Mystery Legal Question Show

Coming up on today's program, again, powered by Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, we are going to get into the legalese and Josh and Joe. Well, it is the Mystery Question Show. That's right, the Mystery Question Show. They have no idea where these questions are going to come from. It's going to deal with legalese.

It's all coming up next. They've got amazing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. They've got offices almost on every corner.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you are facing a legal situation, you can call Whitaker and Hamer and get answers to your questions. The number is 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Again, this is an opportunity for you to get answers to your questions. Again, in the legal field. I'm Morgan Patrick. Let's just dive right in. It's Mystery Question Show today, guys. First of all, welcome in. You have the questions in front of you now. Let's just get started. Morgan, I've got a lot of questions.

I've got a lot of listener questions. We've kind of cut them out and put them into a little hat. It's not a fancy way of doing it, I suppose. Probably could have found a better way to do it. Nah, this is the most scientific way to do it.

We're going to pull them out. Me and Joe have not looked at the questions ahead of time. We may have a lot of opinions on some of these. Some of these maybe we don't. I want to try to answer some without even listening to them.

I think that's what I'm going to try to do. But we can never get right into talking about the law. It takes some time for us to get rolling. How y'all doing? Y'all doing good?

Good, good, good. Summer's come to an end pretty much. You guys have a good summer? Is it not summer anymore? What day is it today? It's fall.

Yeah. Well, technically, we're still in summer. We've got to get to around the 22nd-ish to get into fall. But summer's winding down, so did you have a good summer? I did, man. I did a hot one. It was a very hot, sticky, sweaty summer. But it was good.

All things considered, it was good. My kids have been back at school for a while now, so it just feels like the summer's been dead for a little bit. Your kids are back in school. It's vacation, right? Yeah, they've been back for a while. I don't know, man.

It's not. They're getting hit with the homework pretty hard this year. Pretty hard this year. Yeah, my kids went back early August, so they've been- Well, it's not a competition, John. They've been in school longer, and they're doing more homework than you.

I sent my kids back earlier than yours. I couldn't take it. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't feel like summer's over. That was so hot outside. It's so hot, man. It's been really hot.

Super-duper hot. Hey, do we have any new additions to the Atlantic Coast Conference since the last time we spoke? No, no. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we do. Since the last time we spoke, we do. Since the last time we spoke?

Yeah, since the last time we spoke. Well, they're coming in next year. They're coming in next year, but yeah, it was announced. I'm stoked, man. I've been waiting for those guys. I had circled those teams a long time ago as some of my favorite, most logical additions to the conference. Yeah, SMU Georgia Tech. That's going to be a rivalry right there. Yeah. Yeah, I want to see like SMU Boston College.

I want to see that as a rivalry. SMU's got a killer water polo program, brother. If you follow water polo- Do they really? Nah, I don't know.

I just made that up. That was the most obscure sport I could think about. Have you ever seen people play water polo? Nah, but I hear it's difficult.

I've heard it's really hard to do. You can't touch the bottom? Yeah, you got to tread water the whole time. Well, you're in like a 10-foot deep pool. Yeah, you're not going to touch the bottom. That's too deep for me, man. How long do you think you can tread water?

I'm pretty strong. Water polo players are great athletes. They're basically super-duper swimmers, and they get physical. I mean, the stuff that you see on top of the water, that's half of it.

I mean, they are really going at it underneath. To answer your question, a long time, man. A long time. Because here's the thing, can I just float at some point, or has it got to be a tread? Tread?

I don't know. So when we went to the, we used to, we went to the neighborhood pool before you could swim in the deep end, you had to take like a test. And part of that test was you had to tread water for two minutes. As a kid, I don't know the last time I've been tested on the amount of time I can tread water. That's the last time I can remember.

Two minutes was a long time. But you get it? You get it done?

You didn't die, so you're still here. I've never had the tread water test. No one gave me that one. Sounds tough, though. I like being in pools I can just stand up in, man. How long is a water polo game? I'll tell you.

Give me a few seconds. Google that, but I'll tell you a quick story. So I grew up swimming. And part of our training, whenever our coach decided to be cruel and unusual, he would, you know, we'd go to the diving well, because back then we had a separate diving area. And the whole thing was 12 feet deep all the way around. And he would throw diving bricks in, we'd have to go down and get them.

But then we'd have to tread water for about 10 minutes. Wow. So I haven't found the time yet, but I did find talking about the fouls you can commit.

And there's a major foul for brutality. That's literally what it's called. Sounds awesome. Sounds like Mortal Kombat. Let's see. Yeah. And yeah, it does sound like Mortal Kombat. But uh, all right, this doesn't tell me that held on.

Let me do a more refined search. We were flipping channels and me and the boys were flipping channels. And when he went by it, and we actually stopped because one, you don't ever really see it on TV. But the other I couldn't figure out. I didn't know how deep the water was. I don't obviously know much about water polo, and I couldn't figure out if they were treading water, or they were just standing there.

Because if you're just standing there, I guess it wouldn't be much of a sport. Sounds like it's a four period game, eight minute long periods with a three minute halftime and two minute rest after quarters one and three. Okay, sounds pretty sweet, man. I might get into it. I might get into it.

I'm looking at the guy who created it and he looks like he's got a pretty small mustache. Olympics coming up, you'll be able to see it and you can be watching every minute. I've got a highlight compilation right here from the last Olympics and I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and favorite it and catch up tonight. Become a big water. Next time you talk to me, man, I'm going to be the water polo aficionado. How did we get into the water polo conversation? I don't know, but I feel like this show is now about water polo and that's all we can talk about. How did we get into it?

You talked about treading water. The SMU Mustang. Oh, yeah, we talked about their incredible. Let me see if they even have one.

I don't know much about that. They're the ones. SMU is the one that got the death penalty, right? Were they the first? They're still alive right now.

No, but who got the death penalty? Yeah, they had, what was it? The Pony Express and they were basically breaking every rule in the NCAA and then they got the death penalty. Well, hopefully they've bounced back strong from that and they can be a very strong member of our great conference. I saw a clip, you know, they have a lot of big names that went there, right?

Condoleezza Rice, George Bush. They had all these people advocating for them to get in. But you look at their football games and it's like a high school stadium. It looks like there's like 4000 people there. There's a lot of charm to that, man. Cameron Indoor Stadium doesn't hold a lot of people, but it's one of the great venues in all sports, Josh.

Yeah, I'd have to agree with Joe on that. I mean, it's small, hasn't changed much to the main arena, but there's that allure. I mean, it's like you're walking into a college basketball relic.

It is cool. Yeah. I didn't know much about them. I guess they're Dallas. That's where they are.

The Methodist is Dallas. They're expanding their stadium, so they'll do that. And then they're not getting any money for what, like seven or nine years?

I can't remember what that report was. Pretty sweet deal. Yeah, I think they're not part of the media contract or something like that. But I mean, it's amazing that we're going to get Stanford, Cal Berkeley and SMU. That's the starting list. The bigger question is, are we going to lose anybody? There's talk about that as well. I think we could lose seven, eight programs and we're bringing in SMU, babe. What are you talking about? It's a net gain. Yeah, it's all crazy.

Surely we'll lose people. Right. I mean, me and Joe have talked about the grant of rights before. You know, we've had a episode or two where we talked about sports law and sports law is basically just contract law.

It's just business law, contract law. And we looked at the grant of rights the ACC has. And, you know, it's it's pretty it's not foolproof.

You know, you can always attack a document, but it's I don't know. It's it's something that we'll have to we'll have to see. You know, we're not we're not sports radio, but we like to talk about sports. And and ACC is I wish it wasn't a story, man. I wish it was just safe and I could enjoy state football and state basketball and not have to worry about where we're going to play.

You can still enjoy state football, man, when it's enjoyable. Yeah. But all right. I think that's enough getting ready to talk. I think after the break, this is our first warm up. We got our second warm up. I think after our break, we'll we'll pick our first question and we'll get going on our mystery legal question show.

All right. Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer are your host of the managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. The power behind this program. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Office is located conveniently in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and Morehead City. And I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We're back on the other side and we will have mystery questions all from the legalese. It's all coming up next here on the program.

Welcome back into the show. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm are your hosts. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Whitaker and Hamer conveniently has offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and now in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Each and every week we go back and forth on the different legal topics.

And today we've got mystery questions coming up. If you have a situation you're facing and you need answers to your questions, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. All right, Josh. All right, Joe. We've got mystery questions. What's up first?

All right. So we took a bunch of questions from a couple of websites that are kind of generic websites, generic ask a lawyer websites and kind of geared them to North Carolina law. Put them all in a hat. Some of them will be a little weird. Some of them we might skip.

Some of them might not be applicable in North Carolina. But I figured it'd make for good talking points and give me and Joseph something to talk about. We kind of like this off the cuff on our feet. It's a pretty good jam. You know what I'm talking about? Is that Bonnie Raitt? I think it is. Yeah. Have you seen Bonnie Raitt in concert? No. Have you?

I have. I've seen Bonnie Raitt in concert. That's not surprising at all. She was very good. Yeah. Big fan. Big fan. Yeah.

Good stuff. I didn't say she wasn't good. I just said I haven't seen her in concert. I think you were insinuating that she wasn't good. Nah, she's good.

She's good, man. I just sang your song. What are you talking about? All right. Here's our first mystery question.

Here's our first mystery question. My husband sold our house without me knowing. I'm on the deed. What can I do legally?

Man, the thing that gets me is you act in physical pain as soon as you started saying it. Well, you know, the first thing that strikes me on this question is you can't do that, right? You can't legally. So that tells me that there wasn't it wasn't like a real closing, you know, quote unquote, there weren't attorneys involved. An attorney for a buyer should do a title search, would figure out that this guy's married.

Someone else is on the deed and they haven't signed. So something bad or wrong has happened. Fraudulent.

Something's happened to get us this point. Yeah, there's some there's some there's fraud. There's a combination of fraud and incompetence. So you're talking about a fraudulent action on behalf of the one seller that participated. And then you're talking about incompetence on behalf of the in North Carolina, there would be an attorney involved. And you've got somebody who's who's jacked it up pretty bad in that case.

And they don't have a problem on their hands, man. That's the that's the answer. Yeah. And this in this question, I kept I kept reading down. So this this this person is still in the house and they looked it up on Redfin.

That's what they're they're saying in here. But so we've had I've got some cases right now where there's been some fraud involved. You know, someone you know, we've had cases where somebody basically tricks someone into signing a deed and then runs down to the courthouse and records it and gets property in their title. And they say they've done it by fraudulent means. And you sue them for that. That's that's fraud. It's it's illegal.

It's arguably a crime. But certainly there's some civil liability for that. We've had it where a husband has tried to sell his interest in North Carolina, a husband and a wife.

You and properties tenants by the entirety. It's very hard for one spouse. Well, almost impossible, I guess, really. Right. For one spouse to convey without the other spouse's signature. So this shouldn't happen. So I would imagine there's some fraud involved.

You can again report it to the police, but also civilly, you know, get that deed or whatever's conveyed title voided. Yeah. You're talking about a nightmare scenario for the real nightmare scenario is going to be for the person who's purchased the property. Right. Because if you're talking about a situation where this person is actually paid and conveyed money and then your fraudster ex-spouse or spouse has gotten this money, like you're talking about a nightmare scenario. And, you know, it's not part of the question.

I mean, I guess it kind of ties into it. But you touched on fraud and we could probably do a whole show about fraud lately, man, because we talk about an ever evolving field and problem that we're having to deal with these days. It's just crazy how fast the game changes and the advancements in the fraud game.

And I feel like that's a good I feel like that's a good thing, man. We need to put that on our list of things to discuss. Yeah. Fraud is fraud is rampant. You know, the attempts at it are just just insane. I mean, it's and it's and I thought we communicate a lot with folks that work with the state bar and investigate fraud a lot.

And the way it's been described to me is like it's a constant. We're always behind in those efforts because they're getting so much more sophisticated. So it's almost like you're always playing catch up because you've got people who are thinking about these more and more creative and innovative ways to freaking defraud people.

And it's scary, man. But that's another that's we don't want to go down that rabbit hole right now. Yeah, no, it's anyway, that that that person, I think when someone comes to me with a problem like that, that usually tells me there's something else going on, something else has happened.

We're not getting all the facts because to an attorney, that just doesn't make sense if someone's either really perpetrating a fraud or we're missing some some information. So. All right. Let me let me pull up another mystery question. I don't know how I feel about that last mystery question, but let me.

I was a six point five out of ten. Really? Yeah, that's that's what I read. We need we need some like mystery music. Yeah. We're good, actually. Mr.

Calling is a guy who sings the music for suspense movies. All right. What is our next mystery question? And again, some of this phrasing is bad, so we'll have to.

All right. What type of lawyer can help us with bad pool construction? Oh, man. So I'm assuming they had someone install a pool. They're having some problems with it. And then further on down here, they talk about possible warranty issues, possible construction. So they keep on going down here. But to answer the question, what kind of lawyer would that be? I mean, this is the thing, man.

We're here in the great state of North Carolina. We're you're a lawyer, right? Like you're an attorney.

Like you can technically do you can handle any aspect of the law. And now there are there are specializations, right? Like there there can be attorneys who go through different things to qualify and specialize in different areas of the law. But but but what were you really talking about here is just contract law, right? Like and you don't necessarily need anybody who is a specialist. I mean, the contract law is at the heart of what every attorney learns about that.

It's burned into their head. So you just but that's what you're looking for. It's a contract issue, in essence. Yeah, I think you would be looking for someone who who a civil litigator, right? Someone who this is something where if you go to an attorney, the attorney is probably going to suggest, all right, let's get an expert opinion. What did they do wrong? You know, some things you can just point to it like, hey, that pool's got a big crack in the bottom and it won't hold water.

You don't really got one of those crack. You don't need an expert opinion for that. But a lot of times people come to us and they're like, hey, my contractor installed the sunroom and all this is wrong. Or a contractor did pull the right permits or, you know, whatever it may be. And they come to us and we're attorneys, you know, we we will handle litigation at your bottom dollar.

We will handle litigation. That's not a big problem for us. And what we do is we don't build pools. We are not general contractors. We are not construction experts. So usually we want an expert opinion. We want someone who knows what they're doing to come in and say, hey, here's a picture of what went wrong.

This shouldn't have been done. This is the way it should be done. Something like that. And you send a demand letter to the contractor and be like, hey, here's here's what you messed up. Here's how here's what it's going to cost to get us fixed. And we make a demand. Right. It's going to get it's going to cost us 10 grand to fix this. Here's the estimates.

Here's the expert opinion. Give us 10 grand. That's what an attorney usually will do. And then if we don't get 10 grand, we talk to you about litigation. We talk to you about, hey, this is how litigation works. This is what happens. This is the process.

These are the attorney's fees. But that's what you do. And hopefully your contractor is a licensed contractor who has some insurance. Hopefully you didn't make a deal with a guy who just does it on the side and doesn't have any assets. You know, you want to make sure they got some something you can get. But but the type of lawyer you want civil litigation.

That's what this is. You know, you don't want to go to an attorney who doesn't litigate. You don't want them to send a demand letter and not get a response and say, OK, you need to go to someone else to to litigate this issue.

So you would want to make sure you have a attorney who is not afraid to go to the court room. Some of those are out there. But that is I don't know. That's how I'd answer that question, Joseph. That was a good answer, man. That was a really good answer.

I feel like that that person whose question got randomly selected and placed in the hat and then chosen is going to be well-satisfied with the way that you handled it. What? We got time for another one. We up against a break.

How are we doing on time? We could take another one. We can do one more. All right. Don't be afraid.

We're going to get the special mystery music, doodle, doodle, doodle, doodle, doodle, doodle. All right. I've got one. And no, wait, I didn't get one. This one's blank. That's not what we want, guys. No, we don't want a blank one. All right. Here we go. I picked up another one. All right. Can't a landlord give me a 30 day notice to move due to renovations?

That's an interesting question right there, my brother. This person's landlord gave them a notice, a 30 day notice to move. We were not behind on rent. We haven't had any problems. They're doing some renovations.

What do you think? Well, anytime that I'm posed with a question. So there's this is the thing, man. There's there's statutes that govern the relationship between landlords and tenants. And as a tenant, you have certain rights that you can't contract away.

Right. Like there's going to be some statutory protections for you as a tenant no matter what. And we've got laws that are fairly protective of tenants because, you know, we don't want landlords taking advantage of individuals who are renting property. But as a starting point in these situations, I'm always going to any time you've got any kind of a landlord tenant dispute that isn't one of those things that just absolutely violates public policy and is against one of these statutes. I'm going to say I need to see a copy of the lease.

That's my starting point. Yeah, it's contract law. You know, there's some things you can't do. Obviously, people can't discriminate against you in housing. There's fair housing laws. There are certain things that you just can't do across the board.

And this this isn't one of those things. Right. Having you giving you a notice, there's going to be some renovations and you need to be out of there. You're going to go to the lease, you know, in your lease, if it's with like a big company or if it's with just just, you know, somebody who's only got like one house to rent. You know, you go back to the lease and you see what the lease says.

And, you know, I think there's an argument there. No matter what the lease says that, you know, they either have to forgive your this is a tough spot to be in. They either have to kind of forgive your rent for the time that you're not allowed to be in there. There might be an argument that they need to pay for a place for you to stay, depending on how urgent it is or, you know. But yeah, you're going to go back to the lease and all these tenant questions that aren't discrimination issues or federal issues. You go back to the lease and read these leases. They're not that's not fun. No, it's not fun, man.

It's not like listening to this show, which is basically a pleasure cruise. I signed a lot of leases when I was younger, back when I rented. And they called you the lease master.

I don't know that I read, you know, this was before law school, right? I don't know that I read any lease ever. Even after you're probably just like, you know, you go to those apartment communities, a lot of words, man. They slap an 80 page lease in front of you, you know.

They're trying to beat you into submission, man. And it works most of the time. So that's yeah, that's my answer for there. We would we would need to see the lease, but I would imagine in that lease there is and there's some law to if it's silent on an issue. There's some federal law, some North Carolina law that kind of fills in the gaps. But I would think there's some something there that can work for that tenant.

I think they probably got an avenue to get some help. We are smack dab in the middle of mystery legal questions. And again, our lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, also hosts of this show, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer law firm. We'll be back after the break to practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

And they also have offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia. And now in Morehead City, if you've got a legal situation you're facing, got questions, you need answers. You can always call the firm 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. We're going to return on the other side with more mystery questions. Don't go anywhere.

Welcome back into the show. I'm Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, your host, Whitaker and Hamer law firm where you can find them. We are doing mystery legal questions today. Josh and Joe are managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and Morehead City.

Very convenient for you. If you're facing a legal situation, you've got questions, you can always call the firm Whitaker and Hamer. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Contact information briefly what the call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch.

Josh and Joe, more mystery legal questions. All right. I got a lot more questions in this hat. We fought through three.

It's a big hat. We fought through three questions in the last segment, and I got one lined up and ready to go. I picked it up at the break, so I cheated a little bit. I already looked at it.

But here it is. My husband passed away with a lot of credit card debt and medical debt. Am I responsible for paying off that debt? I just want to start off and say I'm sorry. I'm sorry for your loss.

That's going to be my initial contribution. Yeah. You know, and this is a we call this a state administration, right? So anybody that passes away where, you know, we're going to consult. If you go consult with an attorney, you want an estate administration attorney.

We have a couple of those floating around over at Whitaker and Hamer. But a state administration can be complicated. Right.

And so the question, you know, a lot of the answers to these questions are we don't have enough facts. And here we don't have a lot of a lot of facts, because really what we need to know is what did the husband die owning? Right. What would actually be in his estate? A lot of times when when you have a husband and a wife or two spouses, whatever it may be, when the first spouse dies, a lot of times you're set up pretty good for the second spouse.

Right. You both could be on the deed as as husband and wife. So you and your property is tensed by the entirety that automatically goes to the surviving spouse, the surviving spouse, if they were on bank accounts and beneficiaries of life insurance and beneficiaries of pension plans or 401ks. You know, the goal when we talk to people about estate planning is to set it up so that surviving spouse doesn't have to do a lot.

We always talk about avoiding probate, right, avoiding a state administration, not having to open up an estate down at the courthouse. And so here we need to figure out what assets do we have? Because certainly, you know, if there's a lot of assets or there's some things that are in the just the husband's name since he passed away, creditors could get to that kind of stuff.

Yeah. And if you're talking about a scenario, it sounds like in this in this hypothetical that this is credit card debt that maybe the other spouse didn't know about. And so maybe this is a situation where the husband has a lot of individually owned property that he brought into the relationship, things that don't have those survivorship rights. And like you said, it's all going to depend on what are the assets and how what's the ownership of those assets? Because potentially, yeah, it could be a problem for you.

It could be. Yeah. So if you if you open in that estate and you figure out that the husband had an account that was in his sole name, that's that's a probate asset.

Right. If you find out he had a car that was in his sole name that that has to go through an estate. You know, obviously in your real property and his sole name can be brought into the estate to satisfy claims. And so the answer here is, you know, the wife, the surviving spouse here, they're not personally responsible for any of that debt, I would argue. But the husband may have assets that she would hope are going to her that may may be used to pay off all that debt. So that's another very fact specific situation.

But under the right circumstances, she probably won't have to pay that. Knock that one out of the park, man. You're just getting you're you get warmer as these questions keep coming out, man. You're on fire right now.

Well, we're going to get we're going to get another one. You don't sound like it. You sound like you want to set yourself on fire. But I feel like I'm in law school.

I think it's because you're in the you're just in that you're in the legal zone, man. You just churning them out. All right.

I'm sitting here looking. I'm going to pick up pick another question here. I need some mystery music, mystery music, doodle doodle doodle doodle doodle doodle.

Sounds more like doodle every time it gets better and better. We've got a big budget. You know, we've got a big budget.

Big budget. Fantastic. All right.

Here's our here's our next question. And it has a company name in it. I'm not going to say the company names.

I don't feel like getting sued today. All right. But my if my vehicle has been to a number of I'm going to just say car mechanic franchises. Right. They're they're referring to one type of franchise that is known to work on cars.

OK. All right. So it's like a corporate franchise. They work on cars. I think I was been to a number of these franchises that haven't fixed the problem. Should we pursue corporate or the franchise? So that's that's the question. What kind of question is that, man? It's the question. It's the mystery question that we pulled out here. So the friend, you know, first of all, we're going to assume that they've done something wrong.

Right here. Again, we don't have our facts just because a mechanic can't fix a problem. That's not that's not necessarily in and of itself is not. Yeah, that's not there's no liability necessarily for that.

Yeah, I'm guessing if they said they fixed it, then you keep having the same issue and you keep having to take it back in. Then maybe we're getting, you know, getting somewhere where you might be able to sue them. But let's for the sake of our question, let's assume our our asker is has been wrong by this this franchise.

Should she pursue corporate or the franchise? I hate that question, man. It's like, man, we're bound by the hat. I know that we're the hat is our master right now.

We can't get around the hat. But I feel like you're you're again talking about a semi-fact specific question. Right.

Because we need to understand how many times have you been? What's the issue? What's the nature of the issue?

What are the policy? Like, there's a lot that we don't. There's a lot going on there. Yeah. The I think the short the short answer, if we assume all the facts are in favor of our question asker, we're going to need to know about the franchise. Is it a corporate owned franchise? Right.

You know, the thing you're going to have to figure some things out and you're going to I feel like we're lacking some information. So that would be very beneficial to us to answer this question. So, you know, under franchise law, you know, a franchise, you know, by the by the letter of the law, franchises is a is a store or, you know, you know, is a is a retailer or a service provider that is franchise, meaning there's, you know, several of them out there. There's a main one. And then they use that business model and they sell people. So, you know, individual owners, the opportunity to franchise. And here's a mechanic shop, right? So across the country, these folks have franchise mechanic shops where you have your individual owners and operators. Sometimes when operators die, corporations buy the franchises back, operate them.

And so that's our first question. We're gonna have to look at the franchise is this this this this the picture here that I have on this is a female. So this female went to this customer went to and figure out who owns them. And if the franchise has an individual owner, that's who you're suing. And if you went to several franchises and they're all individually owned and you think they all did you wrong, you'd be suing all of them.

If they're corporate owned franchises, you would you would be suing corporate, but more than likely they're individually owned and you're going to sue those individual franchises. Yep. That's my answer. I'm out of breath. I'm out of breath from that question. Sometimes some of these get you worked up, man, and people don't understand. It's like a physical process for you.

I see you over there. It's like you're doing jumping jacks while you're answering. But I will tell you, you know, franchise law is it's its own beast, again, kind of based born out of contract law. That's what franchise agreements are. They're just big contracts. But we've reviewed franchise agreements for most every popular establishment you can you can probably think of. And they're across the board.

They're different. So it's a it's a contract. And that's what anyone asked what you would do there. I didn't like that question too much either.

But yeah, I didn't love it either. But you know what? We're all about integrity on this show. And you said we were going to pull them out and answer them as they come, man. So. All right, so we're going to get ready for our next question, but I think I need some I need some question choosing mystery music. Here it comes. It gets better every time. Yeah, we're going to have to get it. We're going to have to invest in a soundboard when you start asking for music. I can't hum and doodle.

No, you can. It gets better every time. OK. All right. This is this this question. All right. Every time you went, man, like the question hurts you.

It hurts me, too. All right. Well, I'm going to have to fill in this questions incomplete. So I'm going to have to fill in this question for this question. Ask her.

But we have to do some definitions here. When filling out my rights to exemptions designation form, is my house already protected? Because I own it as tenants by the entirety.

That's the question. And so we're going to have to we're going to have to backtrack. So in North Carolina, when you get a judgment against you, all right, a credit card company sues you. Somebody somebody sues you and they get a judgment against you.

Right. So they go to court. You have a trial. You lose the judges. Hey, Josh, you owe MasterCard. Ten thousand dollars plus interest in legal fees. Right.

So as a judgment against you and by itself, that judgment doesn't mean much, but it is technically a lien against everything that you own for 10 years. Right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. My eyes were glazing over, man. Sometimes you get in that that that zone, man.

It puts me in a trance. So in our in our example where our MasterCard says I owe them money, MasterCard is going to try to execute that judgment. They're going to try to get get my stuff, get anything I own that they can get to. In North Carolina, you have certain exemptions, right? You have certain things that you can save from a judgment being executed. Right. And it's a certain amount of money in a house, a certain amount of money in a car, certain amount of personal clothing, things like that. You'll hear the term sometimes that someone's judgment proof.

Right. That someone's judgment proof. That means they don't really own enough to get over those exemptions so that you can get anything for your for your judgment. So here that's what I would assume our question asker has gotten a form from the court. Basically, they say, what are you claiming as exempt?

And there's a North Carolina statue that says, hey, these are all the things you can claim that are exempt. And I think she's asking about her house being owned as tenants by the entirety. And that's a that's kind of even a different question than the exemptions question. Yeah, it is. And I can touch on that.

That answer. Right. Like so if we see if we see property that is owned as tenants by the entirety. And then we see a judgment against what, you know, a judgment after the fact against one spouse and not against both. That's not something we are going to be concerned with as real estate closing attorneys just because of the nature of the ownership interest. So you can't that judgment would not, as we say, attach to that interest so long as they are still married. Now, if they separate or if there's something that divides that interest, then you got a problem. But as long as they own by tenants by the entirety, like you said, that's not going to be something that concerns us.

That's right. Because if you own if me, my wife own a house together and we own it as husband and wife, we own it as tenants by the entirety. MasterCard and our fact pattern is not going to be able to levy that judgment against that property because they only have a judgment against me. Now, if they also got a judgment against my wife, then that property is fair game for the judgment there.

So to answer this question, if that property is owned as tenants by the entirety and that judgment is only against the one person asking the question, then more than likely that judgment is not going to attach to that property and they cannot execute on that property. So that was a question. That was a thing. Yeah. That was a sophisticated question, man. I got to give props to the theoretical person that put forth that question.

It's a real person, buddy. Well, I'd say I think they did a good job. Our mystery question program will continue after the break. You're listening to Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, Managing Partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Again, each and every week we talk legalese. Again, they're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Office is conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and now in Moorhead City. If you have a legal situation you're facing, questions you need answers to, you can always call the firm 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. We have more mystery legal questions coming up next.

Welcome back in. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Managing Partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm host of this show. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Offices for Whitaker and Hamer conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Each and every week it's legal topics. Today we're doing mystery legal questions and see how the attorneys handle them. If you've got your own situation, maybe you've got a mystery question and you need an answer to it, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. So mystery question show continues. I tell you what, Joseph, we've answered a lot of these mystery questions. Well, you have, man. I've just been here admiring your work. I feel like we're on like a really bad game show, like a really bad Jeopardy, you know?

I don't know, man. I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this. I've gotten a lot of enjoying watching you cook.

I can really appreciate that. All right. So we're going to keep it up, man. We're going to keep these mystery questions.

Hopefully these are some questions that shed some light on some legal rights issues. Maybe one of these is yours. That's right.

Randomly submit it. All right. Are you ready?

I'm ready. I like that. Yeah, I like that. That's good. I like that. I like that. I like yours better than Morgan.

I like the feeling you did it with. I guess in a pinch. Was that is that a millionaire? It's a millionaire. No one's no one's going to be a millionaire off of answering this question.

No, no, you're not going to make a lot of money as an attorney answering these questions. I don't think we'll be a thousandaire answering these questions. All right.

Here's this one. You know, I get this question a lot in a lot of different ways, but here it is. How, again, this question is kind of weird, so we'll try to make it better.

But how to remove my deceased father's name from a deed if I'm the only heir and I was tenants in common with my dad without probate. That's the long, compound sentence. These are some banger questions, man. All right. So, what's tenants in common?

Let's start there. Yeah. So, we talked about tenants by the entirety, right? We talked about if you own property with your spouse, you're going to default to that tenants by the entirety. There's a survivorship right there where you're going to, someone passes away, you automatically are going to take ownership. There's no need for probate. We've also got joint tenants with right of survivorship. It's the same concept, right? It's just if you're not married.

So, if it's just me and you, Joshua, and we own this property together and we take title that way and you die because it's definitely going to be you, not me. Right. A little bit older. Yeah.

No, you look healthy, man. It's probably me. But anyways, whichever one of us dies takes that title, no probate. So, we've covered those and then you got tenants in common, which is really the default position in the absence of explicitly being stated that there's going to be a survivorship, right? So, if me and you buy this property together and we either are silent as to how we're going to take title or we explicitly state we're going to own it as tenants in common, it's that other option where we're going to have this interest together.

But I don't want to say it's more severable than these other types of interests, but it almost kind of is. It's a different type of ownership where that survivorship piece isn't there. So, if you pass away, your ownership interest is going to go to your heirs. It's not coming to me as a co-owner. It's going to go to whoever you have left it to in your estate plan or it's going to go by law to whoever your heirs are.

Yeah, that's right. You buy property 50-50 with someone else and you don't have any other designation. It's just Josh and Joe on the deed. Then when something happens to me, my property is going to go to my heirs, which I hope are my wife and my kids, right? So, now you're a half owner, but you're not a half owner with me, the guy you know. Well, you know my kids and my wife too, but it's eerie. Yeah, I know.

You're going to own it with my wife and my kids. So, that's tense and common in here. Our question asker is saying that he's the only heir, which we'll assume is correct, and that he's not probated a will.

So, we're going to be missing some facts here, right? So, I'm going to assume if he were to come and tell me that his plan was to sell this property in the next two years, I would tell him he needs to go ahead and he needs to have probate. We would need to talk about the reasons he doesn't want to probate because probate is kind of like a deed itself, right? So, if we were doing a closing for a potential buyer of this property, we would go downtown and we'd see his dad was on the deed, his public record that his dad passed away, and we'd see that. And we'd look for an estate file because that's the only way we know who the heirs are. And if there's no estate file, we're going to have a lot of questions.

And if two years has passed, there's some other things you can look at, there's some other things you can think about. But if he ever really wants to sell this property, I think an attorney is going to tell him the easiest thing to do is just to go ahead. If there's nothing we're scared of, you know, if there's some debts out there that we need to talk about or something else going on, you know, I think probate is probably what you need to do. And probate itself is a deed. You don't need to pay me for a deed if you probate an estate here. Probate infers that there is a will in existence.

It just hasn't been taken downtown and probated. That's what that means. So anyway, I think this young man needs to probate his dad's will.

And so I think he's got to do it. Yeah. So I don't think there's really a good option for him without probate, especially, you know, if he's got other siblings.

Right. If that will is never probated. What happens when you don't have a will, Joe? When you don't have a will? Intestate succession.

It's called intestate succession. Yeah. And it's going to pass by law.

It's going to be this. There are statutes that dictate what will take place. Right. So again, we're missing some facts there, but the will may be very important.

And if the will is not probated, it has no effect. But he did say he's the only heir. So if we take him at face value. He did say that.

He did say. But still, either way, you're like you don't will or no will. You know, in this scenario, arguably, it's not going to matter. But at the same time, the process has to be. You've got to go through the process because he didn't have survivorship rights. So without that.

Yeah. And what's going to happen if he holds onto the property and then he passes away and then it goes to maybe his heirs. You get in a situation that just makes it worse and worse and worse. The more people that die in a chain of title that haven't had a formal estate, you make it harder and harder and harder for your kids and your grandkids to sell the property.

So you kind of just complicate the issue. So my advice to this young man, based on the facts that we have, is, hey, if there's not a good reason, otherwise you need to probate this will. And that that is a deed. That's just like a deed. Yes.

So you won't you don't need a separate deed, but you do need to go through the probate process, which is way worse than just filing a deed, if we're being honest, in terms of time, energy, expenses. But it's what else are you going to do? Yeah.

And probate doesn't probate is something you we we we we try to avoid because if with careful estate planning, you can avoid probate. But but here it sounds like it's our guy's only option here to kind of get title cleared up and you just it's just worth doing. That's right.

Yeah, it's essential. Mystery question show. It's a lot of fun, guys. We're getting into different areas of legalese and answering the questions. If you've got your own legal question and you need an answer to it, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer the power behind this program. The numbers eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what that calls about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. They have offices conveniently located for you.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fugue Arena, Gastonia and Morehead City. And just a reminder, Josh and Joe are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. The managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. We're back for one final segment right after this. Welcome back into the program. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Offices conveniently located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fugue Arena, Gastonia and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate each and every week. It's always legalese. We have these discussions this week. We're doing a mystery question show. So, Josh, take it away. We've got time for maybe one, maybe two more questions. All right. Well, mystery questions will keep going. We still got a sound effect for that.

Yeah, actually. Are you going to ask the question? I felt like I was playing Bond on 64.

I feel like I was in the legend of the Hidden Temple. That was a little bit after your time. This question seems silly. I guess this is the thing that could happen.

I'm going to read it. I've never in my 20 plus years been asked this question. I sprayed some herbicide on a shared fence and my neighbor's chickens aided and died, which is sad. That's a tragedy, man. As a person that owns some chickens, man.

Am I responsible for replacing them? That's the question. Ah, so you sprayed it on the neighbor's fence. Shared fence. That's a shared fence. I'm going to assume shared fence means it's going right down the property line and one side sits on our neighbors and one side sits on me. And I went, our question asker went and sprayed some herbicide, killed some weeds.

So we got to take some leaps, right? Because one, we have to assume that we can conclusively prove that these chickens ingested this herbicide and that is the cause of their death. I can tell you as a chicken owner, man, and things die.

They just die on you sometimes. But let's assume that's where I guess we're assuming that that's correct, right? Like we're just going to take that at face value, right? Yeah, that's how this works. Yeah, so then we're talking about, man, it's a tough one. If someone comes to see me with this one, I'm going to, that's the first thing I want to say to them.

I'm like, hey, this is a tough one. I'm going to sympathize with their chicken loss, obviously, as a chicken owner. How much does a chicken cost?

Not much, man. Unless it's like a special chicken. You're talking about like the most expensive chickens might be like 12 bucks. How do you get into the special chicken category? I want to know that. They just look different. They don't do anything else. They just look different. They got like fluffy heads. They look really funny. Fancy chickens.

Come on, man. But yeah, they don't cost a lot, right? But I mean, you would, like, obviously, you're going to make the argument that they are worth more, right? Like you're going to try to inflate the value from your side if you're representing this theoretical plaintiff. But even still, like, what kind of, how many chickens are we talking?

What kind of damages are we going to get up to at this point? And this sounds like the type of person who's doing this on principle, right? Like, it's like, these are my chickens. Yeah, we, yeah, I, I would, you know, you hope it doesn't always work out this way, right? But you hope the neighbors get along. And if I thought I had accidentally killed my neighbor's chickens, I would, I would buy them. Yeah, but assuming that they take a hard line stance and like, no, I'm not, I'm not paying for those chickens. Well, they'd have to sue you. And they have to prove, yeah, they have to prove that's why their chickens died. And they'd have, and you're talking about, I mean, really, in this case, you're talking about some form of a negligence action in this case. Not only, it's, it's, it's a, it's a tricky situation. So, I think you'd come at it from a few different angles, but you got to prepare this client that, man, that's, what's your recovery going to look like? You know, like, you know, you're going to, we're going to have to do a, we're going to potentially have to litigate an issue that your damages, you know, I know these chickens mean a lot to you in your heart, but it's a tough one, man.

That's a tough one. Well, you know, over the years, you know, as, as, uh, we became less rural down here, you know, a lot of covenants in neighborhoods wouldn't allow you to have farm animals, wouldn't allow you to have chickens. I've been, I've been involved in some chicken cases, right? Oh, we've had some chicken cases for sure, man. We are the, we are the resident chicken firm. I've had to, I've had to go into, into court, argue some, uh, chicken cases. Literally the specific number of chickens allowed, like down to the, the, the single chicken. All right. That's our chicken question. That was our one and only chicken question today. Next question. We got a sound effect still. He's coming with it, man. I can tell you.

All right. The first part of this question doesn't matter, so I'm not going to read it, but the second part of this question, basically I got a ticket doing 55 and a 35. What will happen now? Well, have you heard of the death penalty? We have a very strict death penalty statute for, uh, you know, uh, and me and Joe, we don't handle a lot of traffic, uh, at the law firm. There are other attorneys at the, at the law firm and, and handle traffic and criminal law. Usually those attorneys, you know, handle, handle both of those, but I can tell you what's going to happen. If you want to know what's going to hit, first thing's going to happen is you're going to get inundated with, uh, with mailings from, from firms that, you know, do, usually it's firms who do a high volume of traffic specific law. And, uh, it is public record that you've got this ticket, right?

Like anybody can go down and pull those records. So that's how they find out about it. And, and they specifically target folks that have gotten these tickets and they send out these mailings.

So that's going to be step one. You're going to get blown up with, with mail. So it's not going to be a secret to anybody in your household that checks the mail frequently. And I think the, I think the biggest, you know, I think the biggest thing to tell people when you get a traffic ticket, I think a lot of people, it's such a common thing that happens. A lot of people think they know what to do, or maybe they hired an attorney with a, when they're, you know, when another child got a ticket or when they got a ticket before and, and traffic is just, it's a bunch of weird statutes and insurance laws that kind of all come together. Um, and so these traffic attorneys that do it all the time, man, they know exactly what to do. They know how to minimize your insurance points and your DMV points and, uh, they got to figure it out. But a 55 and a 35, you know, if you go, if you're going 20, 20 over, that's when you could technically under certain circumstances, lose a license.

Yeah. And even if you don't lose a license, man, you, I think, I think folks underestimate the impact of, you know, points on your, your license and increases to your insurance. Like you can cost yourself a whole lot more money than what you're going to pay an attorney to help you out with, with the ticket at the end of the day. I think, I think, you know, back when I was growing up, back in the eighties and nineties, you know, you get a speeding ticket, you're going to be paying a decent amount to an attorney. I think competition amongst attorneys has really driven down the price of what it costs to deal with a, with a speeding ticket. Like you're going to have your core costs, right?

You're not getting out of that. You're paying your core costs either way, but you usually don't have to pay an attorney too much for kind of standard speeding tickets when you have a pretty clean, uh, driver's license. So, you know, 55 and a 35, you hire an attorney, you go down there, judge, you got a clean record, probably going to reduce it for you.

There's PJCs, right? Prayer for judgments continued that, that are out there that can be used if you need one, don't want to waste those. You only get a certain amount. Um, but that's a speeding ticket. If it's your first one, you're pretty, you got a clean nose. You're, you're not getting into any trouble.

That's probably not going to hold you back too much over three years. I guess that's our cue. That's your cue.

That's your cue. The mystery question edition of the program is in the books, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead city. If you have a legal situation you're facing and you need answers to your question, you can always call the firm 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, our attorneys. I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll see you on the radio next week. The attorneys appearing on the show 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 the show, contact us directly.