Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio with Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. It is going to be legal questions. It's a state planning 101. You don't. Wanna miss it?
Mm. Whitaker and Hamer Judica County. with Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hainer. Welcome into Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.
Offices placed in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fucupa Verena, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys before we dive in on topic number one. Gentlemen, I always ask how the week was, anything interesting, whatever pops into your head. Josh.
I think the biggest thing this week, right? The biggest thing this week is we get NFL football back this week. That's the big thing. Praise be to the television. You got college football back already.
That's something. That's good. Yeah, I don't know. It wasn't it hasn't been great so far. What do you mean, man?
State's got a really, really solid team this year. Have they played a game yet? They they did. They played one of them. They played Virginia.
Okay. That's right. They were supposed to be I think well, they were supposed to be in Brazil and it didn't happen and they had to do it stateside and yeah, it it it went. Yeah, that was all that was always weird to me. Like, I never got the explanation why Carolina was in Ireland and state was in You know, state was in Brazil.
I feel like if state would play every game in Brazil, man, they'd be. Undefined national champions for sure. Brazil. Brazil. You have to pronounce it like Blanca.
Like Blanca's about to come in and fight on Street Fighter 2. That's coming out. New movies, new Street Fighter. I know, man. I feel like they've been advertising Street Fighter 2 for like three years.
And so I keep getting to the weekend, and my kids are always like, hey, what are we going to do this weekend? What's going on this weekend? And I was like, hey, maybe we can finally go see Street Fighter 2. And it's never out. Like, I still don't know when that's coming out, even though I've seen the ads like a million trillion times.
It's coming. Maybe before. I was just going to say, Josh, that's nice that your kids are like the cruise director and they're coming to you: hey, what are we doing this week? That's a lot of pressure. When my kids were that age, it was like, see you, dad.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it is fortunate, you know, because when I was growing up, that's what I tell my wife when I was growing up. Yeah, I went to work, I, you know, I did whatever, but I rarely was at the house. But at our house, it's kind of like, hey, we got any big plans? What do we want to do? You got to love your kids a little less, man, a little less attention.
And if you do those things. They need to be more independent, Josh. Good things. Look, man, I just want my kids to hang out with me for the rest of my life. That's all I need right there.
And we are all in the official Whitaker and Hamer family. Fantasy Football League, so we've done our draft. Everybody's ready to go. Yep, ready to go, man. Rip roaring and ready to go.
Are you in more than. Are you in more than one? Oh yeah. Yeah, I just have one other man. My uh my nephew Wanted to start a league, so he did a six-team league with just his brothers and my sister and people who have never played fantasy football.
So my team in that league, unbelievable, man. There's six teams in there. Yeah, unbelievable. I'm in four leagues, guys. Obviously, I'm in your league, and being the defending champion, I've got to come back.
And then I'm in another money league, won that one. And then in the non-money leagues, I'm in a radio goober league. That's old radio guys I've worked in a couple of years. And there it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.
And matter of fact, our winner last year was one of our original Buzzbabes, if you remember when we had the spokesman for the sports talk station in the area. Josh is a big buzzbabe guy. Always have a bad one. Shout out to Erica. Congratulations.
She won last year. And then my daughter has a league with a bunch of Disney. Employees and friends.
Okay. So I'm in that league. That's like a full-time job. Yeah, I've had several complaints lodged by my wife. And she's taken pictures of me during drafts, and it's not pretty.
But I will say this: I've drafted many leagues over the years, and I've never gotten that post-draft grade from the app or from the website that's appealing at all. It's always been like a C minus to a D minus. I do okay, though. I mean, I win leagues, but my initial grade just shows you know more than the system. There you go, Joe.
That's it. You're smarter than some Zang Rai. That's it. Stupid system, man. Yes.
We used to, I used to be in a league where they would, the site would give you projections. They all do that now, but back in the day, the site would give you projections for the year, right? You draft. Back in the day, you draft Barry Sanders, right? And the site knows, it goes, okay, well, this is what we predict Barry Sanders will do this year.
And I used to have this fantasy football league commissioner who would take those projections. And so as soon as you finished drafted, he would add up all the projections and finish. Like if the projections were accurate, this is where everybody would finish. Predict, yeah. And then we would bet on those Predictions, right?
Yeah, if it said you anyway, neither here nor there.
Well, I do want to add this since you brought up Barry, which is just he's one of my favorite all-time players. Can you imagine if we had Barry Sanders in the league today, what the bids would be, and to explain to our listeners, we have to wager to get a player. It's not like you just draft somebody. And I learned this the hard way last year, and by the way, I did win that league that year. Uh you have to bet.
Like you can nominate a player and then the entire league will go after that player. If Barry Sanders is nominated, I mean, how much money are you paying for that guy? I don't know. It's not going to be cheap, man. It's not going to be cheap.
You know, back in the day, you know, he got a lot of yards, didn't get as many touchdowns, right? He wasn't like a traditional short-yardage. back so that I think that hurt his I think that hurt his fantasy value, but he was still, you know, somebody that you had to. Highlight reel every time he touched the ball. Yeah, I remember playing.
Oh man, what was the PlayStation? What was the PlayStation football game that competed with Madden? Game day. Was that it? You guys old?
No, no, no, no. PlayStation, yeah, maybe so. Maybe it was. There was a back, there used to be other football games besides Madden, right? It was 2K who came out.
2K was on Dream Day. Dreamcast, yeah. Fantastic game. Yeah, yeah. But I think Game Day was the one on the original PlayStation that competed with Madden.
If you got Game Day, there was a juke button. And Barry Sanders, you just hit the juke button all the way down the field, and like nobody could touch him. He was like some kind of weird ghost football player. Yeah.
Like when Saquon Barkley Turned and jumped over the guy backwards last season. Crazy stuff. Hey, real quickly, before we take our first break, Josh, kind of walk us through. We have complimentary consults. In and around estate planning, we are going to do estate planning 101 today, so stay tuned for that.
Got some questions for that. But estate planning consults. Also, if you're involved with a personal injury case and you're really kind of stuck, you got questions there. We've got consults, but just kind of walk us through what's going to happen if they get in touch. Yeah, today we're going to focus on estate planning.
I call it estate planning 101. We're going to hit the basics of estate planning, what the docs are, what kind of the default settings in North Carolina are. And so, to kind of give you a good base to build from, but here at the firm, if you want to talk about estate planning with one of our attorneys, that's a free consult. If you've been in a car accident, if you've been injured in a car accident, you have questions, you need to value your personal injury claim, your accident claim, you're having problems with insurance adjusters. We talk to you about that for free too.
If you like us, if you like us after we talk to you and you want to retain us, then you're a client. Um but for these consults This is just free. This is just for you to meet an attorney who knows what he or she's talking about, to give you some good, solid advice. And that's what we do with these free consults, Morgan. All right.
It's a lot of, I mean, we have a lot of fun on the show, but obviously the serious part of this is if you've got legal questions in and around estate planning, which we're going to focus in on today, estate planning 101, got some questions in and around that category. You know, grab one of the consults.
Now, if you're in a personal injury case and you just don't know a direction to go and you need some questions answered, grab one of the consults as well simply by calling 919-772-7000. Again, 919-77270000. And the website is a resource for you. You can also sign up there. Just go wh.lawyer, type it in, and again, the information will be coming at you.
And you can sign up for one of those complimentary consults, estate planning, personal injury case. One of those two, and you can always call 919-772-7000. When we return on Judica County Radio, we're going to get into Estate Planning 101. Here's your first question category. Married, doesn't my spouse automatically get everything?
So here's the question: My wife and I have been married for 18 years. We have two children, own a home, and have checking, savings, and retirement accounts. Neither of us has a will because we assumed everything automatically goes to the surviving spouse. Is that probably what happened?
So that's the question. All right, hold on to that. When we come back, we will answer it. You're listening to Judica County. We are back.
It's Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and they practice law right here in North Carolina. They place offices across our wonderful state down at the coast, Moorhead City, over near Charlotte in Gastonia. You got Fuquay Verena, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and the Cap City, Raleigh, North Carolina.
I'm Morgan Patrick. It's a pleasure to jump on. During the course of today's show, we have complimentary consults in and around estate planning, which is appropriate. We're doing estate planning 101 today with our questions. And also, if you're involved with a personal entry case and you've got questions, you can grab a consult, 919-7727000.
Leave your contact information. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and set up one of those complimentary consults. That's 919-7727000. You can also visit WHO. All right, gentlemen, here's your first question.
The category of married, and doesn't my spouse automatically get everything?
So here's the detailed question: My wife and I have been married for 18 years. We have two children, we own our home. We have a checking, savings and retirement accounts. Neither of us has a will because we just assumed everything automatically goes to the surviving spouse. Is this probably what will happen?
It's not a very safe assumption to make. No, and I think a lot of people kind of think this will happen, right? They're married. Two kids, own a home. Um you know, have some retirement accounts.
They kind of think everything's just kind of will take care of its Self and and And it's not it's not it's not always the case. Um Sometimes you get lucky. Right?
Sometimes you get lucky. You know, when the first spouse dies here, I'm going to say this is a husband and a wife. They have two. They have two kids. Um I'm gonna say the kids are underage.
They've been married for 18 years.
So I'm gonna say the kids are under 18. Um and and they own a home. You know, if they own the home as husband and wife, we've talked about that on the show. There's different kinds of ways you can own homes that you own real property. I'm going to assume they bought this house when they were married.
They own it as tenants by the entirety. And if that's the case, when the first spouse dies, you know, they're going to have a pretty easy, you know, estate plan. There's all kinds of things that can throw hiccups. in there. You know, we see people who Um They own the home in their sole name, right?
They bought the home before they were married. Um And that would be a big problem here.
So, like, if the, let's say, the husband had bought this house when he was. A single man, they have since all, you know, kind of cohabitated together. Um if he were to die his his Property doesn't go directly to the wife, right? The real property doesn't go, it's a probate asset. It doesn't go directly to the wife.
And that would be a big problem here, Joe. Yeah, you know, i if you're m if you're married, you have no kids. There's a chance you can structure your situation where you have essentially nothing but non-probate assets and everything kind of passes between the two of you fairly, fairly easily. I mean, that's a doable goal, depending on what your financial situation looks like. But the you know That gets more complicated.
when you add kids into the equation and You know, even if everything is is correct as to the two of you, you're still putting the kids in a bad scenario if i if and when you pass away. Yes, I think this question is designed to say, you know, is the question, does everything automatically go to the surviving spouse? Probably not, right? There's a chance you can get lucky if you've happened to have... Set up everything right along the way.
But we've seen the horror stories where it doesn't, you know, and and And you know if you're underage kids inherit because that can happen right your underage kids can inherit In this situation where you've got a spouse and two kids, underage kids could inherit 50% of the estate. That'd be 50% of the house. And if you want to sell the house or you want to refi the house and someone under 18 has inherited a share, that's a difficult thing to do. That's not. That's not an easy thing.
You got to get other people involved. Guardians have to be appointed.
So, anyway, the answer to this question is a very simple question: Does everything go to the surviving spouse in this situation when they have no estate plan? They've done no estate planning. Our answer is probably not. Probably not. And the simplest estate plan in the world would have.
Solved this issue, and we could have said, okay, everything's going to go exactly where you want to. It wouldn't have taken a lot of planning to. to get this one squared away. Estate Planning 101. We're having conversations in and around a lot of questions that come up with estate planning.
We also offer up the complimentary consult on estate planning. You can call at any time. There's no cost or obligation to become a client of Whitaker and Hamer, but certainly you can get some questions answered. And if you want to roll forward, you certainly can. Grab one of the consults, 919-7727000.
That's 919-7727000 or visit wh.lawyer. Estate planning or a personal injury case you are facing. Grab one of the consults, 919-7727000 or wh.lawyer. All right, next question category. We don't have enough money to need an estate plan.
All right, so here's the question: My husband and I are in our late 30s. We have a mortgage, two cars, modest retirement accounts and two young children. We're definitely not wealthy. Do people like us really need estate planning? Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you, you know, I would argue everybody needs some sort of estate plan, right? Um Yeah, everybody knows your l your level of wealth. I mean that could that could change the the ultimate complexity of your estate plan or how you want it to function, but That doesn't mean you don't need one. Yeah, every, you know, when we talk about, and we'll get more into this. When we talk about estate planning, we're talking about a lot of different things.
Like, yes, we are talking about how do you your assets get to the next generation? That's part of estate planning. But the other part of estate planning is having a power of attorney in place, right?
So someone can take care of your day-to-day if you fall ill or you know, can't handle your day-to-day affairs. You know, we talk about a healthcare power of attorney, so someone can make your medical decisions for you if you can't. We talk about a living will.
So, people know what kind of treatment, medical treatment you want, you don't want. We talk about how you want your remains disposed of. Do you want to be an Oregon donor?
So, when we talk about estate planning, a lot of people just think that means getting rid of your assets, getting your assets to the next generation. And that's different for super wealthy people. Uh and and regular people, right? That estate plan can be, like Joe said, it can get more comp the more stuff you have. the more complex your state plan can be for tax planning, all kinds of different things.
But everybody needs a basic. a state plan. You know um So to answer that question, I think wealth maybe determines the complexity of your estate plan, but it doesn't. It doesn't, you know, having not much wealth or not many assets doesn't absolve you from the need of some sort of plan. Especially when you've got minor kids.
Especially. And here, these people have a mortgage, so they have a home, they have real property. They got two cars, man. They got two cars, a mortgage and and retirement accounts. Like they're living life healthy, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, they're they're they're seem like humble folks. If nothing else, I'll give them that.
Well, can I ask a question, guys? And this just comes from somebody that's outside your profession. And I get to hang out with you on the weekends and do these shows. And we talk about a lot of legal topics. But on average, when you guys are doing estate plans, I mean.
I mean, we're talking to people that feel like they don't have enough, but when you're sitting down with current clients and clients you've had for years. You know, where is that range? I mean, I'm sure it starts with very little, but goes to a bunch. Range-wise. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I've talked to folks who don't have a spouse, don't have kids. you know, are renting their home. They don't own real property. But someone still has to wind up your estate. There's still value there, you know, and you still need to be taken care of.
Like, if. If nothing else, you know, if you if you don't have You know Uh, kids, or like, if you don't, if you don't have a spouse, you still need to have a plan in place where someone can, how are you going to get taken care of when you can't take care of yourself? Yeah, who's going to make those decisions? How are you going to fund health care at that point?
Somebody has to have that and those instructions. And that's and if you don't have that and you get into a scenario where you're incapacitated, you can't make those decisions, then someone's going to have to figure that out and it's going to be infinitely more complicated for them to do. All right, complimentary consults available with Whitaker and Hamer. You can call right now, 919-7727000, talking about what we are talking about: estate planning or a personal injury case. It's a complimentary consult 919-77270000.
You can also visit the website wh.lawyer. We got more Judica County coming up. We're back on Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts of the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and that's the power behind this program. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, offices all over our wonderful state, right here in Raleigh, also Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verena, down near Charlotte in Gastonia, and over at the coast, Moorhead City.
I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on. And we are in the middle of an estate planning 101. And these are some questions that come in. These are hypotheticals, but these are questions that they see almost every single day when it comes to estate planning.
Just the importance of having that estate plan. Josh. Before we get to another estate planning question, there's been a lot. This has been a busy week. For legal news, right?
It's been a busy week. There's a lot of big stories that are all related to injunctions or trials, and so I've been kind of drinking that in. I like to read. briefs when they they get filed in these cases. You've been following the LSU, SEC?
Yeah, it's like soap opera for people like us, people like you especially. It's been pretty uh Yeah, it's been pretty interesting, man. And a lot like it's new developments every day and I don't know, man. I'll be very interested to see what the the end result is. The most recent as of us.
Talking today, development is the fact that they're meeting to discuss expulsion from the SEC. And uh, yeah, yeah, there's a meeting and there's how many politicians have gotten intertwined in this. Like, it's been it's been very different, adds a different element to to college sports. Yeah, this LS, this you could teach a law school class on conflict of laws using this LSU SEC, you know, because there was some Louisiana state court stuff, and now there's going to be some federal stuff. Federal court, you know, usually controls over state court, and there'll be a lot more coming out this week about it, but it's it's crazy.
Especially in the college stuff in the NCAA cases, like these injunctions. You know, you got these competing injunctions on the state level and and the federal level. You know, we're middle of the week, so there's uh there's an injunction hearing coming up. The SEC Heads, presidents are going to meet.
So, who knows where we're at when the weekend comes? But what is going to happen? Do you think they're going to kick LSU out?
Well, they've officially taken the two pros off the roster, if I'm not mistaken. I don't think they ever made it to the roster. Yeah, but they've officially removed them. I think they've, and I don't know if that changes the equation at all.
Well, let me just jump in and say when it was 31-3 at half, apparently they leaked the halftime.
Somebody taped Lane Kiffin, who just F-bombed his team. This game's not over. You're acting like we won the game. It was 31-3. And The game was basically over, but yeah, this is going to be a story that will last, you know, all year.
LSU will appeal. You know, they'll, they'll do what if they're going to get kicked out of the SEC, that's not happening. That speech sounded like one of the speeches Josh used to give my team, yeah, our AQ basketball team. That's what Josh and the families around the uh the football team this year-that's what they want at halftime. They want motivation without the style of coaching for me personally is more effective than like clap your hands, like, hey guys, we're doing great.
Everybody's doing you guys are doing really good. Let's do the let's do the arm bridge, let's run under that. But I was trying I yeah, I was trying to think, you know, if they do kick if they're able to legally kick LSU out of the league mid-season, do they put somebody else in there? Right?
Is there another team that just steps into that? I don't know. It's been interesting to play out the legal scenarios that that goes. Maybe the Dallas Cowboys are available. Yeah, there we go.
Third party. We're going to take a short break. We'll be back on the other side. Again, we're getting into estate planning 101. These are questions.
Again, this is Judica County Radio for a complimentary consult, estate planning, or personal injury. Give us a call, 919-772-7000. 919-772-7000 or wh.lawyer, go there, get signed up. We're back after this. We are back on Judica County Radio.
Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They practice law right here in North Carolina, and they put offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuque Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys.
We're going to get into more estate planning 101. And these are some questions. They're hypotheticals, but these happen every single day. And you may have a situation with what you're going through that you need questions answered. You could benefit from a complimentary consult.
We offer those today on estate planning, but also personal injury cases. You can call at any time, 919-7727000, 919-77270000. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. All right, gentlemen. Our next question: Who gets the kids if we both pass away?
So here it is. My husband and I have children who are now four and seven. We've talked about who we would want to raise them if something happened to both of us. But we've never put anything in writing. Would our parents automatically get custody?
That's the question. Yeah, this question makes me Yeah. This is the biggest reason I think a lot of young younger families People with young children. Put off estate planning is because they don't have a good person to name. You know, when you do your estate plan, you're preparing.
And you're married in this situation. We got two spouses and young kids. You're. Trying to make sure that when you pass away, everything goes to where it needs to go. But you're also.
You're also saying, hey, if me and my spouse die at or about the same time. This is what we want to happen, right? Because most everything, if something happens to me, I want everything to go to my wife, right? Um, but if something happens to me and my wife, car accident, plane crash, you know, something horrific. Who do we want to raise the kids?
Who do we want to take care of the money for the kids? Right?
You're making these. Contingency plans if something happens to both of you.
Now, I've only seen I've been doing this, what, 23, 24 years at this point. I've only seen a couple, a husband and a wife. pass away in in a car accident. I've only seen that happen twice. Um And both times it was they were older, they didn't have any young young children.
Um But the point I'm trying to make here, the depressing point I'm trying to make here, is that That doesn't happen very often. You certainly need to be prepared for it. But it's not something that needs to keep you. from doing your estate plan. Because the chances that you and your spouse both die at or about the same time are very low.
It's like those memes you see when an angry duck's looking around the corner, and they're like, your chances of. being killed by a duck is Is never zero, right? You know, or like a Chihuahua or something like that. Have you seen those? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um So the point the point of that story is get your estate plan done. Name a guardian, right? You you and your spouse. May not agree on who that guardian is. You can name a backup guardian.
Um You can change it later, you know, if you if you guys want to change it later. But don't let that hang you up because who gets the kids if you both die? and you've left no written instruction. Then it's going to go to court, right? It's going to go to court to determine who the guardian.
of your of your kids are gonna be. Um If you don't leave, you can leave written instructions and say, hey, I want. My parents to take care of my kids, or I want my brother to take care of my kids, or whatever it is.
So you can solve all that ahead of time with a simple. writing, right? A simple will. But if you don't, then the court is going to decide who it's going to be, and maybe. You've got different people in your life who are all want custody and think they should have custody and.
You know, they lawyer up and all this stuff, but you could easily just say, hey, if something happens to me and my spouse, I want this person to do it. If this person can't do it or isn't willing to do it, I want this person to do it. Yeah, and kind of touching on the points you made earlier, too, Josh, just in general. Don't let A single sticking point that gives you pause about your estate plan prevents you. for making an estate plan completely.
You know, that's that's something A lot of folks get that kind of uh paralysis by analysis type of thing where they just get stuck. And instead of moving forward with anything, they do nothing because they can't figure out one point. And then they're in a. Infinitely worse situation than they would be otherwise. And it happens to everybody.
Like me and my wife, we had an estate plan when we got married. And then we didn't talk about guardians because we didn't have kids when we got married. And then we later had kids. And it took us a long time, much longer than it should have, much longer than I tell our listeners to take. To kind of update our estate plan to have the guardian in there.
And this always leads into the conversation, too, Joe. You and your spouse are both gone. You've named a guardian. Let's say you've named. You know, somebody's named their parents, right?
Like, hey. Or no, no, no, let's say somebody's named a sibling and said, hey, I want this person to take care of my kids. You know, you may want them to take care of your kids because you think they'll raise the kids with the same values that you have, but maybe those people aren't really, you don't view them as being very good with money. Yeah.
Right?
You can name somebody different to be in charge of the trust. or to be in charge of the the funds that you leave behind. To help take care of your kids.
So the guardian, the one who has physical custody of the kids. and the trustee, the one making financial decisions with the assets you've left for your kids, They can be the same person. They don't have to be the same person. And I say that because sometimes that helps.
Sometimes that helps people say, okay, well, that can be a reservation. I really won't. This relative to take care of my kids, but they've got a bad history with money. I want someone else to be managing the life, you know, the life insurance proceeds and the house and the things like that. And so, those people can be different people.
And so, I think that's important for people to know going in. They don't have to be the same.
Well, a little slice of life from just my perspective. When I was in my early 30s, many moons ago. Um In my first marriage, we were invited over for dinner to one of my closest, dearest friends, and in the middle of dinner, this conversation happened. And they said, look, we both travel quite a bit. Uh and Something may or may not happen.
Obviously, we want to plan for it, but we want you to be. The guardians. We want you to be the godparents. And I mean, we were in our early 30s, and we had just had our first child. And that conversation was a heavy one, but it was also a wonderful conversation because they felt like we would raise their kids.
The way they wanted, if indeed they were not here. Sure. And their oldest daughter still calls me her second dad, which I just think is. It's really sweet. Yeah, that is.
That is. Those people were definitely thinking ahead. I don't know what they were thinking, guys, but it was nice at the time. I'm going to make it mine a surprise, right? If something happens to me in Charlotte, who knows who the guardians are, right?
You got that rule that will behind door number three. Just a rule of spin the dice. But yeah, if you have kids and you have no estate planned, then you have not named guardians if something happens to both of you. And that's the answer to this question. A court.
You know, there's a process for the court to determine who the guardians are and And a court might think You know, the people that you think would have been nice guardians aren't fit, can't take care of the kids.
Somebody could come in who's not family. Um so that that's a really important a really simple part of of a An estate plan, but a really important one.
So that's that's a good question. Thank you. All right, well, we're going to take a short break and come back on the other side and get to some more of these questions. Again, estate planning 101. These questions come in every single day.
They happen all around the country. How are you suited for an estate plan? Do you have one? Have you thought about maybe getting started with one? Or maybe you need a second opinion on what you are doing?
There is a complimentary consult available with Whitaker and Hamer, and you can grab one at any time during the show and anytime really afterwards. Just call 919-7727000. That's 919-7727000. They'll sign you up for that. Just say, hey, I'd like to come in and talk about estate planning.
There's no cost and no obligation. Obviously, if you want to roll forward, you certainly can. 919-77270000. And there's the website. You can always go there, kick the tires.
wh.lawyer. That's wh.lawyer.
Well, we've got more Jutuka County coming up.
Next question coming out of the Hopper is this? Can I just put my daughter on my bank account? We'll get to that question coming up next. You're listening to Judica County Radio. Oh no.
We are back on Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and they're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices all across the state, right here in Raleigh, but also Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuqua Verena. Down near Charlotte in Gastonia and over at the coast in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick.
It's a pleasure to jump on with the attorneys and the complimentary consults. Available through our radio program are In and Around Estate Planning, which we are discussing today: Estate Planning 101. And also a personal injury case if you've got questions, you're involved with one and you just don't know how to proceed. Grab one of the consults. Call 919-7727000-919-777777777777.
77270000 or visit wh.lawyer, Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life. All right, so here's the next question, guys. Can I just put my daughter on my bank account? And that's the question.
So I'm 72. and want my daughter to be able to pay my bills if I get sick. A friend told me the easiest thing is just to add her as a joint owner on all my bank accounts. Is that probably the best solution?
Okay. Well, there's a couple of ways to attack that question.
So the question. Was titled, we titled that question: Can I just put my daughter on my bank account? And so the answer to that question is. You certainly can, right? I mean, you can add whoever you want as a.
To your account, and then the follow-up question is: is that probably the best solution? And probably not. And we'll talk about why, you know. When you make someone a joint owner of your account, Um They own that account. Right?
That account can be used for Uh A lot of different things that maybe you don't intend for it to be used for, right?
So, if you got a joint account, you add your adult daughter that can be used against your daughter in family court, right, for child support, alimony. they're an owner of the account. Um They can empty that account one day if they decide they want to, right?
So you got a hundred grand in there. They're a joint owner, they can go in there and withdraw a hundred grand. Um It's and they haven't done anything wrong, right? Um So adding adding uh you know and the The other thing is when they when you pass away. No matter what your estate plan is, your estate plan might be: hey, I want to leave everything evenly to my three kids.
That only governs what's actually in your estate.
So, if you add somebody as a joint owner to your account and you die, that's their account now.
So, if you got $100,000 in that account, and it was always your thought that would go into your state and it would be split up three ways to your kids, well, that's not gonna happen now. Because that was left to your adult daughter, you added to the account just to sign checks and and kind of manage your affairs. The appropriate way to do this is to have a power of attorney. Name your daughter. your power of attorney to take care of your affairs when you when you are unable to, And then you add her to the account as a Power of attorney.
So it's not her money. She's, you know, she's got to manage that money for your. You know, as a fiduciary, too, so that changes.
So she's still on the account, she can still sign checks, she's got the access you wanted her to have. But you haven't just basically given her access to the to the money and so Uh that's probably the best way to do it, you know. When you when you a lot of times when you open these bank accounts I'm still using a credit union account I opened when I was 14, right? I don't use it a lot. But when you open these accounts, a lot of times you've done it way in the past and things have changed.
You've gotten married, you've gotten kids. And so it's really important when you do your estate plan, a lot of times we'll ask you about your bank accounts. And one of the things we want you to do is to go back in and update. Hey, is this an account you want to go and add your spouse as joint owner? Do you want to name your spouse as contingent beneficiary, right?
Payable on death. You can add adult daughters or spouses or things like that. There's a couple of different ways. The point of this question is: there's a couple of different ways to add someone to an account. and making them a joint owner, doesn't always make Sense.
But at the same time, that can be a good tool to get done what you want to get done in the most efficient way possible.
So it's not like you never want to do it. You just want to do it in the right situation. You don't want to do it in a situation that's going to have. essentially the opposite effect of what you want to have happen. Yeah, and you know, it's like we talk about from time to time the question comes up, adding.
Adding an adult child to title in some way, add to the title of your real property, the title of your home, your land. And we don't always like that either, right? Because once you make someone a joint owner of something, it's hard to get rid of them. Mm-hmm. Right.
And you're and you're If they've got a spouse, you're adding their spouse to title. If they've got judgments, you're adding their judgments to title. And so, you know, there's a lot of pitfalls that can come along with that. But again, it's another thing that, under the right circumstances, it may make sense for you. But you just need to understand what you're getting yourself into.
And. you know, the pros and the cons of it. I have seen personally a lot of estates where you can't be able to do it. You know, there's a couple of kids, dad, mom's getting up in years, and there's one kid who lives close by, and that kid helps them out with stuff, and so it makes sense to them to add that kid as a joint owner. But then they die, and then that kid's now the owner, right?
If they were on the deed, now they own the property. If they were on a bank account, now they own the bank account. None of that goes into the estate. Um And you're hoping that child Takes care of everybody else, but the will. Isn't important anymore.
Your estate plan is not important because none of that Um is going to happen if you if you make someone else a a joint owner.
So, anyway, I think that's what that question was designed to talk about: there's different ways to add someone to your bank account. And a couple of questions to an attorney. probably get you the best. result there.
So that is something we talk about during an estate planning consult. We're going to hit a couple of power of attorney questions. We'll try to get to one of them during this segment, probably the second one in our following and final segment. But here's the question, guys: the category: what exactly does a power of attorney do? And the question is: my attorney says I need a financial power of attorney.
I'm healthy and handle my own finances. Why would I give somebody else control of my money?
Well, I mean there's a There's a couple of reasons, you know. The power of attorney is something you sign when you're healthy. Right once you're incapacitated once you're unconscious once you're Know you've got advanced dementia. You know, once you're in a position where you need the power of returning, you can't sign it anymore. You don't have the.
capacity to sign a power of attorney.
So you need to set a power of attorney up. why you can. And that's a springing document, right?
So it's set up to only come into play. When you're Unable to take care of your finances.
Now, I've met with people who don't really have a good option for power of attorney. Um they're their their sole heir is not good with money. Um You know, they're gonna, they might ask their CPA, they might ask their attorney, they might ask their investment advisor or somebody to fill that role.
So, it's not always the easiest because it is a lot of responsibility, right? If you get in a car accident, you're unconscious for two weeks. you know, in theory somebody could step in your place and and and if They're acting as your fiduciary, but that doesn't mean people are always honest.
So, who you put in that role is very, very important. But, yes, you want to do that while you can. You want to do that while you're physically able, you're mentally able. And so, in our example here, Our guys saying, Hey, I'm healthy, I can do everything. Why should I give someone else control of my money?
Well, you're not giving anybody immediate control. You can, but most people don't. You're giving control. to someone to do it when you when you can't do it. And when you can't do it, it's too late to, it's too late.
And we all fall into that trap. It's like we're programmed to think we have. all the time in the world. Yep. Right.
We will continue the conversation on Judica County Radio after a short break. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, are the attorneys that host this show. They practice law right here in North Carolina. They put offices all over the state for your convenience: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Tuque Verena, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. Complimentary consults available: estate planning, personal injury.
We're focusing in on estate planning 101 today. But if you've got questions about your own situation, maybe you wanted to start an estate plan, maybe you're in the middle of something, need a second opinion, or you're involved with a personal injury case, give us a call: 919-77270000. It's a complimentary, no-obligation consult. 919-7727000 or visit the website, wh.lawyer. Back with more Judica County after this.
We're back on Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, are your hosts. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and that, of course, the power behind the program. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina in offices, well, pretty much everywhere. Down at the coast, Moorhead City.
They're over near Charlotte and Gastonia, but right around the triangle in Fuque Verena, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and the Cap City, Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys, complimentary consults, estate planning, personal injury. Always available during the course of today's show. You can call 919-77270000.
That's 919-7727000. Just say, hey, I'd love to come in and talk about estate planning, or maybe I'm involved with a personal injury case and I need some help there. Grab a consult, 919-7727000, or visit that. Website, wh.lawyer, sign up there as well.
So, we were talking about, guys, what exactly a power of attorney does and why you need one.
So you can finish up your thoughts there. But then let's shift to the health care power of attorney. And is that you know, is that different? Yeah, it is.
So these are two very important documents in your estate plan. And so yet before the break, we were talking about a financial power of attorney, a business power of attorney. Very important document for allowing people to take care of your day-to-day Finances and longer-term things, too, if you were to become incompetent, right? That can be a lot. Incompetent can be a lot of different things: advanced dementia, unconscious.
Coma A lot of different things. And so the power of internet becomes pretty important because you, again, like we said before the break. Can't do it after the fact, right? You can't do it once you've lost. Competency.
You have to do it ahead of time. And so You know, we were talking about how we all just kind of don't think about there may be a time where we're. Not able to take care of things, but you know, anyway, so that's that's you know, we call that a financial power of attorney. North Carolina. You also can have, or should have, a healthcare power of attorney, and that says, hey, This is the person that needs to make my healthcare decisions if I'm unable to make my health care decisions.
Um And your healthcare power of return your health care agent. Your financial agent, you know, your attorneys, in fact. They don't have to be the same person. You can have someone. in charge of your financial affairs and then a different person to make healthcare decisions.
So again, they don't have to be the same. person and some and a lot of people will will take advantage of that. They don't have to be the same person. But I know you see that too, Joseph. Yeah, you know, and that's another one of those things where folks sometimes can get that paralysis on the decision-making in terms of.
You know, not knowing exactly who they want to appoint or getting stuck on having two folks and not knowing which one they want to. put in the first slot and uh I tell folks, like, would you rather have any insight into this and have any control over it, or would you rather have none? And, and.
Someone has to go to the court and get a guardianship over you. You know, that's an infinitely worse situation, in my opinion. Yeah, and that's that's what has to happen, you know. And I don't know that people always realize or think about that.
So, if you, if you, for whatever reason, you You know, you procrastinate, you don't do it, and and that happens all the time. You don't have your power of attorneys in place, and then something happens. Then that's what's going to have to happen. The people who want to take care of you, make your healthcare decisions, pay your bills. They're gonna have to go downtown and apply.
to be your guardian, to get a guardianship. And there's going to be a hearing. And if your kids don't agree on who it should be, or there's different people who want to do it, they're going to have basically a court hearing where they argue about. Who should be your guardian of your financial affairs and the guardian of the person, your health care?
So. Um you know, if you it's it's so easy to set it up ahead of time. It's very so difficult if if you if you don't. Um So it's a big part. And we talked about this earlier, the question we had where the people don't consider themselves to be wealthy.
They don't consider themselves to have a lot of assets they need to get to the next generation. That's only a part of the estate plan. And and this kind of stuff. is the other part. Right.
On things like this, who's going to take care of you when you can't?
So that's a good, you know, the financial power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney, very different, can be different people, can be the same people. The important thing is just. To have them in place, to have them prepared. We are in the middle of a show just about estate planning, estate planning 101. We've got time for one more question, gentlemen, and here it is.
I made a will. 20 years ago, isn't that good enough? And that's the question.
So, my wife: here's the scenario: my wife and I had wills prepared when our first child was born back in 2004. Since then, we've had another child, bought a different house, changed jobs several times, and now have grandbabies. Uh the wills are still valid, so do we really need new ones? I'm going to answer that question. That's good, man.
I've been waiting for you to answer that. You know, we've been sitting here. I'm gonna I'm gonna s I've met with a lot of people here recently. And we're talking about your estate plan, right? We're talking about.
Your estate plan is more than just the will, or more than just the trust. It's more than just getting assets to the right people, the people you want to have them in the next generation. It is planning for when you're not here. And a lot of that, I've had two consults here over the past couple of weeks where we have a spouse who dies unexpectedly. And that spouse was the one that handled logging into the bank accounts, knew where the mortgage was getting paid, do the car notes had to be paid, what.
what credit cards they were paying off. There was one person who pretty much handled All of the financial affairs for the family, and they unexpectedly lost them. And You know, we've been working with the surviving spouses on trying to figure out, like, we, you know, you know, we run into people who don't know who their mortgage servicer is, right? They don't know who the mortgage goes to because they haven't been the spouse that dealt with it. And there's just a lot.
They don't know passwords, they don't know logins, and you can get through all that. But part of planning is putting all that in one place that, you know, kind of creating like a playbook.
So if something happens to you, someone can pick it up and they at least they have something. It might not be freshly updated information. But they know where everything is, right? They know who the retirement accounts are with. They know who to call when something happens.
And so a lot of the estate planning is just getting all that together. And here in this example, hey, they did it 20 years ago, but they haven't done it in 20 years. A lot changes in 20 years. Yeah.
Yeah, 20 years is a You know, is a lot of time. And so, yeah, you have an estate plan, and that's great, right? That's something. G.I. Joe, right, the old cartoon would say that's half the battle, right?
You've got an estate plan put together. This one probably needs to be updated. Yeah, I was going to ask a question, guys. I mean, you deal with this on a daily basis. When should an estate plan, obviously you want an estate plan, but when should an estate plan be reviewed?
I mean, are there things that happen where you go, you know what? I need to meet with my attorneys. I need to update my estate plan. Yeah, there's plenty of things that happen. And I don't know that I'd necessarily, you know, you could look at that as like a time period, right?
Like every five years, just reassess and. look at your situation, but there's definitely triggering events, right? Having a kid, that'd be a big one that I'd I'd throw out there. Any kind of substantial changes to your financial situation, remarrying. There's plenty of scenarios that you need to come sit down and look at everything because you could get into a situation where everything gets thrown off by this one life event happening to you.
Closing thought, Josh, and we'll wrap this one up. Yeah, like Joseph said, you know, having a kid that usually does it, right? Divorce, remarried, buying and selling a house, self-employed folks. You need to have that business, you know, your estate plan goes into your business planning. Who's gonna run the business if something happens to you?
All those things are, you know, anytime anything like that changes, you need to. Revisit, even if you've got to, and you may not have to make many changes either. It may be something as simple as changing one thing, but those are all good examples. We've had some really good questions about estate planning today. You've got questions about your own situation, maybe you're in the middle of something, or maybe you want an estate plan.
Grab one of our complimentary consults, 919-7727000. Get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. Leave your contact information. An attorney will be in touch and they'll set that appointment up. And again, no cost, no obligation.
919-77270000. You can also visit the website, wh.lawyer. Another edition of Judica County in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. I'm Morgan Patrick. I'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.
