Estate Planning, Probate, and Divorce Q&A on Judica County Radio

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio with Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, it's always about law, legal, and we've got questions.

And the guys, well, they're going to answer them for you. That's all coming up next on Judica County Radio. Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and we go back and forth on the legal topics each and every week. But we also give you an opportunity to get on the calendar with Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, and the attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer.

And you might ask yourself, well, why would we need to go see Josh and Joe in the group? Well, if you've got a legal question that you're facing and you need some 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 again, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you. You can always email your questions to this show and we'll answer them on a future broadcast. Info at judicacounty.com.

That's info at judicacounty.com. Gentlemen, welcome in another edition of your show. What are we starting with? That's always a good question, Morgan. We're going to have another mystery question day. We've been doing a lot of these lately where we take questions from our listeners. We take questions from the internet, but we take just questions, sight unseen, but 100% true. I do see them right before I pick them.

And I saw them when we put them all on the hat, but we've been working on this hat full of mystery questions for a couple of weeks now. And I think it's been going well, Joseph. Yes, the feedback I hear.

I've heard the same thing. Yeah. I put my ear to the ground and the people tell me, and they really love it. I got to be, I'm full disclosure. Right before we started recording, I got the sugars, man.

What's the opposite of this? What's when you want the sugar? Is that the sugars? Like I wanted some sugar.

And so I went down, there's a little sweets place next door and I got us both a couple of sweets. So low sugar. Yeah. I mean, my sugar is probably fine. I'm just, I just wanted, I'm fat. I don't know. I thought the sugars was just slain for diabetes.

Yeah. I'm on my way. But anyways, I wanted some, I wanted something sweet. So I went and got us both something. We split it. Well, we're down, we're down here.

Me and Joe, we like to, we like to set up and record at Shady's on Main Street in Garner and right down the street, we have Nana's Bakery there. And that's a nice place to get some scones, get some cupcakes. Nana did good today.

Nana really, Nana had a whole, she had a whole lot of things, man. Are you guys coffee guys? Oh yeah. So where's your go to other than the office? If you're, if you're around Garner, where do you go? Well, if we're in the Garner office, there's a couple, there's a couple of good spots down here in Garner. You know, you got a full bloom over on Main Street and you got Avisboro Coffee over on Avisboro Road and Lorain's is pretty good over on Avisboro. So, you know, Garner, we lagged behind in, in some, in some aspects, we don't have a lot of fun dining in Garner, but we got all the coffee you can drink. You know who else has coffee? Nana. She has some in there.

Oh, I didn't know that. That's sweet and coffee. Anyways, the whole point of the story was we faced, we faced these delicious sweet treats, man. And it's hit me right now. I feel like you normally, you should have shoved up, man. I'm shook night right now. But, uh, it's going to take me a while.

If I, if I go into a minor coma, just come, just come over here, slap me in the face a couple of times. Well, we're doing something different too. We've been told by our social media people, we need to get, uh, we need to get some video when we're doing these, uh, when we're doing the podcast, when we're doing the radio show. And so we're, we're, we're tape, we're attempting to tape this one too. So hopefully we, that works out for us. Yeah, I think it's going to go great. It's going to go really good, man.

So we're using a lot of technology today. We don't usually use, we're hyped up or hopped up on, uh, on sweets. Shugged up. What's the opposite of hopped up? We're, we're laid down.

It's hitting me hard, man. I don't know. Uh, I'm very mellow.

Yes. Very, very mellow. Maybe I'm going to bounce back though. I fully digest it. Well, we would say we blasted through Halloween. So we got through all the sugars of Halloween. What'd you dress up as, man? I haven't dressed up in a long time.

Okay. I dressed up as a father of children. I nailed the outfit. Oh yeah. We went down to Clayton and did some trick or treating in the neighborhood down there, man. Where'd you go?

I don't know the name of the neighborhood. Oh, you're one of, you're one of those parents where you, you, you, you basically scope out the best. If we'd have run into each other, that'd have been funny, man. That would have been hysterical.

It would have been how to laugh, but, uh, yeah, I don't dress up either, man. But kids have, your kids are almost done with it, right? They're getting pretty old. My oldest is in high school and I think this is probably going to be his last year.

And the other, the other two were, were well in, uh, I saw, I saw a picture of your kid the other day. I mean, like he was 27 feet tall, man. Mikey looks gigantic. He's getting up there, man. He's, uh, he's just a freshman too. He's going to be a cage fighter. I don't know what he's going to do. He looks huge, man.

He looks like he can destroy you right now. He dressed up as a, he dressed up as a man with a major league wild thing. What's the guy's name? I can't remember the guy's name. Wasn't it a wild thing? Just call him wild thing.

No, no. He has a name. Morgan, that sounds like something you know. I can look it up. We're not going to look that up because we should know it. All of them, I have, I used to do all this research, right?

And that was, it's a lot of what I brought to the show, but now that I'm recording on the screen, I can't just go away. No, Charlie Sheen's character, his nickname is wild thing. We should know this. I'm not going to, we should know this.

We don't know it. Ricky Vaughn. Ah, Ricky Vaughn. I couldn't, I couldn't tell you if that was right or right, right or wrong. I think that's correct.

But only one or two. He had like the jersey on with the number and everything. That's a good Jeopardy question. Only one or two people recognized who he was.

And then we had a bumblebee and then we had a banana. My kid's gotten into Jeopardy. One of my boys, he's a little young to answer any of the like legit Jeopardy questions, but celebrity Jeopardy, they have questions for like idiots, I guess, like much easier questions. So that's a good starting point. So we've been doing that. He gets real mad if you answer before him, so. Don't do that then. No, I have to pretend like I'm stupid and I don't know the answer, but I know everyone.

We found, I don't know if you ever watched the Pluto TV, that app, Pluto. You ever do that? Like, like Mickey's dog? No, no, no. It's like, it's like an old, it's a poly topic. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like black market TV.

No, no. It's legit. Yeah. My mom watches it a lot because there's like old stuff on it. I watch a lot of Cheers and News Radio on there. She's, she's watching way older stuff in that. But there's, there's a Jeopardy channel. It's all Jeopardy. That's pretty sweet.

All the time. I like that, man. My kid would love that.

He would really like that. I'll keep that in mind. Some of those questions from like the late nineties are tough though, cause they're like current event questions. No chance, man.

I couldn't do the old ones. Yeah. So it's, it's, it can be a little rough, but, um, but no, it's Halloween's over, man. It's Thanksgiving now.

Yeah. It's a good time of the year. It's a good time of the year. One of my favorite times of the year. I'd be more excited about it if I was hungry right now and I could think, but now that I've got a, a pumpkin cinnamon roll and whatever that chocolate thing was that we ate.

It's really good. The, uh, you know, I'm, I think I'm a lot like you, Joe. I'm real lucky. We don't have to do a lot of traveling for Thanksgiving. We're kind of just. Yeah.

You're probably luckier than me though. Cause how many, you don't travel, how many events do you do? Like during the day of Thanksgiving, how many places do you, cause we don't travel far, but we have to go to like four different places. So I think we're, we're two where we do, we do two. Yeah. That's pretty good.

It's not too many. You have two meals. Do you eat in between that or you just go full fasting so you can take advantage of the two places? No, we do ones like a breakfast and ones like, uh, that's pretty sweet. Ones like a dinner. You have to, do you have to cook a lot of the things or you just get to show up? Uh, yeah, I just show up pretty much.

I don't do a lot. I was gonna, I was gonna lie. Nice. Morgan, you guys travel, you guys got to go places. Yeah.

I head up to the mountains, uh, to see the folks and then the rest of my crew comes up, uh, on black Friday and, uh, you know, we enjoy the mountains, but yeah, I go up like Wednesday night and, uh, spend it with the family. Well, good. Well, we'll, uh, sounds magical. We'll all have to report back on all the fantastic things that we ate on, uh, on Thanksgiving and all the, all the adventures we had, but, uh, almost, almost ready to put a wrap on 2023. It's coming before we know it. We'll all be talking about 2024. But, uh, 2024 is going to be a solid year, man. I can feel it in my bones. I hope so, man. I can feel it in my bones. I'm going to get a better camera for 2024 because I'm looking at myself on the screen and I don't like what I'm seeing.

I don't like what I'm seeing. I, uh, I, yeah, well, we'll see how it goes, man. The mystery questions today are all over the place. Again, you know, we, uh, we don't know where a lot of them are coming, but I do know that, uh, we've got some that are dealing with estate planning. We always get a lot of estate planning questions because that's something that everybody has to deal with. You know, everybody has to deal with some form of estate planning. Uh, I think there's a couple of speeding ticket questions in there.

Uh, hopefully you guys aren't having to deal with that. Um, but, uh, but all, all over the place, jumping around to different legal areas. And so we're semi prepared to, to discuss them this fine Saturday afternoon. I do before the show, I like to do, I like to warm up, man. So, you know, I do my jogging. I do some, some light stretching and some mental gymnastics to get myself in the, and the flow, especially for these mystery question shows, man. You gotta be on your toes for those.

You like to throw some real curve balls at your hat. Yeah. If we're, if we're in the office, you know, if we're in the office, when you, when you call our firm, you call Whitaker and Hamer and you set up a consult, you know, we've already asked you some questions.

There's an intake. And so we know, Hey, this guy asking us about this, this is, this is his problem. He's trying to address and, and hear the names of all the interested parties. And then we kind of sit down with you and we've reviewed whatever you've sent us. And so we kind of walk in to our console and you've got the, we've selected the best attorney at the firm to handle your matter.

So you're, you're meeting with the attorney most prepared to answer your questions. And they've looked at everything that you sent over mystery question day. Me and Joseph got, we got nothing. Yeah, we got nothing, man.

I've got nothing. I'm barely listening to you too. So that's the other thing. Like I like to come in on half the question just to really put my skills to the test.

That's what I do. Judica County radio. We are about to take a break. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They are your hosts and they're currently in the middle of a sugar high. We hope they don't crash before the end of the program.

Cause it's very entertaining. If you've got a legal situation you are facing, you can always call the firm 800-659-1186. That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about and an attorney will give you a call back 800-659-1186. You can also email your questions to the show info at judicacounty.com.

We're back right after this. Welcome back in to Judica County radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and Moorhead City. If you're facing a legal situation, you've got questions, you need answers, you can always call the firm 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can email your questions to the show info at judicacounty.com. We come to you from Shadys in Garner today. Guys, we've got questions. Yeah.

Yeah. We've got our listener questions and the first two are going to be estate planning questions. And like I said, those come up very often for folks.

And the first one's kind of an opinion question now that I'm looking at it. It's not like a lot of times we have fact patterns and we treat it kind of like law school. That's what they do to you in law school.

They stand you up in front of a class of about 100 people and they throw you fact patterns and you've got to kind of dissect it based on what you've learned in class. That was never a lot of fun. They do that to you, Joseph? I hated it, man.

I hated the law, like the dynamic of law school in terms of like just randomly getting called on and called up. And it didn't happen to me much, man. Thank goodness it didn't because I just never, that was not my thing at the time.

But it was like a couple of times it did happen. I just didn't read. And I was like, I didn't read. I just took it on the face, man.

I just took it. And I just, I didn't do anything. Nothing happened to me.

Nothing at all happened to me, man. Well, in law school, you know, I don't know how it was for everybody else, but in law school, that's one of the things they do is throw a Socratic method. And so you're in this big class of like 100 people, especially your first year of law school, and they give you more reading than one person can humanly do and understand.

Well, that was my thing. And my method of studying was always like I'd study before a test, right? Like I'd take very good notes in class and I'd study before a test. I wasn't a study every night type of person.

That doesn't work for me, brother, personally. And so the way that would work is they'd give you the reading the night before. And I'm like, well, I'm going to do all this before I'm going to learn anything in class, do it on the test, right? And they call on me.

And like I said, I just, I take my lumps, man. We had a torts class and torts is, you know, like negligence, things that you can sue someone for. You have torts and huge class. It was the biggest class I was in. And we had a teacher whose name is Professor Button. If he's out there, hello, Professor Button.

Shout out. But Professor Button would come in there and I was so terrified of him. He was very well put together. The rumor was around our school that he had been a corporate.

I don't know what his past was, but he had been like a corporate attorney. And now he was, we were like deathly afraid of him. And he would just ask you a question. Yeah, you got no shot, man.

It's one in 120. And he would get you though. He got you.

He would stand you up. Did he get you? He got me, I think I did all right. I think he stood me up on a day where I had, you know. You were feeling pretty good about that. Yeah. There's those days where you, you know, you gave 110%.

Oh yeah. And there's those days where you, you did. Yeah, we had it.

We had it. Our guy like that was our contracts professor. And he, he caught a kid first day.

And then it was just for the next like three weeks, every day, it was that kid. And I don't even think he was trying to teach anyone anything. I think he was just trying to teach everyone that your life is going to suck from here on out. And he was illustrating that point through this poor guy, man. And yeah, that's what he did. He, this professor stood, he stood one guy up and the guy clearly hadn't read.

I can, like my kind of guy. And the guy was not prepared. And he wasn't like, he wouldn't just say, Hey, look, I didn't, I didn't read. Oh, he tried to fake it. Yeah, no, man. That's not the play.

I can tell you that's not the play. So he had his, he had his book open. So he was standing up and he had his book open and the professor just asked him a question and he just started flipping, flipping pages.

Like he was looking for, I was going to say flipping tables. He was like flipping pages. And finally, I mean, it was like, there's just no one talking for like 10 minutes. And they were all like, they were all like, Oh my, you know, That's pain, man.

And they eventually set him down and took it easy on him. It's hard to be comfortable in that silence like that, man, you get the secondhand embarrassment form. We should start doing a segment of our show that's just that man, just dead air. Now that we got the video, you can just be dead air and we're just staring at each other as long as we can. See how far people might get through that.

This segment is staring at one another in silence. That's what we call it. Art, performance art. All right. First question. First question is just an opinion question.

So this is an easy one for us. It says, what is your as an attorney, what is your opinion? What is your opinion on the probate process? So that's a very broad.

And so, you know, I know we talk about it, but I guess the first thing is to define probate process. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll give you my answer, man. I don't love it.

I don't love it, man. And we try to avoid it. I'll tell you that as well. So those are my initial thoughts. But yeah, the probate process in general is the process by which an estate is administered. That's right.

Yeah. Probate is, you know, if you've got a will, right. If you've got a will or you don't have a will, you pass away. You've got a state, you've got assets that need to get to the next generation, get to your heirs. The probate process is the process by which you go downtown. The clerk identifies who your heirs are, who should inherit, who should take. And then the clerk kind of runs the probate process on how those items are collected, how your debts are paid and how they're distributed back out to heirs, how creditors are given notice. And we try to avoid that because that's what estate planning attorneys do. So our estate planning department, when they work with you, they're working with you on figuring out, OK, what probate assets do you have if you died today?

What non-probate assets do you have? Where do you want them to go? How do you want them to get there? We talk about wills, we talk about trust, all these different ways to get things to the next generation and avoid probate because just like anything else, anytime the government gets involved makes it harder. It makes it harder, man. And you're likely going to be sad during this time. I hope when I die that my family is so sad that they can't even walk downtown for at least like a week, man. Give me a week of mourning and the funeral is just people just moaning, just moaning, man, in pain. But the point being, you're going to be sad, man. You don't want to go downtown and talk to the clerk and handle all these things.

You got enough on your plate. So the less probate, the better. Yeah, absolutely.

I thought you were going to disagree with me. No, but if you knew exactly when you were going to die, right? If you knew exactly when you were going to die, like two weeks before you were scheduled to die, you would go sit down and you'd try to take care of everything and get everything set up. Do you think so?

I think so. You wouldn't just be partying? No, you know you're not going to die, right?

Till that day. Exactly. So turn up, man.

Who's going to stop you? You still probably want to get your affairs in a while. Yeah, you're right. At some point, if you know. That'll take like a day, right?

And then you'd have 13 other days of cutting loose. But the problem is you don't know. Like, of course, we don't know when most of the time. I guess sometimes you do know about when your day is going to come. But most of us don't know.

It's going to be a surprise. It's not something we can plan for at a certain time. You just have to plan for it all the time.

Right? And so that was profound. But yeah, you get your state plan in place. And then every, you know, every year is tough for folks, I know. But every couple of years, you know, you get a new kid in the situation.

One kid turns 18. You got another kid. You plan. We're going to put you guys on a schedule every two years.

You're coming back to this office and you're going to have another baby. But you look at it. You look at your trust. You look at your guardians. The same way you look at your life insurance.

The same way you look at your investments. You just make sure. And once you've set something up, maintenance is not bad. It's always the hurdle for folks to sit down with an attorney and get the estate plan set. This is what I want to do. This is what I want to provide for.

This is how I want to provide for them. And once you get the estate plan set up, it's all maintenance. Unless something crazy changes. Now, if you've got a spouse and you or your spouse passes away, that's going to kind of change your estate plan. Like your estate plan you have in place should take everything into account and keep flowing. There might be some serious maintenance after that happens.

Yeah. And then major life events too, man. Like if you remarry, that's usually a big one.

So there's things that can change that equation. But yeah, getting it done out of the gate. I think that's the number one hurdle. But while you're doing your estate plan, that's one of the things that you're doing. You're trying to avoid probate.

In theory. That's what we would recommend you do. I don't know that every attorney does it that way. But I think the preferable way is the less probate, the better.

And you think about it too. Again, I'm of that mindset where you really don't want the government involved in anything that the government does not have to be involved in. And you don't want to go to court. You don't want to have to do anything with the clerk's office unless you have to. But here you can, with planning, you can just avoid it completely. And, you know, I'll point out during the pandemic, it was almost impossible to get anything done at the clerk's office.

Right. So the folks who passed away during especially the early stages of the pandemic, courthouses were closed, courthouses weren't processing certain things. And so, you know, if your estate wasn't set up to kind of flow freely, something like that's going on, you got you got some problems and things were bogged down. And for a long time, things went really slow. You weren't getting anything done quickly. So you can plan around it. If you told me, Josh, you could plan around going to the DMV.

I would plan around it. Yeah. Who wants to go there, man? You know what? I'm going to take a guess. I'm going to take a gander on the day you're going to die. You ready for this? I got a prediction.

I'm going to lock it in. I'm going to say February the 26th, 2072. That's what I'm guessing. No, that's a long time. I was thinking about the other day, somebody, you know, we do a lot of real estate closings for folks. A lot of these mortgages are 30-year mortgages. And so right now, the last payment date on a mortgage is what is it? 2053? 2053. 30 years from now, brother.

20 years from then, you're going to die. That's spoiler alert. The day after Valentine's Day, whatever it was. Yeah. A lot of people died in February because it's cold. Really?

I didn't know that. I'm going to be on my guard this February. You're not going to catch me, grim reaper.

I'm going to take extra vinyl and start in January. Morgan, we've got another question. Do we have time for another question before the break? Let's take a break and we'll come back. We'll lead off with your next question.

And then of course, we'll get to some more. But Judica County Radio, we will continue. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Again, you can find them offices all over the place. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and Moorhead City. And they are staffed with some fine attorneys at your law firm for life.

That's their saying. And again, pricing attorneys here in North Carolina. If you've got a legal situation that you're facing and you need some answers to your questions, you can always contact Whitaker and Hamer. Call 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. Again, the number 800-659-1186. And you can always email your questions to the show info at judicacounty.com.

We're back right after this. Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and Moorhead City. And the gentlemen are pricing attorneys here in North Carolina. And the motto is your law firm for life, Whitaker and Hamer. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We are right in the middle of a question and answer program. So, Josh, where are we heading next?

Well, before we get to our next mystery question, I was going to I was going to comment on that. You know, we use that slogan for the law firm, your law firm for life, because the way that we set up our firm, we're predominantly in smaller towns. We do have a Raleigh office and and but we set up our we set up our firm to be able to help someone through through anything that might come up in like a normal person's life.

Right. So we've got our folks who help with traffic and criminal. You know, if that kind of thing comes up for you, we've got our estate planning folks that we talk about a lot. We've got our real estate folks. We've got our litigation folks.

So closings, wills, traffic tickets, you know, contracts. If you ever get an auto accident, we've got our personal injury guy with us. And so you got it covered.

You got it. That's that's our goal. There's some things that may happen to you that that we can help you with. And normally we we have the resources and we know a lot of other firms in the area. And we'll still give you we'll give you moral support.

That's right. Well, but we're here to help. You know, I was in a console earlier. I was in a console earlier today where this is like the fourth or fifth time that I've had a chance to help this guy and his family, which is the kind of things that a normal family would kind of go through. And so, you know, that's kind of why we do that. And that's why when me and Joe sit down and answer these mystery questions, we kind of got a broad base to to kind of to kind of talk about these things, because we we see a lot of stuff.

You know, we we see a lot of things and we and we deal with a lot of things. And so we spent the last segment talking about basically the probate process and how it can be avoided in a lot of you know, sometimes there's things you can't avoid. But you can usually draft your draft your way around of the probate process with a good estate plan. And this is an estate question, too.

This is our this is our mystery question for this segment. But the question is, how do I ensure that my kids don't get their entire inheritance when they turn 18? Right. So this this question asker is thinking about an estate plan, and his question is basically like he doesn't want his kids at the age of 18 to get a bunch of money or assets dumped on them, which sounds like a good problem to have if you're 18. But if you're the person leaving them those assets, that's that's a nightmare to think about your 18 year old, no matter how responsible they are.

You don't want you know, $2 million in a house like dropped into your 18 year olds lap without some kind of guidance or what have you because 18 year olds don't have a lot of experience and they make bad decisions sometimes. Sometimes they do, man. Not always, but a lot of times they do. I just wanted to say, you know, we're doing some recording and I got you on my screen. It's all I can see is you.

And I like the angle of your camera better than mine, man. It makes your head look very important and regal. And I feel like I feel like you're it looks made to me like I know that's just an optical illusion. It's not I think you make a good statue man like a big just your head, not your body. Just like a full full size statue of just your head.

I don't know what to tell you, man. I also want you to set up my camera next time because I'm not digging how my head looks. It looks too small.

It looks like it's too dainty. But yours solid as a rock. Powerful. Very powerful. Chiseled.

Chiseled. We're talking about 18 year olds in mansions. Isn't that what we were doing? Well, I was going to tell you the story. You know, when I got to NC State, you know, I got to NC State as an 18 year old fresh out of high school. And I don't know if they can still do this. I hope they don't do this.

But, you know, you basically remove it in. And at the bottom of my dorm, there were all these people set up like vendors. And so they, you know, I don't remember what they are, but I remember one of them was offering you credit cards.

That's a killer hustle, man. And so I was like, well, I've never I've never had a credit card. You know, I you know, this was back in the day. I did have a debit card, right? So I could go to an ATM machine. But back then you couldn't. It was it was just an ATM card, right?

Back then it wasn't. You probably don't remember those days. Yeah, I do.

I do. Did they have a talk with you? Did they like sit you down?

The college sits you down and talk to you about not ruining your credit? No. Barton College did that. No, that's nice.

Ahead of the curve, baby. That's why it's the number one learning institution in America for 200 years running. What's the mascot over there? It's a bulldog.

Oh, all right. Not a normal bulldog either. A sturdy, amazing bulldog.

I don't know exactly the breed, but my goodness. Yeah. No, man. And so I was like, all right, I guess I could use a credit card. I'm a student, right? Sure. You know, and I was working and what have you.

It's free money, right? Basically. So they approved me at this at this. This was I guess the Internet was just around. This was the beginning of the Internet. You had to dial into it.

Yeah. It's a twenty five thousand dollar credit limit. They're like, here you go, Josh. Here's a here's a credit card.

Twenty five thousand dollars for it. They knew you had it in you. And I was I had that credit card for a long time. Did you did you blow it out? I didn't blow it out. I was very responsible. I was very responsible with it because I was scared of it. I was scared of it. But anyway, 18 year old Josh did not need a twenty five thousand dollar line of credit. Eighteen year old Josh is like 42 year old anybody else.

You got a lot of maturity. So but I hope they still don't do that. I wonder if they do that now. I would imagine they do.

I would imagine they do. Yeah, it depends on not at Barton College. No, there's only like 42 kids moving in.

So I don't think you're going to really kill the game there. But but no, 18 year old does not need that. And that again, and we kind of harp on this. This is something you can you can solve easily meeting with your attorney because you can you can create a trust. Right. You know, and God forbid something happens to me when when my kids are younger. You know, you can have all kinds of we talk about all different kinds of trust. There's all these different trusts you can have. But but you can draft a trust that will take care of that.

That will say, hey, you know, if I pass away, my kids 18, I don't want my kid. You know, you can appoint a trustee. Right. Your your attorney, friend, spouse, professional.

Right. A banker, investment person, anybody you want. And they can you can say, hey, support my kid. You know, make sure he's got health insurance. Make sure he's got a place to live. Pay his rent if that's something you can afford to do. But, you know, manage these assets for him. Make sure he's got these things. Pay his tuition.

Right. If you're, you know, not everybody can can do set up this kind of trust, obviously. But but you can and then say, hey, give him this much when he's 25. Give him this when he's 30. Disperse it when he's. But you can do whatever you want to do or you can keep it trust his entire life.

Yeah. You know, mine's going to say my kid gets no money until he can dunk a basketball. He's got to be able to 360 dunk a basketball between the legs. What if you had like that? What if one of your kids grows up to be like four?

And then he's going to have to do a lot of plyometrics leg exercises. They got those. They got those shoes. You remember the shoes?

Those were you like. Yeah. Platform. But the reverse platforms, they get your calves jacked. Jump shoes. Yeah. Point being, if the kid wants to eat and not starve, he's 360 dunking a basketball between his legs. Yeah. There's no negotiation on that.

The. But yeah, there's there's there's all kinds of ways you can do it. There's all kinds of ways you can safeguard it. You know, and some people have to have adult children who make bad decisions. So we're talking about an 18 year old who may even make good decisions. You're just worried about it because they don't have the wisdom of age and they haven't their stuff. They just haven't learned at that age and can't learn. But, you know, some people have adult children that they're. Well, there's some people and there's a there's just adult children who are idiots. I think it's fair to say there's some just just dumb, poor decision making moronic adults. But then there's also people who have like legitimate developmental disabilities. And that's a concern as well.

Right. Because you have a lot you know, some folks have adult children that they've taken care of. And that's a concern, too. So then you get into the area where you start discussing special needs trust. And and again, there's I think the point is that there's a vehicle for any type of situation like that that you want to account for with proper estate planning. And there's folks, too, who have adult children who maybe have married people.

Like maybe they trust their adult children perfectly fine, but they have married, you know, taken as a spouse, someone that you don't trust as much as somebody who is displayed bad. And there's and there's ways to try to keep things not being marital property and trying to keep things where they only benefit your heir and not necessarily their spouse or someone else. So this is all something that can be done. This is all something that can be worked on.

People do it every day. It just takes time and and, you know, energy to get it set up. We talk about trusts and wills and powers of attorney. And I mean, it's a it's like you said, Josh, it does take time, but so worth it to kind of sit down and and map out how you want things to go. Especially I mean, again, you think about what if scenarios and if you pass away without one, it's going to be an issue for those that are left behind. So having that estate plan, having that, you know, things in writing, it's just a good way to go.

All right. We are going to take a short break and have more questions coming up on the other side. Judah County radio, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Of course, you can find them at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, your law firm for life offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City.

If you've got a legal situation that you're facing, maybe you've got a question you need an answer to. You can always call Whitaker and Hamer 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what that call's about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can email your questions to the show info at Judah County dot com.

Welcome back into Judah County radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, the managing partners and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

Their names are on the building. Your law firm for life office is located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. If you have a situation you're facing, a legal question you have and you need an answer, you can always call the firm for assistance. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about and an attorney will be calling you back.

And you can also email your questions to the show info at Judah County dot com. Gentlemen. All right. So we had a lot of we get a lot of estate planning questions. Yeah, man, there's people dying everywhere. I think it's a it's it's just happening just the way it's got all over the world. It's not a new thing.

I think it's been since the beginning of time. They have been dying. Apparently, it's like super safe to be alive now. People don't feel that way because like you hear about terrible, tragic things. I think if you look at the course of history, I think we're in a pretty good time for living. You see, though, the average lifespan of an American is like going down.

It's probably because of Nana's sweets would be my guess. If you look at it, Josh, I did not see that. Where did you see that? I would assume that we're living longer because we're eating healthier and exercise.

I saw it. I think for yourself, I saw an article comparing us to Europe and they they they separated out by the amount of money you made a year. So is your lifespan with what you make per year compared to the same person in Europe? And we were we were lower than Europe and declining against them. So I don't know if that was an overall decline or we were just losing ground.

They were living longer or something. Much of nerds over there, man. Other than our listeners that are there, I know we have dozens.

But but all the rest of them nerds. The. All right.

All right. Our mystery question. Our mystery question is a family law. Mr. Question. Mystery question.

And our family law. Mystery question is I've served. So this person I'm a I'm a dry. I'm a clean up this question a little bit.

There's more it's going to make it dirtier, man. I think you should just muddle it up even more. This person has calm down. This person has has been separated in North Carolina.

You have to be separated from your spouse for a year before you can you can file for divorce. That's how it is. It sounds like you've been doing research. That is how it is. It's not like that in New York and California and some other places. But in North Carolina, we have the statutory mandatory separation period. And so you have to be separated. So this person's been separated a year. They filed for divorce. They have served their spouse, but their spouse is not responding to the to the divorce complaint.

They want to know what they can what they can do. Their spouse has been served, has not responded, has not answered, is not going to appear in court. And they're they they're doing this without an attorney. An attorney knows the answer to this very quickly. But they're asking. That's their question.

What can I do? I want to be divorced. I've gotten him served or her. I don't know. I don't know the sex here. Them.

Them. And and so that that's our family law question. And so that's a.

How would you answer that question? I got lost, man, because because I mean, I'm a child basically. And you start talking about he served his wife. And so I just think of you got served. And I see this man coming up to his estranged spouse and just breakdancing in front of her.

And you're like, she doesn't serve him back. And so I've just been thinking about that for like the last. You've been running that. I've been running that through my head. Yes. Some guy just like spinning around like a turtle while his wife's like crying.

Why are you leaving me? You know, it'd be cool if there was like a process server that did that, you know? Yeah. The server. Yeah.

The server. Why does he have that cardboard? What's he going to do with that? Throws it down. Yeah, I love that, man.

He just breakdances for like 15 minutes and gets up and it's like he says you've been served. By the way. Yeah. Yeah.

God, I love that, man. How much did you pay for that service? Extra. A lot.

A whole lot extra. I tell you, it's way better than like a sheriff unless it's a dancing sheriff. Well, you think people, a lot of people don't want to get served. And so they avoid getting served. And if there was going to be some entertainment.

Your guard's going to be down. You're not getting away from that. I think you might be onto something here.

You might be under something. A billion dollar idea. What's the movie? You Got Served is the movie.

Is that you're going to be your question? What is the movie where people get served? It's called You Got Served. What's the, what's the movie where the guy is a process server?

That's like, that's not like what the movie is about. Pineapple Express. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

He doesn't dance. But You Got Served crossover movie with maybe with Pineapple Express. Yeah. I think that's, I think it's gold, man.

Solid gold. But yeah. So anyways, that's all I've been thinking about ever since you said it. Well, this, this is, this is what we call an absolute divorce. So you have a right to get, if you've been separated a year and you, you get the other person served, like you're, you're done.

That's it. No fault. You don't have to have an issue.

You don't have to have a reason. You just do it. There may be some other issues that maybe go unresolved or come up later on how assets are split or, you know, or things like that. If there's some, some not clarity there, custody, right? Child custody. That's still a thing. But as far as getting divorced, you can get that granted, even if the other side doesn't answer.

So it's easier if they don't answer actually. So, and, uh, like you said, custody, if they're on that Josh Whitaker, two kids or a kid every two years plan, then, uh, yeah, for sure, man. You're gonna have some custody to work out. I saw, I saw a video of, um, it was Michael Keaton. You know how much I love. We talked about Michael Keaton.

Of course. But he's, it's a, I don't know. He's got a guy at a round table. I hadn't seen the whole discussion, but he's, he's got some other famous people around him. It's this round table.

He's like one of those actors on actors type of things. But he's talking about his, his, he was given like his advice and his advice was, you know, hang out with your kids, you know, like as long as you can, whenever you can, like, you'll never regret it. You'll lose jobs. You know, you'll lose friends. You'll, you'll get new jobs, you'll get new friends, but he's like, hang out with your kids as long as you can, as much as you can. I was like, man, Michael Keaton.

I was like, I couldn't have liked you anymore to begin with. Yeah, that's good advice, man. I try to do it, man. I try to do it when I can, and I tell you, this is my, this is my Michael Keaton-esque advice. If you got a lot of kids, man, try to get some, try to get some one-on-one time with each of them.

That's what I recommend. It can be tough. Yeah, it can be tough, man. It can't cause there's a lot of them.

For me, there's several of them. So you really got to work on the scheduling. It helps, man, extracurriculars. That's what, that's what does it. So that's usually the time, whatever different extracurricular thing they do, you take them to it. You talk to them like, Hey, I'm your dad.

You remember something along those lines. It's good to see you, buddy. It's good to see you. You've gotten so big. No, I see.

I live with my children. That was a joke. I love them very much. I know all their names. I feel like we've got easy mystery questions today. Yeah. I feel like we've gotten some fact patterns in the past that were real.

Yeah. We need the easy ones every now and then. We need a day. I came into this sluggish from, and I'm recovered well, man.

My body is a machine and it's taken the sugar from Nana's treats and it's just completely processed it down into fuel. So I'm fueled up. I'm ready to go, man. I could do two more of these shows easily with super hard mystery questions if need be.

So dig deeper in your hat, man. Well, we only got, we're, I'm assuming we're coming up against a break. I don't even know that we answered that one. I don't even care. I still feel good about it.

Morgan. We got time for another one or we need to, I'm going to say, I'm going to call it. We've got time. I think, I think we have time. Why don't we go ahead and do that? And, and again, yeah, just throw it out there.

The funny thing is, is, is we got the camera now. So when you make your, your, your voice, it's like used to be, it's just now everyone's like, well, what does he not know? You know, I lied to you, Morgan. I haven't picked the mystery. He's not got another mystery lined up. Okay.

Well, then we will take our next break. Judica County Radio will pause. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, they are feverishly working on our next couple of questions. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, the power behind this program. And they are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Again, the motto, your law firm for life, Whitaker and Hamer. Office is located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City.

If you have a legal situation that you are facing, you need some 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. And you can always go the email route and send your questions to info at judicacounty.com. That's info at judicacounty.com.

We're back right after this. Music Welcome back in to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Again, Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life. They've got offices almost everywhere.

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 have 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. And you can email your questions to the show, info at judicacounty.com. We are wrapping up our question and answer, our mystery question show.

Having a lot of fun with the attorneys as they answer them. Guys, take it away. You know, we're talking about estate planning. We were talking about, you know, people passing away. Yeah, but it made me think, you know, this past two, three week period, we've lost a lot of like, you know, famous people, right? You know, like I was really shook up when, when Bull from Night Court died.

That was big. Night Court's my all time favorite show and they, a lot of them, you know, like an animal. Bull? Yeah. Bull's a person. Yeah. He's the Bailiff.

He's the Bailiff at Night Court. I got no clue what you're talking about. Anyway, hilarious. I feel like I'm disappointing you, but you never see anything that I've seen. So I'm actually actually pretty happy about that. I've been able to disappoint you on something.

Sure. I watched Night Court, you know, back in the day, Night Court, so Night Court came on, I don't know, what was that? 80, what, 86 to 92, something like that. 86 to 93.

That's a good guess. And so I was a kid in the 80s and the 90s. I was older, but Night Court's one of those, one of those first shows that really went to hardcore syndication.

So you can see it everywhere? Yeah. So like before I went to bed, I watched like two hours on Night Court.

Nice. It really primes you up to be an attorney, it seems. An hour of The Simpsons and maybe, maybe like one episode of Mama's Family. Mama's Family was on a lot back when I was young. But I love Night Court. I love it.

It's like my all-time favorite show. And of course, Harry Anderson passed away. Markie Post passed away. The guy who played Mack, I can't remember his name, Charles Robinson? I think that's his name.

Maybe. He passed away. And Bull, I can't remember his, I can't remember, Richard Mull.

What was his character's name? I mean, Bull. Was it just Bull?

I guess if you're Bull, you're just Bull. I think his character's name was Bull Shannon. Oh, that's actually, that's a pretty sweet name.

But he was good. There's only two Night Court people left, Roz and John Larroquette, who's in the new one, which is super awesome. Yeah.

But then, and then I wasn't, I've never been a big Friends guy, but Matthew Perry died, and that was real sad. Yeah, Chandler. Everybody seems real sad about that. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, anybody's happy about it. Yeah. Yeah. And were you big Friends? That was before you were young, right? No. I had Friends who were Friends.

Watch Friends. Yeah. But no, it was, I mean, no.

I mean, I could, I could probably watch, I could probably watch it if it was on, but like, I wasn't seeking it out. It wasn't my thing, man. And then Shaft, Richard Rountree died, right? Wow. I didn't know that.

I feel like you said that during the break, and I just completely glossed over it. Yeah. And then Bobby Knight died, right?

Yeah. Bobby Knight. I saw, did you see the quote that he made a long time ago, but I'm sure people have been, like, the media's just been saving it. So his big quote was when he died, he wanted to be buried face down. So all of his critics could kiss his butt on his way out. I know that he was a big coaching influence for you. Because I mean, you know, you, the listeners know you were my coach when I was like eight, nine years old and you used to choke us regularly during practice and throw chairs at us. So I know he was a big part of that. And the parents, they didn't have a problem with it. No, they loved it. Yeah.

Motivation. Please beat my kid. No, you never choked a kid, man. You were a very laid back coach. And he was one of those guys though, that you either like, you either thought he was like a great coach or like you hated them with a, like a passion.

And I did not like Indiana. Did any of his, did any of his, uh, his players really like, I don't know. Like, did they, did any of his players like come out and like, Oh my God, I hated him so badly. I feel like he probably, I think he had one or two with it. Okay. You talking about coach Knight?

Yeah. I mean, he was the whole choking incident at practice that got out when he was at Indiana. He lost his job. Was that guy not like him? Maybe he was like, ah, I had it coming.

I don't know. No, he was, he, his, his, uh, his methods were, were questioned and they're old school, but his, his coaching undeniable, I mean, his strategy, uh, incredible coach, but he had a hard time dealing with media, uh, and, uh, and didn't like to be in the public eye. And boy, I tell you, if you're the Indiana basketball coach, that's a tough place to be. Because they ran him out of town, right?

I mean, he didn't leave on his own terms. Correct. I can tell you this. This is a certainty, man. If we're playing basketball, right. And you've got a coach and I've got a coach and I know my coach is going to choke me to death.

If I lose the game, I'm going to be playing harder than you, man. There's something to be said about it. And Morgan, I didn't know this, but Morgan was telling me, I guess I missed this in the news where, uh, where Walter Davis passed away. Yeah. Walter Davis. Yeah.

Six. No disrespect to Walter Davis, man. 68 years old, 1976 Summer Olympics team, first team all ACC, uh, NBA all rookie team.

Uh, let's see, uh, NBA second team. And then he was an NBA All-Star six times. But I've got a great story about Walter Davis.

I mean, just a Tar Heel legend. Uh, but when I first got back into the triangle, uh, I was doing a smaller version of a radio show that I grew a little bit over the years. And I was in Chapel Hill and, uh, I knew Phil Ford, uh, through the Tar Heel sports network. And I invited him to come down to the old slugs at the pines, which is, you know, was down near Finley golf course, no longer there anymore. Uh, they have a patio and we were going to do a remote broadcast. And I was just going to talk basketball with Phil Ford, which is, you know, Phil's one of the greatest guards to ever play college basketball. Yeah.

Yeah. And so he shows up and my lure was the restaurant allowed me to feed my guests. And I just told him, come on down, have a meal. And he says, can I bring a guest? And I said, sure. And he brought Walter Davis. And so it was interesting to talk to you.

Well, my first, my first radio broadcast remotely, uh, for the radio station in Chapel Hill, my, my two guests were Phil Ford and Walter Davis. So very special moment for me. Geez. Yeah. Sad day.

Now you get to talk to us. Yeah. Sad day for Tar Heel nation and, uh, just a, just a class act, Walter Davis. Yeah.

I hate it, man. Cause I like to talk bad about Carolina every chance I get. And I can't right now.

No, you couldn't do that. I had so many of his, like, uh, 90, no, it was 89 hoops, nuggets. I think when Walter Davis didn't play for the nuggets. 89 hoops, nuggets.

What are you talking about? The cards. Oh, okay. You didn't say cards.

I just thought you were walking around with nuggets. Pretty, pretty much, pretty much a journeyman. So he played a lot with the sons, uh, but traded quite a bit. Oh yeah. Um, that's how back in the day, back in 1989, when I was opening up all those hoops, NBA basketball cards, I'd sort them by like NC state players, Carolina players, white bars players.

And what else are you going to do back then? Well, there's 89 cards. You got some where they have like Paula Abdul was a Laker girl in 89. So you got some of those cards where Paula Abdul's in the background and you could sort them out.

He's like a big Paula Abdul fan. I just, I had a lot of 89 hoops, man. And then there was one, there's one where, what were the two brothers that, uh, murdered their parents? You know what I'm talking about? And the two brothers that famous it's famous. They murdered their parents. The two that were basketball players.

No, they weren't basketball players. Menendez. Okay. And that, and that thing. Menendez brothers. Yeah.

It sounds like before my time as well. There's a card. There's a, there's a, I think it's 89 hoops.

It could be 90. So there's a card. I don't remember who the player is. It's just some rando player. No, it's Mark Jackson. It's a 1990 Mark Jackson hoops.

And in the background, he's like taking a jump shot. They got the front row of Madison square garden. The Menendez brothers were sitting there. Wow. After they've killed their parents. Wow.

They're sitting there at that gate. That's. That's the thing that happens. I believe you. I don't have to look it up because that'd be a lot for you to come up with. And if you're going to make up a story, like that's not one to make up. So yeah, I believe you, man, and Josh to go back and just confirm 11 seasons in Phoenix. And then he had one, two, three, four seasons in Denver and throw in a season in Portland too. So.

That's always weird too. The, the journeyman, you know, uh, my, my middle child, my middle son is really into basketball and he was asking about the time Shaquille played for the Celtics. I had to think about like, what is like a half season that she killed? I just remember it. He just, the green Jersey, he looked like a giant booger. That's what I remember.

Cause then he had like a season with the sons. Yeah. Yeah.

And, uh, I'll have to look it up, but an incredible career, but he was recently talking about his, uh, you know, his weight when he played, he played one season, he played one season at four 15, 415 pounds. That's crazy. That's what I'm walking around at right now, man. Yeah. Four 15 is nuts, man. I've been two 80 before and still trying to do athletic competition and it didn't go very well for me. Yeah. I had to be like two 85, two 90 and played basketball and like tore my ACL too much weight and tore it.

Completely I'm sure it was done partial tearing. That's coming for me, man. It's coming for me.

I haven't found me yet, but it's coming sooner than later. You tell your ACL as a, as an old man, that's a game changer. Yeah. That's what I hear.

I'm trying to keep mine massaged and stretched on out, but uh, we didn't get to our last mystery question. No, we did not. Oh, we'll save it for next week.

Because guess what mystery question showed maybe it's going to be mystery question season. Yeah. That's all we got. We used to talk about the news. Who cares about that anymore? News is depressing. Yeah. It's super depressing, man.

I don't want to be depressed. Uh, uh, going with the street more depressed. All right, guys, we can wrap it up. We can put this baby in the garage, Judica County radio, this edition in the books, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They host this show.

I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Remember Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life. They've got offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead city. If you've got a legal situation, you got a question, you need an answer, call Whitaker and Hamer 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what that call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast info at judicacounty.com.

Well for Josh and Joe, I'm Morgan. We'll see you on the radio next week. Judica County is hosted by attorneys licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on this podcast may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion on this podcast is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live has the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on this podcast are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of this show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at jmwatmwhlaw.lawyer.