and and um Or a body of water, and there was a dock that was built. before the HOA has any records.
So, was the doc approved? Wasn't it approved? That was a big. That's a big case. I feel like we get a lot of folks coming in with HOA issues, and then a lot of the same folks get that Josh Whitaker talk where he leans in.
And he's like, tell me what this is worth to you. Or we have to tell him, you're going to spend far more money. than it's worth to to fight this, unfortunately. I have always taken that approach when I'm talking to somebody. Like, I want you to know.
What we're talking about cost, right? I don't want it to be a mystery. It's not like when you go to the doctor and you need a hip transplant, they don't really tell you what that's going to. Cost, right? You're like, hey, you need a hip transplant, and then you You just get a bill one day for your hip transplant.
Like, when you come talk to me, I want you like, this is what this would cost. You know, what is this? Here's some things you can do. But I never want to take anybody's money and not get. The desired results, right?
We can't guarantee results. Attorneys, we can't guarantee you're going to win your case. We can't guarantee that kind of stuff. I don't want you to throw in good money after... Bad.
I don't want you chasing something that you're not going to catch or not going to catch easily, right? And so that's what I would do here. I was like, we can talk about the law. I can tell you what the law says. I can tell you what your claims would be in a lawsuit.
Is it worth your time and energy? Right. That's up to you to know. Legal questions. Again, Judica County Radio, your host of Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Managing Partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, getting into these different questions and how the attorneys would handle them.
We'll get to this one real quick. The category is new highway exit. Here's the question: A family owns 50 acres of farmland worth about $400,000. The state announces a new highway exit adjacent to the property. Developers begin offering $5 million for the land.
Three siblings inherit the property, but one refuses to sell. What probably happens in this case?
So this is You know, this is a partition, a partition-to-partition case, right?
So. You know, if me, Morgan, and Joe all own a piece of property. And you guys want to sell it? I don't. There's a statute.
There's a North Carolina statute that allows us to go to the court and say, hey, I want to sell my. My part. I want to sell my part. And there's two parts to that statute. Right.
So if we had a little house on You know, 0.05 acres that can't physically be split into thirds, then my petition is going to be: hey, let's sell that house. And I'll get a third of the profits, right? I'll get a third of the proceeds because we can't split this house on this postage stamp. Size a lot, right? Here we got 50 acres.
You know what you can do with 50 acres? The court may be inclined to say, okay, well, everybody. You get one-third of the fifty acres, and that's your. That's your acreage.
So, part of the petition may be us agreeing on how to physically divide this acreage. And then, if two people want to sell, that's fine. If I just want my 15 or so acres. Then I can get it.
So there's two parts. When you hear an attorney, or we talk about it on the show, petition to partition.
Sometimes it's to force a sale so you can get your share of the profit.
Sometimes it's actually to partition the land. That's what it originally was. back when everybody had. more land and there was less of us floating around this area. Yeah.
Opportunity to grab a complimentary consult with Whitaker and Hamer in and around estate planning or maybe a personal injury case that you are going through and you got some questions. Call the number 919-77270000. No cost, no obligation. Consultation, 919-7727000. Or you can visit the website wh.lawyer.
We'll take a short break, come back, we'll wrap up this edition of Judica County Radio. Yeah. Welcome back in Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your host managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, the power behind this program, and they're practicing attorneys here in our great state of North Carolina. Offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verena, Gastonia, and down at the beach, Moorhead City.
I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on. Want to remind you: we get into these legal questions and you've got some questions of your own. We have complimentary consults in and around estate planning or maybe a personal injury case you're involved with. Grab one of the consults, no cost, no obligation.
919-7727000 is the number to call. That'll get you in touch with the firm. 919-77270000. You can also visit their website. It's a good resource for you: wh.lawyer and get signed up there.
All right, next legal question, gentlemen. Yeah. The cemetery expansion is the category. Here's the question: A church owns land surrounding a historic cemetery. The church wants to expand parking onto unused portions of the cemetery property.
Descendants of those buried there object. Can the church probably proceed with this move? Yeah. You know We have a lot of these in North Carolina, right? We have a lot of these old churches that have their cemeteries and.
Cemeteries are are a problem. in kind of the land development. You know, sector. And they come up all kinds of ways in land development, commercial, and residential. But there are statutes that kind of spell out what you can and can't do.
And so this church really. It's probably gonna need to retain an attorney and have an attorney look at, you know, were these. Were these plots deeded? Like back in the day, sometimes in cemeteries, like, you know, plot A through F got deeded out to the Whitakers, right? And the church doesn't even own the property anymore.
They're deeded out. That's how they used to do it back in the day. A lot of them don't do it that way, some of them are just promises. To a family, that they would have these.
So that's important. One, to figure out. How is the cemetery set up? What does the church still own? And, you know, there's laws about how close you can get to graves with development.
You know, there's laws if you need to move a grave, how you. how you who you have to contact how you have to do it But these cemeteries are really a hurdle. For for any Development. And there's a lot out there, and you'll see a development. You'll see like a subdivision development, and then, like, in the back, there'll be this one lot that's just like eight graves.
That they just left there. See that a lot, though. You drive by these new larger neighborhoods, and all of a sudden there's a gated. Um you know, not a big plot, but you can definitely see the gravestones. They're hard to.
The graves are hard to deal with. Known graves, right? There's plenty of unmarked graves out there that you don't know exist until you start developing and you run into them. But. They're hard to deal with.
And so this is not going to be. You know, there's going to be some legal hurdles to this. There's some statutes that come into play. There's some notice that has to be given. The church could probably expand their parking lot, but I don't know if the legal.
Cost justify. The gains. They're going to have some hurdles to jump through, is what you're saying. Yeah, the church would probably be better off just getting rid of the cemetery. Like, if you're going to try to expand the parking lot, you might as well just go ahead and do everything you need to do to move these.
you know, or or whatever. But, um Yeah, that's a big problem. And again, there are statutes, they're very specific. This is how you can do it. I've seen it done.
Um Hard to do. Hard to do. And you factor that cost into the cost of developing the project, right?
So if somebody was going to buy this church and redevelop it. That you know, and the land was worth $3 million. You're going to factor in the expense of dealing with that cemetery, just like you would. You know, wet areas, swampy areas, you know, all that kind of stuff goes into it, but. It's a problem.
It's probably not worth dealing with that problem for a couple of extra spots, though. All right, we move to our next category, probably our final question. The category is the estate's hidden cryptocurrency. Here's the question: An executor learns the deceased owned cryptocurrency worth approximately $2 million. The problem: nobody knows the passwords or location of the digital wallet.
What probably happens in this case?
Uh Well, this is a lot like our life insurance question earlier, right? You get life insurance, but you don't tell people you have life insurance, then no one gets your life insurance benefit, right?
So a lot of people who who have crypto and they put it in a hard wallet You know, that's part of the that's part of the advantage of crypto, that it's hard to trace. It's its own asset. No one can really. take it away from you, you know. But you got to tell somebody you got it.
Mm-hmm. Or, you know, your your hard wallet might end up in a landfill with uh You know, 80 bitcoin on it or whatever. What's the big one? There's one, there's some story. Yeah, the guys it's in a landfill and they've been looking for it, and it's a bajillion dollars.
Yeah, yeah, and it's in a landfill, and he finally, I think, I the last story I saw, he finally gave up looking for it, you know. Um But here you got to tell somebody, right? Your spouse or your kids, if it's going to your kids, you got to tell somebody, hey, these are my. This is where it's at. These are the passwords.
This is how you get into it. Because a lot of people, you know, crypto is still not accessible to a lot of. People. Um A lot of people don't understand crypto. A lot of people don't deal with it every day.
Um But Yeah, it's like burying gold in your backyard and then not telling anybody you buried gold in your backyard. Um Then no one knows to look for it when you're dead. You know? And uh.
So it's like you gotta leave them like a treasure map, right? Here's in my closet where I keep it. Here's a crypto treasure map. I like that. Yeah, it's like a little X in your closet.
This is where I keep my hard wallets. Um But yeah, I mean, there's nothing your state can do about it. They don't know it exists. And even if they know it exists and they don't know how to access it. That's a different problem.
That's a sadder problem, because now you know there's $2 million sitting in a hard wallet, you can't, or cold wallet, you can't. You can't access, but crypto is a lot of problems. It's a lot of problems for. Beneficiaries. All right, so let's have some closing thoughts.
And please include Sudden Impact, Milly Vanilli, whatever you want to put in there. I I'm going to do some. I'm going to watch the YouTube that you found about Sudden Impact and what they were planning because there had to be plans for them. Like I ha I can't believe they'd be in. There's very little out there, man.
They've got a YouTube channel themselves, and it's all just old VHS clips.
Well, yeah, but I mean, that many artists in the band, and no one. Did anything else? I can't imagine they would put them in that video without having like a track or two ready to go. Right. And maybe it was the early 90s, things, you know, late 80s, early 90s, things rolled differently back then.
Maybe they were just sitting around. They're like, hey, guys, get in here real quick. We got big things happening, but um 'Kay. Sudden impact, man. We probably won't think about them again for another 10 years.
I'll see the Motown Philly video again. I'll be like, Sudden Impact.
So, we'll pencil that in for the show 10 years from now to revisit our they're coming back after this, man. We've already said it. Yeah, well, we certainly hope that this show has had an impact on our listeners today.
So, let's uh give you the phone number for the complimentary consults in and around estate planning, but also personal injury case if you're involved with one, you got some questions. Call the number again, no cost, no obligation consultation with Whitaker and Hamer, 919-77270000. That's 919-7727000. And you can always go to the website and it's a resource for you. You can get signed up there as well: wh.lawyer.
That's wh.lawyer.
Well, another edition of Tudica County is in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll see you on the radio next week. Judica County is hosted by attorneys licensed to practice law in North Carolina.
Some of the guests appearing on this podcast may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion on this podcast is meant to be general in nature, and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney, licensed in the state in which you live, has the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on this podcast are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of this show, you can direct such enquiry to Joshua Whitaker at jmw at mwhlaw.lawyer.
