Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And here's the theme of today's show. But I thought I could do that again. Common legal assumptions that sound perfectly reasonable, but can get you into trouble. You don't want to miss it.
Coming up next on Judica County. Whitaker and Hamer presents Judica County. With Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hamer. Welcome into Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer.
They manage the law firm Whitaker and Hamer Law, and they are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They put offices almost everywhere: Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Varina, Gastonia, and down at the coast, Morehead City. For your convenience, I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on. Complementary consults through the course of today's show.
You can call at any time in and around a state. Planning or personal injury again. The number is nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Maybe got questions in that area? Don't know how to proceed again.
No cost, no obligation. Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand, or visit the website wh dot lawyer. Before we dive in on our first question with that theme, but I thought I could do that. Again, common legal questions that you really are legal assumptions, I should say, that sound perfectly reasonable, but can get you into trouble. We're going to get into that, but guys, let's just catch up.
Josh, you're first. How was the week? Week's been good. Yeah, I'm. I feel like every time we we start this show, like I lead with I'm tired, right?
All right, and you you were telling us right before we came on how tired you are. But I'm tired, and you know me and me and Joseph. We played in it's charity golf season, golf tournament season. Yeah, and so we we did one of those yesterday, and exhausted, exhausted today. I don't think that's what's supposed to happen.
Yeah, it's usually best ball and beverages, so. Do we overdo it, guys? I don't think we overdid it. We didn't overdo it on the on balls that were good. No, I think we did the right, the exact right amount of beverages.
We've got it. We we got it calculated to a science.
So the the team, Whitaker and Hamer. Obviously, half of the team is you know on this show. Who makes up the other half? Friends and acquaintances. And I was not invited.
We knew you'd be busy. Yeah, very nice. You were next on this, Morgan. You were right. I mean, holy cow!
Talk about a hired gun sitting here, ready to go. We didn't know that was an option, man. We we will definitely keep you in mind. That's all right. You're on.
You're in. You're in the next one.
Okay. Because we don't know a lot of people who, like, I a lot of the people that I I grew up with that I know that you know, like, I I'd have more luck getting people together to play basketball. Than getting people together to play golf, I just don't know as many golfers as I probably should. Right? I should probably.
We should probably have an extremely athletic friend group. Is what you're telling us. All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna utter one phrase, and this is the last thing I'll ever say: single-digit handicap. Yeah, we need that, man. We didn't know you had that.
We don't have that pocket. Yeah, yeah, we're very handicapped when it comes to golf.
So. I don't even know how to calculate my handicap in golf, but you know we're good at. You know one thing we're great at on the golf course, and this is true, man. Motivational speaking, firing the team up—that's what we bring to the table. We we talk to the good golfers, and we convince them to do better for our team, and that's what we bring.
I can picture Josh and Joe in dressed as E or on the golf course, and just every shot.
Well, I guess we could have done. Better there now, Josh. Josh has got a lot of energy on the course, man. He really turns it up to another level. You let him shotgun six beers by the second hole, and he's ready.
If you don't golf, if you don't golf a lot, right? Like me and Joseph, what are we two, three times a year, max? Maybe, maybe on a good year, yeah.
So we're not playing a lot of golf. If you don't play a lot of golf, man, and you get out there after about. Fourteen holes. I'm I'm done. I I got nothing.
I got I don't have much to give to begin with. I can tell you does play a lot of golf. That's every other human being at these tournaments. Every single person. What was the winning the winning score was like twenty twenty six under.
I think is what it ended up being. Yeah, we didn't we didn't come close to that. No, no. Yeah, do the do the math on that. That's ridiculous.
Yeah, but it happens. That that happens. Does it, Morgan?
Well, there's one hole where you you know creative scoring. I'm just saying, possibly it's for charity.
So there's one hole where you could buy an ace, right? Right. You know, so you know people people probably get there. Yeah, there are all these gimmicks in these tournaments where the score can go very, very low. How much you golf, Morgan?
Not as much recently, but you know, back in the day, you know, when I started my media career, I was in Myrtle Beach, so I played pretty much every day. After we're bringing you, we're bringing you on. Oh yeah, man, yeah, one hundred percent. That's going to the yeah. I got, I got as low, I got as low as a four, single digit, and then you know, I'm probably playing around a nine, eight, eight or nine.
So I don't know. I generally I just add it to par.
So if it's a par seven two, I generally shoot around seventy nine or eighty. Yeah, that's really good, man. I want that. Yeah, I wish we had. I wish we had known that.
I wish we had. If I could build a time machine, we'd go back and boot one of these other flunkies that we had. Yeah, you'd want me for the you'd want me for the tee ball because it's usually middle of the fairway, not to be you know. Cocky, right, right. I hit it reasonably straight.
Well, we had we had we played golf, and then Joseph, you had a basketball game, didn't you? Did it throw off your shot? No. Don't do a lot of shooting, man. Do a lot of a lot of screens, a lot of rebounds, a lot of hustle plays, a lot of big body picks, and four after four ibuprofen after a week golfed, man.
I was feeling right as rain, man. Body felt great. Felt real good. That's good. That's good.
Yeah, game didn't go. We played really poorly. It was really unfortunate.
Sorry to bring it up. Thanks for bringing that up.
Now I'm going to be depressed the rest of the time we're here.
Well, you know, today we've been trying. We've been trying to have a theme. Been trying. Working hard at it. The but the theme today is like things, you know.
The way I was thinking about this is is things people think they can do that an attorney would tell you not to do, or you can't do, or why did you do this? Yeah, people assume certain things without seeking legal advice. Yeah, I don't want you calling your attorney for every little thing you you do, but there's some things where I think people. Maybe try to make a logical conclusion, you know, and it makes sense to them. But then, when something happens and someone's looking at it critically, they're like, "Oh my goodness, you've, you know, you've you've botched it." So that's kind of what our questions were kind of geared at today.
Okay, well let's let's hit one real quick, and then we'll take a break, and then we'll come back and we'll answer a few more of them. But here's the category: it's my property. I can cut anything on my side of the fence. Is that correct? That's the question.
So here's the big one: my neighbor has a huge oak tree, about five feet from our property line. Several large branches hang over my roof, drop leaves in my gutters. I want to cut every. Back to the property line, but an arborist warned me that removing those limbs could seriously damage or even kill the tree. It's hanging over my property, so can I cut it?
That's that's the question. You know, I think the most interesting part of this question is that this guy just knows an arborist. It happens to give them this this this factual piece of the question. Everybody needs to know one good arborist man because for moments like this they really come in handy.
So the and that's important to the question, right? Because now we know that our guy knows cutting these these tree limbs could could seriously damage or kill the tree, and and tree law. That's the thing, right? There's a lot of statutes in North Carolina about trees. Yeah, we've been meaning to do that that show on tree law, and we just had to.
That's it. That's right. We're just gonna we're gonna narrow the practice area of the firm to tree law, tree law and tree law litigation as well. Yeah, but yeah.
So when you're when you're when you're cutting someone's Tree that's not yours. I mean, the point of this question is, it would be great to just talk to your neighbor about it, right? You know, I had one of I had one of these situations, and I would just go to the neighbor and be like, "Hey, we're trimming, we're trimming these trees back," and just talk to them so you know they're okay with it. But um. You know, minor trimmings probably fine, but if you know ahead of time that this could kill the tree, and you kill your neighbor's tree, probably opening yourself up to some liability.
And but that makes sense, right? That makes sense that if the tree is growing over to your side, I think a logical person could conclude, hey, I can cut these back because it's on my property. And that's the wrong conclusion. That's the point of that question. It seems logical.
Seems like something you could do. Maybe you can do it, but there's a there's a lot of tree law that might. Suggest you you can't do it. No, certainly you want to talk to your neighbor if that is feasible. We will talk more about some of these questions again.
It's just assuming that something is going to be okay without seeking legal advice. And these are the questions we're hitting today. A complimentary consult with Whitaker and Hamer is available to you. Estate planning or personal injury? You can call nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand to grab one nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand or visit wh dot lawyer.
Got more questions? Coming up, you're listening to Judica County Radio. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and they practice law right here in North Carolina. Offices down at the coast, Morehead City, over near Charlotte and Gastonia. Also have right here around the Triangle and the Piedmont, Fuquay Varina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Garner, Cleveland, and the Cap City, Raleigh, North Carolina.
I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys and hit these legal questions, and you may have some questions of your own in and around say estate planning or a personal injury case. You can grab a complimentary consult with Whitaker and Hamer at any time. Call nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. That's nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand, or visit the website w h dot lawyer.
All right.
So the theme of today's show, but I thought I could do that, and of course the premise being common legal assumption. That sound reasonable, but can get you into trouble, and it's going to cover a lot of different categories legally.
So listen up.
So the next question, guys, is this one, and the category is: I'm the executor, so I can start giving everything away. And here's the question: My mother passed last month, and her will names me as executor. It's very straightforward. Everything goes equally to three children. My siblings want their money.
Now and there's about 150 thousand sitting in my mother's checking and savings accounts totaled, and can I just write each fifty thousand dollar check and worry about the estate paperwork later? That's the question.
You know, don't do that. Yeah, don't do that. The um and and again, again, these questions are supposed to be phrased where, like, hey, this you know, this this person acting as. Executor, this seems logical. They're in charge of the estate.
This is what they want to happen. But you know, probating a will, administering an estate—that's a process, and distributing property to siblings is is one of the last things that you that you do, right?
So here, and we've talked about this before, but here you are nothing, right? You if you are if you are. Who was this? His mother. In this one, it was his mother.
His mother passed away. He's holding his mother's original will. It names him as executor. We've talked about this. That doesn't do anything by itself, right?
It's great. You have the original will. It's great. There is a will, but there's a there's a next step, and that step is. Taking that, some other documentation down to the clerk's office, and formally opening the estate, having the clerk accept the will as as the last will and testament of your of your mother.
Making sure it's properly witnessed, and then you get letters. Right once, once everything's done and approved, the clerk issues yous letters of testamentary, and that's when you're the executor. And before that happens, you're not the executor just because it says it in the will. You have to be formally appointed to that role. And so here, and then and then you got to wait for creditor claims.
You got to go find all the property that that your mother had, kind of bring it all together, so you know what you're dealing with. Do an inventory, and then once you get the lay of the land, and you figure out, okay, well, I got to pay this this credit card, and I've got to pay, you know, I got to pay the car off, or whatever you have to do. That's when you can finally distribute money, and and people will want their money right away. That's how it always works, right? There's always someone in the situation.
One of the siblings always is going to need money right away, want it right away. But that's just not how it how it works, you know. And so, anyway, can I get can I start giving everything away right away? No, that's that's the answer. And if you do, you're you you potentially looking at a situation where.
You're gonna have to bring some stuff back into the estate, and it's gonna it's gonna be a bad day for everybody. Yeah, I think I think of the estate. You know, I've used this analogy before. I think the estate's kind of like a like a bucket, right? And so you have to go as executor and bank accounts, you know, life insurance, whatever whatever's in the estate, whatever happens to be in the estate, you got to put it in this bucket.
And then once you know, you know, then you got to pay bills out of it. You got to pay taxes. Then you'll know what's left over, and the kids split what's left. Left over the sibling split what's left over, not what you originally put in. You know, so if you dole out all the money and then you can't pay creditor claims, the clerk's going to require everybody to put money back in.
Especially the sibling who needs the money right now. I bet you they're not going to have it to put it put it back in. And then you just get a lot of lot of problems. We are hitting legal questions, and again, these are in the category of just assumptions that sound perfectly reasonable. And you could get in a little hot water if you follow these without seeking legal advice.
Our next category, gentlemen, it's my LLC. I can use the account for whatever I want. That's the category.
So here's the question: I own 100% of my LLC.
Sometimes I use the company debit card for groceries, my mortgage. Vacations and other personal expenses. My accountant keeps telling me to stop doing that, but it's my company, it's my money. Legally, why does it matter? This guy doesn't.
This guy doesn't sound like a good client. He's ignoring his. He's ignoring his accountant in our question. That's not good. You pay your accountant for for advice.
Yes, so don't ignore it, man. Listen to your accountant. But the yeah the so people you know an LLC is a limited liability company. A lot of self employed folks, people who have rental property, will create an LLC. And when you create this LLC, usually you are doing it for liability protection, right?
You are, excuse me, you are. Your goal is to give yourself a shield so that you protect your personal assets, right? The example we always use is you create an LLC to hold rental property. To be so, your your landlord, you have a tenant. The LLC takes in the rent money, pays the expenses, and you're entitled to the profit, right?
So at any time, if the LLC has profit. After it pays its business expenses, that comes to you. That's your money—groceries, vacations, whatever you want to do with it. That's your profit. But while that money's in the LLC, that's not your money.
That's the LLC's money, and that can only be used for business expenses. And if you do this, if you take this attitude that anything in the LLC, I can I can use any of that money for anything. Then the law is not going to give you that liability protection.
So if you get sued, that's one of the things.
So you have a tenant slip and fall; it's your fault. You didn't repair the stairs. They asked you a million times to do it.
Somebody gets hurt, and they sue you. They sue your LLC. They sue you as as landlord. They're also going to sue you personally because they're gonna they're gonna be able to find out through discovery that. You use the LLC as your personal piggy bank, right?
You used it to pay all kinds of personal expenses, and the easy solution here is you you take it as profit, right?
So groceries, mortgage, vacations, those aren't deductible. Those should just come to you, and you should just pay it.
So here. This is really just—I mean, this is laziness, right? All you got to do is move the money over to your personal account. You're entitled to it; it is your money. But legally, it does matter whether you spend it on groceries, whether that money's in your LLC or that money's in your personal name.
And a lot of a lot of people—I mean, you see that a lot. We see it when we we sue people, right? Because that's what that's what somebody's going to do if they see you—they're going to through discovery want some bank statements, want to see, you know, that kind of thing.
So that's a real. Simple thing to do wrong that can like blow up the whole reason you have an LLC, and it's a simple, very simple step that can prevent all of the trouble that not doing it will cause. Yeah, the account here is not telling them. Don't spend your money on groceries, mortgage, vacations. It's your money.
Just move it over to your personal account. It's your profit. You can do anything you want to with it once it's been converted into profit to your personal name. But while it's in the LLC, that's a huge no-no. And the accountant's mad.
Your lawyer's going to be mad at you, and you're going to open yourself up to personal liability. Josh, real quickly before we take our next break, can you kind of go over our complimentary consult again? Estate planning, personal injury. Yeah, here at the firm, if you call them from the radio show, we we don't charge you. We do a free consult if you want to talk about estate planning, right?
So if you want to talk about revocable trust and power of attorneys and living wills, we will talk to you about that for for free, right? Me and Joe or one of our our folks will sit down and and discuss that with you.
So that's a free consult, estate planning, wills, trust, and then also if you've been in a car accident. You know we have attorneys that kind of focus their practice on what we call personal injury, right?
So if you've been in a car accident, you've been injured, you want to talk to somebody about your case, maybe help help you get it valued, see if you know it's something an attorney can help you with. We do those for free as well.
So both of those are free consults. All right, complimentary. You can call right now nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Again, get signed up for that nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Leave a Message and either estate planning or personal injury, they'll get in touch with you and they'll set it up nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.
You can visit the website wh dot lawyer. More Judica County coming up. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and they practice law right here in the great state of North Carolina. Offices placed in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Varina, down near Charlotte and Gastonia, and over at the coast, Morehead City.
And it's all about helping North Carolina legal questions, legal stuff you. Really, just don't have the answers to. You can get those answers from Whitaker and Hamer, and we do offer complimentary consults in and around estate planning and personal injury. You can call at any time nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand, or visit the website w h dot lawyer. All right, this is a sprint of a segment, so we've got one question, gentlemen, and we will throw it at the attorneys.
Here it is: the category. I own the land; it's mine, so I can build whatever I want.
So here's the Question: We bought five acres outside of town specifically because there's no HOA. I want to build a large detached garage with an apartment over it for my mother. My neighbor says zoning will not allow a second residence. It's my five acres and there's no HOA. Can the county really tell me I can't build on it?
Well, yeah, they they potentially can. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So every every county, every city, every town, they're going to have zoning ordinances, right? They're going to have setbacks. They don't want you to build right on the property line, right?
So there's going to be setbacks, and there's things they allow and don't allow. You know, most counties don't allow you to build multiple residences on the same parcel now. This guy who's got his five acres, he can split it up, right?
So he can have three acres and two acres, and probably get what he wants to do here. But yeah, the zoning the zoning laws will only allow certain things, and that's why you have to go get a building permit, and you got to show them what you're going to do, and you got to get your foundation inspected because the The county, or the you know, here it's the county, right? The county sees their obligation. You know, eventually, at some point, your property will be sold, right? This guy may die, someone else inherits it.
He might have to sell it because he wants to move. But eventually, this property is going to be sold, and so you know, the county is going to want to inspect everything to make sure everything's built to code, and Yeah, this this surprises some folks. You know, I see this come up a lot when people, you know, people kind of maybe out in the country, kind of just unpermitted structures, unpermitted things. Right, they just do it. No one really catches them doing it, even though the counties do have folks who go out and look for this kind of stuff.
And you go sell the property to a potential buyer. That buyer's not going to be super pumped. You didn't get your addition, your sunroom that you added inspected, or you you've got an unpermitted barn, right? And you think these things are adding value to the property, but because you didn't get them permitted, they actually don't add value to the property. They're they're a problem when you go sell the property.
Um, and so here this makes sense, right? He bought five acres. There's no HOA, which is you know great. A lot of people don't want to have an HOA, and so that eliminates one late. Right, so the HOA doesn't have to prove anything, but the county is going to always have a say in it, you know.
And so, there is always land use regulations. Judeca County Radio, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, the power behind the program. They practice law right here in North Carolina, hitting some legal questions. And again, the category just common legal assumptions that sound perfectly reasonable, but can get you in a little bit of trouble if you don't seek legal advice. We'll get to more of those questions coming up.
Want to remind you, there's a complimentary consult in and around estate planning, or maybe a personal injury case you're facing. You can grab one at any time. Call the number. Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. That's nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.
You can also visit the website. It's a great resource for you. Wh dot lawyer. That's wh dot lawyer. We got more at Judica County coming up.
It's Judah County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, and of course, the power behind this program—they practice law right here in North Carolina, and offices placed all over our great state: Morehead City, down at the coast, over near Charlotte, in Gastonia. But here in this area, we've got Cap City, Raleigh. We also have Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro. And Fuquay Varina.
I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys. We're hitting some legal questions and the category, just some common legal assumptions that sound perfectly reasonable, but they can get you into some serious trouble if you're not careful.
So here's our next assumption. My dad gave me power of attorney, so I can just change his will.
So here's the question. My eighty-four-year-old father gave me a broad power of attorney several years ago. He's now suffering from dementia. His will leaves money to a charity he hasn't supported in twenty years. Everyone in the family agrees Dad would want the money to go to his grandchildren now.
As his agent, can I update his will?
So that seems. Right. It seems it seems like a reasonable thing to to assume.
So you have your your father here did some estate planning, had a will done. He had the foresight to get a very general, broad power of attorney set up for the son here to to handle his affairs when he became incompetent, when he could no longer handle his affairs and. This makes a lot of sense, right? Everybody agrees. The father wouldn't want to support this charity anymore, and you know that's not what a you know a power of attorney, a very broad power of attorney, can do a lot of things for you.
It can let someone kind of stand in your place, pay your bills, handle your investments, sell real property, do a lot of stuff. Your standard power of attorney is not going to allow. Your agent, the son here, to go in and and change a will.
So, different facts could get us to different conclusions. But here, just know, unless it's something that you specifically talk about with your attorney and want, want your agent, right, your power of attorney, the person you appoint to be your your agent. Not going to be able to change wills and and trust and maybe beneficiaries on on certain things and you know if that's something you want that person to be able to do, you need to have a chat with your with your attorney. But I think that's a reasonable you know someone could probably see that as a reasonable thing to do when they go to the attorney to do it. That attorney is probably gonna probably gonna shut them down, you know.
Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. And again, we're hitting. I think it's very interesting. Common legal assumptions that sound perfectly reasonable, but can get you into trouble if you just assume, right?
So make sure you're getting some legal advice on some of these categories if you're in this same scenario. Josh, let's go to this next category. The contractor.
Next assumption. The contractor didn't finish, so I'll just stop payment on the check.
So here's the. Question: We hired a contractor for a ninety thousand dollar renovation. We've paid seventy thousand, but he stopped showing up with about twenty five thousand dollars worth of work remaining. I wrote the last ten thousand dollar check two days ago, and it hasn't cleared. Can I just stop payment?
And this, you know, this is a good example. You know, this. You know this in theory makes sense, but it may not be the best thing to do. This is one that's going to be very. This is a situation where you heard your attorney say, "Hey, this is really going to depend on the the facts, right?
What's going on? Do you have a written contract? What do you have to do? Do you have to give notice of a potential breach?" I get it though. You don't want this ten thousand dollars going out the door.
You don't know if you are going to be able to get it back. You don't know if the guy's going to finish. But this is one of those situations where you really need to schedule a consult with an attorney. These kind of consults normally aren't free, right? Normally, you are going to be paying a contract or a litigation attorney to sit down with you, kind of look at the contract, talk to you about the timeline, what's happened, what kind of responses are you getting.
So, this is. This is this is a more complicated one because in theory, you know, depending on your contract, you you you you stop pay this ten thousand dollar check and you could get sued for ten thousand dollars, assuming the contractor's been doing everything he's supposed to do according to your contract.
Now, if you don't have a contract or you know it's been ten weeks or you know what what there's facts here where I could be like, yeah, man, you know, cancel that. Cancel that contract, but this is one of those things where you kind of need to talk to an attorney. That's enough money. That's enough money where it's it's worth your time and energy to kind of get an attorney's advice and and and kind of try to get on the right track, but. A lot of we get a lot of contractor questions.
A lot of contractor questions.
Well, and obviously, and you know, this is a category that that pops up quite a bit. But again, just the assumption that the contractor didn't finish, so I'm just going to stop payment on the check, and really. Before you do anything like that, I would talk to your attorney and especially read the contract, as as Josh just pointed out. All right, so our next question, gentlemen, for our attorneys, here's the category, and again, these are again common legal assumptions that sound perfectly reasonable, but you need to be careful here, so you could get in trouble if you go ahead and follow these.
So here's the here's the assumption: we're not married, but we've lived together for. Twenty years.
So here's the question: My partner and I have lived together for twenty, but we've never married. The house is solely in his name, although I help pay the mortgage and renovations for years on this home. He doesn't have a will. If he passes, I'm basically treated like a spouse because we've been together so long. Right?
Correct. That is an incorrect assumption.
So, yeah, a lot of states, a lot of foreign countries, a lot of states, they'll have some sort of law that once you've been cohabitating with with someone for long enough, you. You you know you you enter a type of a marriage as far as like property goes, and you'll hear common law marriage. You'll hear that that kind of word thrown around. I believe I'm not licensed to practice in South Carolina, but I believe South Carolina has a common law marriage type type law, and it's you know when when states have these laws, it's for these kind of situations where where someone's been together for 20 years, never been married. Never really done any estate planning, and then one of the partners drops dead.
Their natural heirs, right? Your natural—if you haven't done any estate planning, your natural heirs are your spouse and then your children, your legitimate children. And so here, there is no spouse; they have no no rights in any of this stuff. There may be an equitable argument, and there's been some case law. Right there's some law.
There's some there's some things you you can possibly do.
So this partner who survived her partner of of twenty years has some options, but they're not great options. They're filing. It's an infinitely worse option than the the solution of adding this person to title or putting. And I'm not a fan together that gives him the property. I'm not a fan of any kind of you know born and raised in North Carolina.
I'm not a fan of any kind of common law marriage. You know, my my theory is if you know the and I may be wrong, right? But as an attorney, I look at this. I'm like, hey, if that deceased partner wanted you on the deed, you'd be on the deed, right? I think it's fair to assume he would want he would want his natural heirs to to inherit the property since he hasn't made any.
You know, any indication that he wanted it to be otherwise. I am not a fan of those those laws. You know, seven years goes by real quick, and that what I think that's what it is in South Carolina. I think it's seven years, but seven years goes by real fast. We are hitting common legal assumptions that sound perfectly reasonable, but can get you into trouble.
Need some legal advice? Again, hitting these questions. There's an opportunity for you to get on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer—a complimentary consult. If you've got questions about estate planning, maybe even thinking about it, haven't pulled the trigger there. Opportunity for you.
Or if you're involved with a personal injury case and you've got questions on how to proceed, these are complimentary consults. Leaving the checkbook at home, not obligated. To become a client, you can call nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. That's nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Leave your contact information and just say, "Hey, estate planning consult or personal injury consult," and they will set that up for you.
nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand or visit the website wh dot lawyer. More Judika County coming up. You're listening to Judika County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They are the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.
They practice law right here in North Carolina, and they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Varina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City for your convenience. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on. With Josh and Joe, and just reminder, there are complimentary consults with a state planning or a personal injury case you're facing. You got questions?
You need some answers? Again, no obligation to become a client. Grab one of the consults: nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. It's nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand or wh dot lawyer. Great resource website for you.
All right, we have been talking about common legal assumptions that sound reasonable, perfectly reasonable, but can get you. Into trouble if you follow them without legal advice.
So here's the next assumption: I found it on my property.
So it's mine. Here's the question: We bought an old farmhouse last year while replacing some flooring. We found a metal box containing old coins that an appraiser says could be worth around seventy-five thousand dollars. The seller's children heard about it and claim their grandfather collected coins and hid them around the house. We bought the house, so aren't the coins ours?
You know, this isn't we've we've gotten two or three of these this week. This is one again where the the facts really matter, and um, you know, it's a tough one. I'm struggling with this one. You don't like it? I don't.
Yeah, I don't like it because they're the law. The law is, you know, personal property. What do they? What do they? What's what do they say?
Ownership is what.
Something tense. Possession is. Yeah, yeah. I don't. But there's an argument to be made.
You know, you know. When I see this question, I'm like, all right.
Well, you know, the seller's children have a lot to to prove. Right, the seller of the house who presumably owned these coins. Um, they got they got a lot of things to prove. But this is this is the kind of thing where there's enough for a lawsuit. Right, the seller's children have enough.
So you could potentially. You're what you're trying to say. In eight thousand words, is that you could potentially take either side of this and make arguments as to why? Yeah, yeah. I think both prevail.
Yeah, because it's not abandoned personal property. You know, you know, if you buy a house and you find like an old lawn mower in a shed, and you call the former owner of the house, your seller, and say, "Hey, what are you gonna do with this lawn mower?" And they never come get it, and they've abandoned the property. That's one thing, right? That's that's that's one thing. But here, the property wasn't technically abandoned, right?
That's what that's the problem when you hide hide things around the house or in the yard, and you don't tell anybody they're there, and then you die. Right, that's like the the conversation. Like we were talking about estate planning and crypto assets. Right, we were talking about how, hey, if you don't tell your executor, your spouse, or your kids, like, hey, I own this crypto, here is where it is, or here is the the hard wallet, or or here is the key. You know, like people aren't going to know.
This is like when occasionally you'll run into somebody who's buried gold and silver on the family farm to protect it. But they don't tell anybody it's buried, right? And then you know it's just kind of it's just kind of lost.
So here, both sides have an argument. I see this question. I see both sides filing a you know somebody filing a lawsuit, and then a mediation being splitting these coins between the new owner of the house and the and the kids in some way. But yeah, this one's not a clean cut. The buyer owns these coins, or the Seller's children, but this is not abandoned personal property.
This is the loss, lost or mislaid personal property.
Well, could I let me ask this question to our attorneys? What if, when the the kids or the family sold the property, it was in the contract, or you know, in the in the documents that there could be possible. Stashes of whatever found on the property at a later date that would be, I guess, accessible to the kids if they were found. I don't know. I mean, you could do something like that.
I don't know that a buyer of property would accept that, you know, as a condition of the of the sale. You could agree to whatever you wanted to, yeah. But there's enforceability, and there's like you said, practically, what are they gonna, you know. How bad do they want that property to? If that's a that's a precondition to you selling it to them, and why are these people being so loud about the seventy five thousand dollars?
Yeah, that was coins. That was my next question. Are you shouting? Yeah, are you shouting from the rooftops? Hey, we found this.
I think this is also that's that's another practical issue, right? Like I don't know that we ever hear about these coins. Yeah, but I think I think you dig through the floorboards before you list this property if if you. Suspect that I think you go on. Yeah, if you knew, if you knew your grandfather hid stuff, and and I mean, get a metal detector, right?
I mean, if you know your grandfather hid coins. Take a metal detector through the house. Yeah, that's that's a good tip. It's a good tip. Again, that'll never.
That's a good tip that'll like no one will ever. It'll hardly ever come into play. Common legal assumptions sound perfectly reasonable, but can get you into trouble. And we've been hitting some different categories. Here's here's our next one.
We'll hit this one real quick, guys. Here's the category or the assumption. He's on the deed, but I paid for everything.
So here's the question: My boy. Friend and I bought a house five years ago. Both names are on the deed, but I paid the entire down payment and probably eighty percent of the mortgage.
Now we've broken up, and he says he's entitled to half the house. Surely, the fact that I paid almost everything means I own most of it. I feel like every week, Joseph, we get some form of this question—boyfriend question. Yeah, boyfriend, girlfriend question. If you know, well, this is just a word.
We'll talk about the question. But if you know, you are going to pay most of, if not all, the down payment. You are going to be paying the mortgage. You are going to be paying the taxes. You are paying the utility bills.
Get on title. Be on title by yourself. Yeah, right. If you are carrying the load, because you know more often than not. Like how many?
I mean, what's the percentage? What the percentage of divorce in America? I heard somebody. I have no idea if this is true. I've not fact checked this.
You are saying it, so but I am going to say it on the radio. But but I think the last time I heard, I like fifty three percent of marriages.
Now here they're not married, right? Fifty three percent of marriages ending divorce, right? That's the that's a stat I heard. That seems like it could be true, maybe. Yeah.
So half of all marriages. Right, fail. How many percentage of non-marriages fail? It's got to be way higher, right? Boyfriend and girlfriend.
You think it would be way higher? Yeah, I would think. I don't know. Way higher than that.
Well, let's assume it's one out of every two, right?
So you're gonna you're gonna date somebody, being a being a committed relationship with somebody who's not contributing anything to this house or very little, maybe twenty percent at best, right? Why put him on title? Why? Why do it? Because here's the trick.
Can't think of a compelling reason to do it. Here's the trick. I like my boys think I'm crazy. My boys, I'm like, hey, look, no one goes on the no one goes on the deed. You buy property, nobody's going on the deed, right?
Because here, this guy who paid nothing, this boyfriend who paid nothing, he does have a claim for half the house. Right, he's on title. He's listed as a fifty percent owner. We talk about this: a petition to partition. Right, you got two people, me and Joe, own a piece of property.
I decide I want to sell it. He doesn't. I can file a petition to partition and have the court force a sale.
Now, luckily for our for our young lady, who paid eighty percent here, she can make an argument that she's entitled to more of the profit from the property because she paid everything, and she can prove she paid everything. But still, this boyfriend's going to get something and make her sell a house that maybe she doesn't want to sell, and it's it's no bueno. Again, getting into some common legal assumptions that sound reasonable, but can get you into trouble legally if you follow these assumptions. We got one more coming up, actually a couple more assumptions coming up on the other side. I want to remind you we do have consults available, complimentary, with Whitaker and Hamer.
If you've been thinking about estate planning, or maybe you're involved with a personal injury case, got some questions on how to move forward with that, you can grab one of the consults. Nine one Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Leave your contact information. Say estate planning or personal injury, and I'll set up a consult for you. Again, nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand, or you can visit wh dot lawyer.
We've got more at Judica County. One more segment coming up. You're listening to Judica County Radio. Judica County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts of the managing partners at the firm Whitaker and Hamer.
They're also practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Varina, Gastonia, and down at the coast, Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Pleasure to jump on with the attorneys, having an interesting conversation about common legal. Assumptions that sound reasonable, perfectly reasonable, but can get you into trouble if you follow them without legal advice.
Our next assumption here it is, guys. My HOA can't find me because I never signed the covenant.
So here's the question: I bought my home six years ago. The HOA is now finding me over a boat parked beside my house. I never personally signed the HOA declaration or agreed. To its rules, I just received a giant stack of closing documents. How can a contract I never signed bind me?
This is, you know, so far all these questions, I've sympathized with the with the person asking them. Like, yeah, this is reasonable. This is a thing. You got no mercy on this one. Is that where you're going?
Yeah, this one's this one doesn't make any sense. This is not a reasonable. You know, you clearly realistic man. It's realistic that someone would take this approach.
So, you know, he got closing documents or whatever. At some point in this in this closing process, I'm sure. It was disclosed that there was an HOA. HOA dues. You're in a subdivision.
You know, there's an HOA. There's there's rules, and as we all know here on the show, if you if you are going to buy a house that's in a subdivision, one of the first things you should get from a real estate agent or the seller, you know, is is the recorded recorded down at the courthouse, register of deeds, covenants. And the covenants are the the basic rules of the subdivision. Can't park on the street. Can't have a boat.
Can't park your work truck. You know, can't have chickens. Whatever whatever they are. And so that there's all kinds of opportunities where that gets disclosed to it to a buyer. They'll come up in a title search.
You know, if your closing attorney's doing a title search, but It's very rare that you go through the closing process and can innocently claim no one told me, you know there was an HOA. And so here, the covenants are put in place usually by the person who develops the property, right?
So the person who bought 180 acres and turned it into 200 lots and started building houses, and that's the person who signs the covenants and restricts the property from from day one, and then. Those covenants run with the land, right? And what we mean by running with the land is they just they they're there and they go, and it doesn't matter who buys the property after that or who inherits the property. Those covenants restrict the use of the land. Um, and so you see that you see that in a in a you know this is this is I don't have much I don't have much sympathy for this question asker.
Yeah.
I'm with you, man. I'm with you.
So cold. Common, common, common legal assumptions that sound perfectly reasonable, but can't get you into trouble.
So, if you're in an HOA, guess what? You need to be aware of it, and you can't claim ignorance on on all that.
So, again, you're following some of these assumptions. You're gonna have you might have some issues legally coming up.
So, make sure you are talking with attorneys, talking with A lawyer about how to proceed. The opportunity to get on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer in and around estate planning. And a lot of you out there are probably sitting there going, "You know what? I need to do an estate plan. I just haven't taken the first step." This is an opportunity for you.
No cost, no obligation. Again, personal injury case you might be facing. Got some questions there? Don't know how to proceed? You can grab one of these consults and talk about it.
Again, no cost, no obligation. Call the number nine one nine seven seven. Seven thousand. We're here to help. Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.
You can also visit the website wh dot lawyer. All right.
This might be our final just assumption, legal assumption. That sounds reasonable. You need to be careful though. You could get in trouble.
So here's the assumption category. The other driver admitted fault in an accident.
So I don't need a lawyer.
So here's the question. I was rear ended at a red light. The other driver apologized. Got a ticket, and his insurer immediately accepted liability. They've been very friendly and offered me eight thousand dollars plus my medical bills.
My back still hurts, but if they've admitted fault, what could really go wrong?
Well, here this is a you know this is an example of a personal injury claim. This guy was at a red light; he got rear-ended. the The other it's it's clear we would say liability is clear here. The other driver got a ticket, which isn't evidence enough. But when you combine it with his insurer saying, "Yeah, yeah, this is this is on us," the the insurance company is always going to make you.
Some kind of offer, and they're usually always super nice to you, right? That's one of the that's one of the things that they they do. But they're not they're not your friend, right? They're not they're not worried about your your best interest, and so that's why.
So here, our person, our our potential client here, is saying, "My back still hurts." What could really go wrong if I take this eight thousand dollars plus medical bills?
So they're paying medical bills and eight thousand dollars and in damage here. But you know, your personal injury attorney is not out to settle these things quickly, right? We want to know what your injuries are. We want you to get treatment for your injuries. We want to know if you're getting back to 100 or you're going to have a lifetime issue here.
We want to know how much work you end up missing. We we want to know all the damages you have, and that's why you know we talk about this. You have three years.
So from the date of this accident, you have three years. A statute of limitation. You have three years to file a lawsuit against the other driver. Um. And sometimes, depending on your injuries, we we wait a long time because we need to know the extent of your damage, right?
So, this may be reasonable if you never go back to the doctor and you don't ever have any problems again. Depending on what's going on here, but if you've you know you need to get a surgery, you've herniated a disc, you just haven't figured it out yet, you haven't had any X rays done. You got to know the extent of your to know what your damages are and to know what your settlement should be. You have to know what your injuries are, and there's just no good way around that. And so here, the the the the the issue here would be if if you don't get better, right?
Your medical bills could exceed that. Your damages, your lost wages, prescriptions, everything could exceed this settlement.
So that I think that's what I think that's what most personal injury attorneys would say here. Hey, let's let's get you checked out. Let's see what's wrong. See if you need some physical therapy. See if you need some surgery.
Personal injury attorneys aren't rooting for you to be injured, right? We don't want you to be injured. We just want to make sure you're fairly compensated for the injuries you have sustained. And for someone like me, like I hate to go the doctor, right? I hate to go the doctor.
In a situation, I'd have to go the doctor. I got to figure out, you know. What's wrong, and hopefully nothing's wrong. But that's the problem there. All right, common legal assumptions that sound perfectly reasonable, but can get you into trouble.
And maybe you're following one of these assumptions. Right, put a put a pause on that. Pump the brakes a little bit. Opportunity to again, in and around estate planning or personal injury cases, to come into Whittaker and Hamer. No cost, no obligation for a complimentary consult.
It is ongoing during the course of this show. You can call it any time. You can call after the show. Nine. Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.
That's nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. Maybe you've got some questions about getting started on an estate plan. Maybe you've been involved in an auto accident, a personal injury case, and you just don't know what steps to take. You can grab one of the consults. Nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand.
Again, nine one nine seven seven two seven thousand. You can also visit the website wh dot lawyer and treat the website as a resource. A lot of good information. There, there's contact information. You can also get signed up for the complimentary consult there as well.
That is wh dot lawyer. Another edition of Judica County Radio is in the books for Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, the managing partners at Whittaker and Hamer, and also practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick. We will see on the radio real soon. Judecca 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 Josh.
Whitaker at JMW at MWHLaw. Lawyer.
