The Importance of Having an Estate Plan/Will

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio with Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, it's all about wills and estate planning.

You don't want to miss it. That's all coming up next on Judica County Radio. Asking attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Again, Whittaker and Hamer, your law firm for life.

Offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. If you have a legal situation that you're up against and you've got some questions, you can always call Whittaker and Hamer. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what that call is about. And an attorney with Whittaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show and we'll answer them on a future program. Info at judicacounty.com.

That's info at judicacounty.com. Josh, Joe, welcome in. All right. So we're here. Me and Joseph are here this week. We're down at Shady's in Garner. We're all set up to talk about the law.

All things legal as we say. Joseph, how are you today? Hey, man, I'm doing pretty good. How are you, Josh? Good to see you.

It's good to see your face. I was a little sleepy here before you went and grabbed this Americano for me. Yeah, I got an Americano and then I got a chocolate eclair and a stuffed s'mores cookie. And so you drank the Americano and all I've done is I've eaten the cookie and the eclair.

So I'm going in the opposite direction. Joe, how's your diet? How's your diet going, Joe? Joe, how's the diet going? If you can't tell, it's going pretty well. I'm doing this thing. I'm doing this reverse diet and it's like a diet, but you just do the opposite and you just eat as much terrible things as you can. Are you still doing ice baths?

No, man. I'm doing warm everything now. Warm baths. I'm wearing a heavy robe everywhere. I'm staying in comfort.

So let me get this straight. So you were getting up, were you doing this early in the morning and you take the ice bath? It just depended, man. It depended on the day, sometimes early, sometimes later. I was pretty consistent with it, man. I'd like to go back and talk to myself from then, figure out what I was doing and have that motivation.

Because now all I'm doing is I'm staring at the last little bit of the eclair that I haven't eaten and it's telling me to eat it. We went to law school. We have formed, I think, at some point, decent study habits and been practicing law for a long time. We've got some evidence that we can show people that we're hardworking and have good habits.

That's what I'm going for, right? Yeah, good mental habits, maybe. But I have a hard time forming new good habits in my old age.

Yeah, I don't know, man. To be in that eating good, working out, ice bath stage of life, you've got to want it. And right now, I just want this cooking. That's how I'm feeling, man. I'm still exercising. I'm still doing the basketball. And all of my newfound heft is really helping me, man. I've had some good games.

And basketball? It doesn't help my bones. Because after I play, I feel like I'm going to die. But it's helping. It's just helping in general. It's giving me a lot more body to throw around. Your girth. You've improved your girth. It's a way cooler sound when I'm stomping down the court. It sounds like an elephant. I don't play a lot of NBA 2K anymore, but when I do play, I always make my guy the fattest possible player.

Yeah, and he's like eight feet tall. Of course you do. I do the same thing, man. I like that. Give him 100 on threes.

Yeah, he's 100 on everything. What are you going to create a player for? Can you do that anymore?

Don't you have to pay money? Nah, maybe. I haven't played any of the new ones, man.

I'm talking the old ones. Well, back in the day, you were on your honor. If you were that kid who just made everybody 100, no one would play with you. I had no honor when it came to that. I was 100% going to be... We were jacking up. We were jacking up.

I was going to be the eight-footer that weighed 1,800 pounds and could just shoot from half-court. Well, now you only get so many points. I think you have to pay for it. That's the big thing I haven't caught on to, man. The paying... Back in my day... It's the pay-to-play, man. It's the microtransactions.

That's what the kids call it these days. Yeah, back in my day, you bought the game and you were done. Yeah, you got the game. They didn't have expansions. You didn't need one.

Maybe you unlocked stuff, but you already had everything that you needed. You got to take a sip of this coffee. You do that, man. This is a Claire. I'm telling you.

It's staring at me. I do this thing where I'll eat eight-tenths of a terrible thing, and I feel like that two-tenths is what would really put me over the edge. But if I don't eat that, I'm fine, man. I'm the opposite. When I know that I'm eating something bad, I like the whole thing.

I'm getting all of it. Well, I still eat the whole thing, but there's a ten-minute period where I'm like, I'm not eating that two-tenths of it, man, and I'm going to be fine. And then it keeps staring at me like this is, and then I take it down, man. I went through this phase where I was eating fast food for lunch. I go through these periods. I'll go through three months where I just eat fast food for lunch, and I have reversed course. Now I'm eating spinach, salad. So I'm trying to reverse it, but then I'll lose a little bit of weight, and then I'll go right back to the fast food. Yeah, I'm doing that fast food thing now, man. I'm doing it pretty good. Not even just fat, just door dash.

Just not homemade, natural, delicious, healthy foods. It takes so much time. It does take a lot of time, man. I don't know. I really let myself go.

I'm very disappointed. Well, we talk every week, man. A couple weeks ago, you were doing just fine.

Yeah, it was doing great a couple weeks ago. Life has some highs and life has some lows, and we enter this winter period. It was warm then. It's cold now. I think I'm descended from the polar bears, man, and when it gets cold, I want to get my body fat up just to get some insulation. It's been cold the past two days. It's because you're eating spinach. Yeah, that's iron. That's good iron.

That sounds unhealthy for you. Well, as we sometimes do, we kind of have a theme show today. We're still going to be taking some of our listener questions that we like to do, but we've kind of got them all in one direction.

So these are all kind of geared towards wills and what you can and can't do in a will, what wills are best suited for. So they all kind of revolve around the same topic. We've been all over the place for the past couple of weeks. Figured we'd rein it in and kind of focus on one thing.

So we've talked about some of this stuff before with different fact patterns and different context. But maybe this is good with how me and Joseph are eating. Yeah, I was going to say, man, I'm going to need one of those.

We got to get our affairs in order. You're eating good. What are you talking about? You didn't even want any of my cookie or my Claire. Well, I just assumed you bought both of those for yourself. I did, man.

I was hoping you would want some of one of them. Because I feel better about it. I haven't eaten all of them, man.

I've just eaten the edges. But I don't even like we just got through Thanksgiving. I don't even do that bad. Thanksgiving, Christmas. Christmas usually gets me.

Oh, my brother. Thanksgiving. This all started with Thanksgiving for me.

I'm going to be honest with you. Oh, come on. What about Halloween? What about Halloween?

Go back to Halloween. I'm fine, man. I'm not a candy. Like candy doesn't do it to me, man.

I'm not I'm not going to sit around and thank God, because if I did, that would be it. I would be the lady what's eating Gilbert's grapes, mom. You'd be getting me out of the house with the with a like a bulldozer. But I don't like candy.

So that that's my saving grace. Ice cream? Yeah, like ice cream.

That's not candy. Who doesn't like ice cream? I've seen you eat some ice cream. I'm not going to lie to you, man. I like ice cream.

I like Tara. There's some terrible foods I like, but they're not like candy wrapped in a wrapper. Well, well, I mean, ice cream is not candy. It's kind of like candy. I'm thinking candy is like candy, man.

They have ice cream in the candy aisle at the grocery store. If it's on that aisle, that's what I'm referring to. I gotcha. I gotcha. Anyways, Thanksgiving went off the rails, but you did good on Thanksgiving. So I'm proud of you. I did.

I did. I don't know. I don't know what's gotten into me.

I not candy. I don't like I don't like when clothes get tight. That's kind of my signal. I don't get on the scale, but if my clothes get a little snug. I'm losing gain weight so much, man, that I got sets of clothes for when I'm fat and I got set of clothes when I'm skinny and I just pull them out as needed. Yeah. Throw your fat clothes. That gives you the no, man, because I know it's coming.

I know the winter is coming and I need I need to put on that heft anyways. Yeah, that's what's happening with me. Well, every you know, everybody needs a will. You know, we talk to folks sometimes you need some trust, a trust, multiple trust. The will kind of works with however you can do your estate plan. It could make and you can, depending on your total assets and what you're trying to protect, a will might do it by itself and also gets us in a discussion about probate, non-probate assets. So we're going to do all that today. It's all about wills. It's all about a state of planning.

All right. That's coming up on Judica County radio again. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices located conveniently for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and Morehead City. If you have a legal situation that you're facing, got a question possibly and you need some answers, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what that calls about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will give you a call back. And also you can email your questions to the show info at judicacounty.com. That's info at judicacounty.com. We are discussing wills, estate planning, and we have found our heft on the show this week.

It's all coming back. Welcome back into Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Legal situation you're facing, questions you might have, we've got a number for you. You can call Whitaker and Hamer at 800-659-1186 and get answers to those questions. Again, 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can email your questions to the show as well, info at judicacounty.com.

Josh, take it away. All right. So this is this is going to be a show with listener questions all about estate planning, all about wills. And we'll use these questions to kind of talk about the couple of things that I want to make sure we we talk about. We always try to do this show to get information out to folks who maybe don't deal with wills and estate planning every day like like we do. And so, like Joe and I have always said, you know, we see the ugly part where people haven't done what they need to do.

And we see the fallout and the fighting and and the lawsuits that come from that. And we see how easy everything can go if if you've got everything planned and everything set up. And man, you can make it easy. That's right.

You can make it so easy or you can be lazy and you can make it very hard. There's a lot of there's a lot of people you run into have that, you know, my my family or whoever my heirs, they can deal with it after I'm dead. I'll be gone.

I won't worry about it. But some would argue they have a point, but that's not how we should live, man. We should care about our loved ones even when we're dead. So, you know, we we sit down with just a ton of people every month. We're getting close to the end of the year. This is, you know, once you once you get towards Christmas, once you get to New Year's, a lot of people are going to I don't know why.

I don't know if it's because people are off at work or spending time with family or traveling. A lot of times when like the whole family travels on a plane or something like that, these are all triggers that get people thinking about their estate plan. So either doing it for the first time or updating, you know, doing the maintenance means you always talk about maintaining. Right. You got to do that with estate planning, your life insurance, insurance in general. You know, you need to you need to do that maintenance every year.

Look at it. And we're not all perfect at doing it, but needs to be done. It's got it's mandatory. I require it of everyone listening, actually. So I'm going to I'm going to kick off our talk here with a question.

This is a listener question and I boiled it down to I always kind of boil these down to to a good length so we can talk about it. But this is the question. Will my assets go to the state if I die without a will? So will my I don't have a will I die? This this person's question is and I hear this a lot. And and and it's not a super you know, it's not that's not really what we're worried about all the time if you don't have a will.

But, Joe, what would you do with that question? Yeah. So.

I mean, it depends, right? Like there there are scenarios where, you know, you have no heirs at law. The when when we talk about the state being involved and we talk about, you know, the laws of the state and the intestines statute that's going to come into play. What we're talking about is if you die without a will, you're the law is going to dictate what happens to your estate. So, you know, the law is going to determine who your heirs are. The law is going to determine how things pass between those heirs and between generations. And and so as long as you have heirs that the law recognizes, you know, you're everything you have is not just going to go to the state. But in a scenario where you where there where there is nobody and there there is no one that can take, then in theory, there is a situation where where some of your funds going to sheet to the state. Yeah, that it's a thing that could happen.

It's it's a remote. You know, we're in North Carolina. Me and Joe, we always remind you, we're licensed attorneys here in the state of North Carolina, not licensed in South Carolina, not licensed in Virginia. Of course, we have attorneys that are licensed in South Carolina.

But me and Joe aren't. And when we're talking to you, we're talking about our experience with North Carolina law. And there are some some situations where if you die without a will, your assets could end up as cheating. That's what we call is cheating to the state.

But it's kind of rare. You would like Joseph said, you'd have to have no heirs at law because basically what's going to happen? North Carolina has intestacy laws. So if you die without a will, the statutes kind of write your will for you. So if you have if you die with a spouse, that spouse is going to probably get most everything.

If you die with a certain number of kids, they're going to get a percentage. You know, if you don't have a spouse or kids, you just got a weird uncle left. Yeah.

Yeah. The statute is going to try to get it to your closest relatives. Of course, if you're married and you have a family, those are your closest relatives. If you're not married or you don't have kids, it's going to go we go is kind of up.

We say it goes up towards towards your parents. If you have living parents, if you don't have living parents and start starts looking for siblings, cousins, like it just keeps going down the line. And if it can't find anybody, it's going to cheat to the state. So if you die without a will, things are going to get where they were. They're going to get to your heirs. They're not going to get to your heirs easily or in percentages. That makes sense.

We've talked about this before. Like if you, God forbid, you know, something happens to you and you leave a spouse and young children and you don't have a will. And you're the only one on your your deed to your house.

You're the only one on title. Your kids are going to inherit part of the house. Right. So if your wife needs to downsize after your death or move or whatever, and they want to sell the house right after you pass away or pretty soon after you pass away. Well, it ain't gonna be that easy because your minor children have inherited part of your house. So we're not here to say this is called an intensity statute. It doesn't save you from problems. It doesn't save you from everything. But what the state has tried to do is keep your assets from a cheating to the state and get them to your heirs. But it's not very efficient, I guess is what I would say.

Yeah. And whether or not the state's taken all your stuff after you die, if you if you don't have a state plan that you've created. It's not it's not going to be it could it could be what you want. You know, you could want exactly what the statute says, but you lose control. You've got no control over it. It's going to be decided by the statute, which is just words, right?

Written. It's rigid. It's the law. There's there's no wiggle room there.

So, you know, that's that's going to be what it is. And so, again, you lose the control. You lose the ability to say this is exactly what I want to have happen to these things. And that's not good.

There's not many areas. There's not many parts of your life where you have you could you can have almost complete control. Right.

So when you when you're looking at your assets and what you want to happen to your assets after your death, you have. And I would say unfettered. I like that. Yeah. I was hoping you were going to say unfettered.

Yeah. So you have almost unfettered control over what you want to happen if you plan for it. You can keep we talked about this a week or two ago. You can keep the government. Not only will your assets not as cheap to the state, they will go to exactly where you want them to go. But you can keep everything out of probate. You can keep everything out of the clerk's office, everything out of the courthouse.

You can put someone in charge, a trustee or what have you to get a crazy, ridiculous requirements on your kids getting things. You can do whatever you want to do. You can leave everything in trust to your cat. You know, if that's what you want to do.

Yes. Mr. Mr. Whiskers. Mr. Unfettered.

That's my cat's name. No one can tell you what to do with your assets upon your death if you plan. It's all you completely cut the government out of every aspect of it. They don't have any taxes. I guess that's how they still get you.

Yeah. Sometimes those taxes and things still get you there. But you don't you don't have to worry about the courthouse. You don't have to worry about things that's cheating to the state.

Everything you get where you need to. You can take care of contingencies like minor children or minor grandchildren you don't want to dump. You can leave things to charity, man.

Maybe you're a charitable type of person. I sat down with somebody the other day who's leaving their entire estate. They're they're in a position where they can do that. They're leaving their entire state to different charities.

And so, yeah, you can definitely do that, too. And a lot of people still do it. A lot of people, even if they're taking care of their kids and their spouse, they still carve out some stuff or whatever was important to them. Point being, if you don't have a plan in place and you die and your favorite charity is whatever, the Chuck E. Cheese Foundation. Chuck E. Cheese ain't getting none of your money, brother, because guess what? The state doesn't know that. That's not built into the statute for any charitable organization to get any of your stuff. I you ever watched that documentary on it's on YouTube.

I don't know where it was produced, but you you you're familiar with Chuck E. Cheese. So you're familiar with show business. Sure. Yeah, for sure. And there's this whole group of people that get the old animatronics. Yeah.

And keep them alive, like keep on going, like buy them, repair them. And that's not creepy. That's creepy.

They have not at all. It's very normal. But it's like in their garage. You just have like, of course, what was the showbiz, the showbiz bear? What was his name? I can tell you the show. So Chuck E. Cheese was Chuck E. Cheese when I was a kid. And it changed to showbiz pizza.

And then wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It changed to showbiz. Yeah.

Showbiz from showbiz pizza. It went back to Chuck E. Cheese. Oh, wow. So it was Chuck E. Cheese because it's the same thing, right? Yeah.

It's not different. The bear's name is Billy Bob. Billy Bob Broccoli. No. Yeah, that's not right.

Do you think I just made that up? Broccoli. It's spelled. It's spelled. It's spelled broccoli.

B-R-O-C-K-A-L-I. They just called him Billy Bob for sure. He looks horrified. Good Lord. Well, talk about nightmare fuel, man. He looks like what I'm going to look like if I keep eating these these chocolate chip cookies. I'll give you his name was probably Billy Bob.

Sounds like it was right. But that last name cannot be. It's Broccoli, brother. Why would I make that up? Billy Bob Broccoli. He was the leader of an animatronic band at a pizza buffet for children.

Yeah, but it's ironic. I'm telling you, that's his name, man. Why? Again, of all the last things I could make up for a fictional bear. Who are the other members of the band?

Choo Choo and Beach Bear. Yeah. No, you think I made those up, too? There's more. There's more.

I'm trying to bamboozle you. All right, hold on. I'll find out what the whole crew's name.

Yeah, there was like six of them. Showbiz Pizza Band. All right.

It sounds awesome. Anyway, anyway, there's a whole group of people that keep those alive. And then the kids are all about the what? The Five Nights at Freddy's. Yeah.

Yeah. Five Nights at Freddy's. The kids are all about.

I haven't watched that movie. It's like it's a game. To my knowledge, it originated as a game. And it was like a cheap game where you basically you're looking at cameras, essentially, in like a Chuck E. Cheese-esque place. And the animatronics are coming to life and you're you're trying to like.

Keep track of where they are and they jump scare you. It started out like that. It's gotten a lot more sophisticated.

They developed like all this lore behind it. There's like a movie now. Not my thing, man. A little too young for me. Never got into it.

But I know more than you. And I also know that Billy Bob Broccoli was the lead singer of the Rock of Fire Explosion. Ah, you also had Fats Geronimo, who looks hilarious. He looks like he looks like a gorilla that's been electrocuted everywhere. I remember the girl and like he's going to play the keys. Mitzi mozzarella, who looks absolutely horrified. Nice.

Like I can't even explain how terrible. Beach Bear. I like Beach Bear. He's he's playing the guitar.

He looks beachy. Duke. Duke LaRue. Duke LaRue on the drums. And then you got Rolfy and Earl. So it's an animatronic vampire bear who has a puppet.

That's pretty crazy, man. Looney Bird. Looney Bird was scary looking.

Uncle Clunk. That's what I got. Wow.

All of these things are terrifying. I was going to say, what kind of drugs do you have to be on to come up with that? You know, get in the room and come up with that band. Judica County Radio.

Yes, we were talking about Chuck E. Cheese and the animatronic band. Judica County Radio will continue on the other side. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, your law firm for life offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City. If you have a legal situation that you're facing and you've got some questions, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. 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 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 Judica County dot com. We'll answer them on a future program.

We're back with more about Will's question and answer coming up. Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer law firm practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They have offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City. And if you are facing a legal situation, have a legal question, you can always call the firm and get some answers. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact info 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. We'll answer them on a future broadcast info at Judica County dot com.

We're dialing it in on Will's and estate planning. Question and answer. What just to just to as a jumping off point, we were talking about what was the name of the band for Shiba's Pizza? Rockfire, something on something. Something. I was like the express or. Yeah.

Let's call it that. Rockfire Express. What was the Chuck E. Cheese band called? It's funny you mention that because we are obviously very, very much in sync right now because I had looked up the Chuck E. Cheese band. And they're called the Munch's Make Believe Band. Oh, I remember. And by comparison, there's no comparison, man.

There's no comparison inferior in every single way. Chuck E. Cheese Band. Yeah. And let me give you some of the names. First of all. I would like to petition that one of us, I don't care who it is, me, you, Morgan, somebody legally change our name to Duke LaRue. I want someone to do that. Well, you're a Duke fan.

I think it should be you. It's spelled Duke, but it's spelled like D-O-O-K. Like perfect. Like Duke. Like Duke LaRue. Duke LaRue. Anyways, these are the names of the Chuck E. Cheese, the Munch's Make Believe Band.

You've got, let me find it. I had it. And then I started digging deeper because I was like, man, this is terrible. Munch's was like a scary looking grimace guy. Yeah, he looks just like grimace. Yeah.

How do they how do they not get sued for that? That's insane to me. But it was like Mr. Munch Pasquale something another Chuck E. Cheese, which apparently stands for Charles E. Charles Entertainment Cheese.

And what a downgrade, man. Yeah, the showbiz. I think you make up a band like that.

You got to you got to have fun with it. Yeah, I agree, man. I'm very disappointed.

Jasper, like these are not this isn't bring back. I hate I never experienced showbiz pizza because I feel like I was robbed of a crucial development point in my life. And maybe I'd be doing something amazing right now instead of sitting here. I spent I bet you I spent ten thousand dollars worth of showbiz tokens playing that four player Ninja Turtle game.

Showbiz pizza. Yeah, OK. OK, so they've got you know, they've got those now, too. It's not that expensive. You can buy a four player, the original arcade machine, put it in your house. You could do that.

I could. You've got three kids, man. You and your three kids could do that. Or maybe you and two of your kids you like and me. We can make the other one watch.

You get a turn later, Mikey. Here's my next question. Again, we're focusing on really wills estate planning in general, obviously, which really includes, you know, talking about power of attorneys and trust and things like that. And we're not that's not our focus today.

Our focus really is really just the will, even though that's one piece of the estate planning question. But here here is the next question I had and I thought it was interesting. I don't think we've ever talked about this on the program, but I see it all the time. I see where people have done it or they ask me or they want to do it.

But here's the question. I want to disinherit someone. Do I need to leave them at least a dollar? So their question is they want to disinherit someone. Do they leave them out completely or do they have to?

Because I think that's a big it's a big urban myth. Maybe that's true in some states or maybe, you know, but do I have to leave them something? Can I completely just leave them out to disinheriting an heir?

Yeah. So no, you don't leave them anything, man. Legally speaking, you can disinherit someone. You can expressly state I want to disinherit this person. And what you're doing, in essence, is you're treating that person as if they predecease you. And now you could you could you can just disinherit them. You can disinherit them and their descendants.

Like, again, if you're crafting your estate plan, you have flexibility. Right. Like, that's the beautiful thing about it. So if I like if I hate Mike, I love my kids. Right.

But let's pretend like I'm you or someone else. And I hate this kid. I don't like my kid, but I like my grandbaby that this kid gave me. I like the grandbaby.

He can't help his dad is terrible. Right. Right. I can disinherit one level.

I can disinherit both levels. Again, you've got maximum flexibility now. Now that you say that and you talk about the fact of do you want to give them something? There is what the law allows, and then there's the practical reality of of the fact that a will can be contested.

Sure. And so, you know, when we talk about a carefully crafted estate plan, there's nothing there's really little you can do. There's things you can do. But but still, one of your kids, if you disinherit them, they could potentially go after your death and try to contest your will and say you lack capacity. You lacked, you know, you whatever, whatever grounds they want to try to contest it on. So the important thing in drafting is just to be explicitly clear about what you want to do.

And like now. So there's really very little difference between giving somebody a dollar and then disinheriting them. Right. Like there's practically speaking, that person's not going to be very thrilled either way. And they could arguably contest either way if you.

Well, you know, I don't interrupt your thoughts. I think I know where you're going there, but I will throw this out there. You if you leave them a dollar, they're involved. Like if you if this will gets probated and you go down the clerk's office and they open up an estate file and you leave them a dollar. That means they're going to get all the notices that go out in the estate. Right. So they'll get they'll they'll be able to see your your accounting of what's what's in the estate, what other people are getting.

You might need them to sign a receipt. Right. To get the estate closed out. A lot of times people want to clerks want to see that, you know, your your executor, you know, whoever's in control of your state, they have to report to the clerk. Right.

So in this instance, nothing was in trust. Your will is is carving up your your estate. Someone's in charge of it.

They have to go downtown and open it. And a clerk is going to require a bunch of filings. One of the filings is a is a 90 day inventory that's going to list everything that's here in your estate. There's going to be a final accounting where the executor disperses. Right. So if two kids are getting it 50 50 and your third kid gets a buck, they're going to have to talk to that kid. That kid is a beneficiary. So you're making them all have to work together to get your state closed out.

And I'm sure the kids you disinherited and left the buck isn't going to be super easy to deal with and all that for a buck. Good Lord. So it's it's definitely easier, I think, if you're going to disinherit someone like Joseph was saying, we usually are explicit. Yeah. Yeah. That's my you should be explicit. Yeah.

You've definitely got to say you're doing it. So in your will, I mean, it can it can technically be a sentence. You know, I'm going to disinherit kid number blank. You're a kid who you don't even love him enough to give the name.

And but usually we add language. So there's, you know, the instance like, hey, I've really had to help this kid out. He's pretty much gotten his inheritance while I'm alive. I don't want him to get anything else.

Or, you know, this kid, you know, moved to Canada and doesn't talk to us. And I don't I don't want him to benefit. And that's good. You know, that's that's the more obviously it's legally we talk about legal sufficiency, which just stating I'm going to disinherit legally sufficient. The more of those details that you can put in in a carefully drafted manner, the more unassailable the will will be.

Sure. Yeah, I like that word unfettered. Yeah, I like that word.

We're really using our vocab and keeping them coming. The you know, we've seen people like you may love your I mean, use this example because this came up not too long ago, but you may love your daughter. But your daughter may marry.

I do. Your daughter may marry someone you despise. I can tell you that's exactly what's going to happen.

That's what's going to happen. And so there's things you can do to you can leave your daughter things or, you know, if the spouse is that bad, you can skip and just set up a trust for the grandkids, like their kids, you know, or you can put her money into a into a trust so that it's harder for a spouse to to get their hands on, put somebody in charge of it. But there's all kinds of way to exclude people. But yeah, I don't like that. I don't like you definitely don't have to leave him a dollar.

That's that's not a law, nor has it ever been in North Carolina. We specialize in petty estate plans, right? Like, you could be as petty as you want to be in administering this estate. 100 pennies. But you can you can do that.

And you don't have to leave him a dollar. You just really a detail detail oriented because you're you're, you know, those those kind of folks, the kind of folks that get disinherited are usually the kind of folks who who will contest things if there's any opening. Those aren't usually the nice the nice reason. They just let it go. Yeah, those are the ones. Judica County radio.

We are going to take a short break. Remember, your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And again, we have offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. If you are looking at a legal situation, if you have questions about what's going on, you can always call the firm and get answers to those questions. The number is 800-659-1186.

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

Don't go anywhere. Welcome back into Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and Morehead City. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And the motto is Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life. If you've got a legal situation that you are facing, you've got some questions, you can get some answers by calling 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 email your questions to the show and we'll answer them on a future broadcast, info at judicacounty.com.

That's info at judicacounty.com. Josh? All right. Well, we're going to keep on keeping on with the estate planning theme, specifically questions about wills. And so, I've got my next question queued up here. I'm adding a little bit to it.

So, the question is, I thought having a will avoids probate. And then I'm adding a little question. I'm adding, what's the deal with that? That's what I'm adding to that. Hey, I like that.

I like how you did your hands there. Hey. I thought having a will avoids probate. What's the deal with that? Yeah, no, no, that's the deal is that you thought wrong, theoretical question, asker, person. You know, we would refer to probate as the involvement of the clerk of court having to go down to the courthouse in any fashion and having a will in and of itself that… That avoids intestacy. It avoids intestacy.

Exactly. So, it avoids everything passing by statute. But you still have to take that will and you literally have to probate that will. That is the term for what you're going to do with that will. So, you know, even in an estate plan where if we've drafted your estate plan, we've crafted it super carefully. And we say we've made sure to take care of all of the conveyances of everything that you own outside of probate, meaning that everything's in a pass, you know, whether it's already in a trust, however that may be. We're still going to craft a will for you, right? Because it's kind of a catch all.

It's a fail safe, right? Because, you know, you could have some things that you acquire after the fact that aren't titled in the trust name. There's all sorts of situations where you may still need that will to be probated to get everything where you want it to go. So, no, you know, having that will does not in and of itself avoid probate. And a lot of times you are, even if you've done everything you can to avoid probate, you're still going to want to have the will just in case. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I always make the joke, you know, we'll have people come in and really just plan everything they can. And a lot of times that involves getting things into trust because, you know, trust don't die, you know, so getting things into vehicles or situations where upon your death or automatically going to go to where you want it to go without probate. But there's still always a will because there's always like a, I make the joke, boat trailer. No one ever remembers to get their boat trailer titled into their trust name, right?

That's right. So everybody has like a boat trailer or like, you know, a car they inherited or something that has a title to it that has to go through probate. So, the will and a perfect estate plan, the will is just there just in case. And in a perfect estate plan, you're not probate, right? Right. In a perfect estate plan.

You take it, you ball it up, you throw it in the trash. Yeah. In a perfect estate plan, your heirs are just going to keep on moving.

Nothing really changes for them. I mean, you can plan it to that with that level of preciseness isn't a word. But yeah, but it is now. If you say it on the radio, it's a word.

We should make up some more words. Precision. Yeah.

Precision. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that. But yeah, the will, that's what the will controls. The will controls probate. We talk about a lot of times, you know, people will talk, we'll talk about like a blended family situation where, you know, you know, two spouses get married and have kids from prior relationships.

And so it's a blended family. And maybe one of the spouses want to make sure upon their death, their children get certain things. And so they'll make out a will, leaving certain things to them. And then when they pass away, none of that stuff is available. And the will, there's nothing going into probate. And then they accidentally disinherit their children.

So that happens. But the will can only control what's actually a probate asset. And the goal is, by the time you pass away, you don't have any probate assets. Those are all in other places that don't need anything to be probated.

That would be my recommendation. Maybe you're a person that just loves probate and loves to go down to the courthouse and visit your friends and the nice ladies in the clerk's office. And in that case, by all means, let's maximize the probating of your estate. But probate, you know, probate's slow.

Probate is a slow process. You're dealing with, you know, it doesn't matter how good the clerks are down at the courthouse. And they're fantastic. If you're listening, you're a clerk. We love you to death. We love you.

You're the best that there is. But wouldn't it be easier not to have to report, not for your executor, not to have to report everything that you own? It's a public record, right?

My grandma's probate file, I pulled it the other day from the 90s, just because I was down there. Just for fun. Just because it was there.

Just for fun. It's there. It's a public record and it's there forever. And if you get everything over into a trust, you make everything non-probate, then it's not.

You don't have to go through it. Well, now you're making me want to have an estate, so my grandkids will go back and pull my estate file and remember. Yeah. Do you remember grandpa's boat trailer? He forgot to put it in his trust.

He didn't put it in his trust, man. Those boat trailers, man. Boat trailers and like, oh, man, I was trying to think. I had a good example and it left me. But trailers in general never make it into the trust.

Except for when you're dealing with the law firm of Whitaker and Haynes. That's one of our questions. Trailer specialists. How many boat trailers you hold on to? How many trailers you got, big man? If you don't have at least two boat trailers, you're going to have a tough time getting in the door for a consultation. I tell you what, man, I got one boat trailer and every year I had to do something to it.

I got to put new tires on it this year. That's your mistake. That's your mistake, man, having nice things.

Nice things? Yeah. I don't know, man.

The other folks out there can probably. But your boat trailer is never ready for your boat when it comes to winter. Like, my boat's still in the water. I got to get it out.

Keep it in there, man. What's the worst that can happen? Oh, it gets dirty. It gets so dirty. You got to change the oil, you know? You got to do stuff. I don't know boats very well, man.

I don't know boats. All right. Here's a question. I don't like this question, but I'm going to read it. Yeah, that's the spirit. Do I really need an attorney to draft my will? Yeah, come on.

I mean, technically speaking, you know, technically speaking, not really. No, you don't. You do not have to have an attorney to probate your will in North Carolina. To draft your will. You asked draft. You didn't say probate.

Oh, what did I say? You said draft. To draft your will. I'm pretty sure you said draft. Let me look at my question. Do I really need an attorney to draft my will? You're right.

No, but we could ask both questions. You don't have to have an attorney to draft your will. There are statutes that allow you to draft what we call a holographic will, which is one that you've written yourself. Sometimes the statutes allow you to even do a verbal will, right? If you're on death's door, certain circumstances are met sometimes. So you don't have to have an attorney, but you probably want one.

Yeah. We spent this entire show talking about avoiding probate. I was in an estate. We were doing – somebody was trying to sell a house here recently.

So we were representing a buyer who wanted to purchase property. I went down and pulled an estate file and it was about 15 years old, handwritten will. We call that a holographic will. So a handwritten will. Nonsensical.

It made no sense. Anyway, this person had died with real property and the clerks couldn't even tell what she was trying to do with the real property. So it was basically treated like the will.

Well, we see that all the time with deeds too, man. You have folks who come in – I mean, I've seen this happen where we'll have somebody who comes in and they want us to prepare a deed for them. And the preceding deed in the chain of title is one of those self-help ones where somebody's just done it themselves. And I've had to tell people straight up, you don't even own this property, brother. This isn't yours. The deed that you put together isn't a deed. This is invalid.

I don't understand how the clerk let you record the register of deeds, but they did. But it doesn't matter. It means nothing.

Yeah. People have a tough time with that. And I am all for, God forbid, I don't want to pay anybody money when I don't have to pay someone money. But you also can't – you're talking about your most valuable assets. This deed example, you're talking about a house or a will example, you're talking about a house. Usually, your house is the most valuable asset you have. And even if you have a lot of assets, it's still one of the most valuable assets you have. And just to dial up a website and do a self-help deed hoping – a lot of times, they use legal terms that the state doesn't really use or they try to create remainder interest that the state doesn't honor or they leave out legal descriptions.

It's like playing Russian roulette, my brother. You don't have to have an attorney to do your will. I could come to your house and I could fix your septic tank for you, but you're going to have poop everywhere. I was going to use the dentist example. I could come to your house and pull your tooth out. Yeah, I couldn't say you're going to have poop everywhere though if I used that example. I guess I could have, but kind of dentist for you.

The answer to that question is you absolutely don't have to have an attorney to draft your will. But I would not advise it. Yeah. Attorneys wouldn't advise you to do that.

Yeah. Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. We are talking about wills and the importance of having them and again, a question and answer show for you today. If you have your own legal situation you're facing, need answers to those questions, 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. And you can always email your questions to the show, info at judicacounty.com. We'll answer those on a future program.

We're back to wrap it up right after this. Music Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're your hosts. And again, Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life. They're pricing attorneys here in North Carolina. And offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. And as always, if you're facing a legal situation, you've got questions and you need some answers, 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. We'll answer them on a future broadcast. We'll keep you anonymous though. We'll do the subject matter. Info at judicacounty.com.

That's info at judicacounty.com. Josh, Joe, take it away. I can't remember what we were talking about before the end of the… Duke LaRue. Is that what we were talking about?

We were talking about that at one point. Do you think… We were talking about Dennis and fixing septic things. That's a good business.

Both of those are good businesses. Especially if you do them together, right? I'll come over, I'll pull your tooth, and then I'll fix your backed-up septic tank. Like, man, no one's ever more desperate than you are when you're… Like, your tooth might hurt.

You might really need it, Dennis. But your septic system backs up. Those are both very similar. Like, yeah, because you've got a hurt tooth, man. That's terrible.

But if you've got that backed-up septic system too, man, those are both bad situations. Real quick. So who… In my mind when we were at break… This is what was happening in my mind at break. I was thinking about a battle of the bands that was the showbiz. Rockafire. Yeah. Was it Express or Explosion? I think it was Explosion.

Yeah, yeah. I like Explosion better anyway. Rockafire, Explosion versus… What was the name of the Chuck E. Cheese band? The Munch something another? The Munch mystery band? Hold on a second.

Munch is a make-believe band of losers. And then… What's the Muppets band? Mayhem. The Electric Mayhem.

Okay. Who wins? Who wins in a battle of the bands? I can tell you.

It's not even a contest. Muppets. Yeah, the Muppets.

Are you kidding me? No. The Muppets. That's genuinely what you believe? Yeah, I love the Muppets.

Okay. So you're telling me Billy Bob Broccoli, Duke LaRue and Fats Geronimo on the keys. I remember Fats Geronimo. How could you not? The electrocuted gorilla.

I mean, Animal on the Muppets could get up there and do it by himself and win. I mean, the drummer. Just absolutely crazy. Listen, man. Did you watch the show? Listen to this.

What? The Muppets? The Electric Mayhem.

They had like their own spell. No, but let me tell you this, man. Fats Geronimo is a silverback gorilla from the Abaddon Zoo. He is a parody of Fats Domino and Ray Charles. So you literally took the DNA of a silverback gorilla and you spliced it with Fats Domino and Ray Charles.

And he got this electrocuted gorilla. I like to go on the YouTube and find like, it's hard, like the further you go back, like the fifties and sometimes in the forties, you can find like the, uh, the live video. So Fats Domino has a lot of video out there and growing up, I had a Fats Domino best of CD.

Yeah. Fats Domino has got some good stuff. But he's fun. This Fats Geronimo. But Fats Domino, of course, was at a piano, but he is very, he's very fun to watch.

If you ever, if you're ever just on YouTube, you don't have anything better to do. So, so who are you trying to convince the Muppets man was better than that? They were better.

I've never seen these. I'm not really just seeing still images of these characters. It's not fair really because the Muppets are not animatronic. That's true.

So it's not really a super fair. Yeah, that's true, man. But I was just trying to think of others. We got it.

We got to have a separate category. Did the, did the Hair Bears have a band? The Hair Bears, the cartoon. The Hair Bears? Let's see.

Let's see. I don't think they were in a band. I can't remember what their story. It was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

The Hair Bears. Oh, it was Jabberjaw. Jabberjaw was in a band. Okay.

Okay. The Hair Bear Bunch. Were they a band?

No. They were just Scooby-Doo, basically. Scooby-Doo with an afro. That's what it looks like.

Well, all Hanna-Barbera cartoons were just Scooby-Doo with the character of Slytherin. Fair enough. Yeah.

Fair enough. But Jabberjaw was in a band. I can't remember the name of that band.

Well, guess what, brother? I can tell you what the name of it was. Jabberjaw band was, uh, Jabberjaw was a 15 foot amphibious great white shark.

Dear God, in real life, man, that's a terrifying concept. I think they made like a live action Jabberjaw. Yeah, that could have been, uh, I'd like to see Jabberjaws and it's like a mix and it's just a giant great white eating people on the shore.

That'd be pretty crazy. Well, they had a band. I'm looking for it.

Jabberjaw played Tabberine. It's just called... No, that's a, that's a different band. Hold on a second. Hold, please.

Hold, please. There's an emo band called Jabberjaw. It's a legitimate band. I don't want anything to do with that band. The Hanna-Barbera had like nine cartoons where they were crime fighting bands.

Okay. I think Jabberjaw was, I think Jabberjaw would have been the most famous of those. Josie and the Pussycats. Is that one? I think it is one.

That's gotta be more famous. I'd never heard of the Jabberjaw band. Hmm. I don't know. I think it's just Jabberjaw. It's not. I think it's just that that's the band's name. You don't think so? I think it was like Neptune Express.

Hey, if it wasn't, it should be. I got that stuck in my head. I don't know. The Neptunes.

The Neptunes. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm glad we figured that out. Me too. Me too. I'm glad we figured that out.

We're doing some, some hard research. What was the, the, uh, uh, Jim, that was one cartoon man, Jim. Okay. Okay.

Fair enough. That was a thing. You watch a lot of cartoons, Josh.

Yeah. You don't watch a lot of movies, but you sure have. I've seen a lot of cartoons, man. I've seen a lot of cartoons.

There's nothing wrong with that. In my day. Did the Simpsons have a band of any kind? I don't. Nah. If you don't know right off the top of your head. Do you remember the band that Homer, Homer was going to make?

No, I don't. It was an episode where they're going to make a band and, uh, they were going to name it the. Oh, it was the Homer Simpson experience featuring Lenny or I can't remember if it was Lenny or Carl, but it was good. Well, I feel like, I feel like we covered a lot of ground here at the end, man. I feel like we did. The show was really, the show was really not doing well until we, I think the show was killing it, man. The show was awesome. And then you went down some rabbit hole about animatronic bands. And then it just blobs into cartoon bands.

Good stuff. And this is Duke LaRue. That's going to be the name of my septic company, man. It's gotta be like Duke LaRue's explosive jamboree. Duke LaRue.

We'll blow it out for you. Chudica County radio, another edition in the books. Just a quick reminder, our hosts, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Office is located here in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and down in Moorhead City. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

And remember Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life. If you've got a question that you have that needs answers legally, you can always call the firm 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information, briefly what that call is about. If you have a question about animatronic bands, I'm sure they can answer it for you as well. But give them a call, 800-659-1186, again 800-659-1186. And you can also email the show and we'll answer these questions on a future broadcast. Info at judicacounty.com. That's info at judicacounty.com. Another edition of Judica County radio is in the books. For Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, I'm Morgan Patrick.

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