Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts and managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, are going to get in some legalese topics.
It could be, I don't know, I've heard possibly subject matter, private bars, and some gambling issues. That's all coming up today on Judica County Radio. Welcome in to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Your law firm for life offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate.
Each and every week it's always legalese. We also have some question and answer. If you've got a situation you're facing, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186. And you can email your questions to the show, info at judicacounty.com. We'll answer those on a future broadcast.
That's info at judicacounty.com. Well, gentlemen, it's good to see you. Good to have you on the show. Josh, welcome in. Joe, hey, how you doing? What's going on today? Fantastic. Ali Sheedy and uh, whoever played, uh, Ferris Bueller.
I'm sitting here. I was thinking about war games cause I tried to get one of my kids to watch it. I don't know. There was, they must've seen some online rumor about it getting remade or something. So they were asking me what war games was. And, and so I was kind of thinking about it cause I don't think I've seen war games since it came out.
What was that? Like 84? Like when did war games come out?
Yeah, it would have been, yeah, I was going to say early to mid eighties. Get your whole year off, man. You remember how advanced I'm sitting here? The reason I'm sitting in my office, I got three, I got three screens up in front of me, right? I got three computer screens and then I got like a TV with some financial information on it behind it.
And I was just thinking about like, uh, in war games, you know, it was like one box, small box computer and he was hacking into like mainframes and stuff. Using a phone line, you know, but yeah, yeah. But I got the cell phone here. I got a laptop, computer screens.
Like, uh, it's just crazy how much technology has changed. What would that be? 30 years? Was that 30, 40, 31, 40, 41, 40. You know, man, I'm not great at math and that's never, that's why I was never great. I could never be in the war games either, but I do have screens too, man. I got a lot of screens.
I don't have as many as you, but I got, I got some big ones, but you would think I was like launching nuclear missiles in here and really I'm just, uh, you know, drafting, drafting some, some complaints and answers and, uh, talking to you guys and reading the news, you know, but like, if this was 1984, this would be like the biggest set up you've ever seen. I remember when I came out in 1988 and it was about events 20 years earlier in 1968. That's crazy. I remember when I was watching that as a kid, I was like, man, that, that was a hundred years ago. Right. You know, whatever they were talking about, but it was 20 years. And so they said if they made wonder years today in 2024, they'd be going back to 2004, which I don't know. That just blew my mind. That's not that long ago, man. No, it's not.
That was the point. That's when I graduated high school, if it seems like yesterday. Yeah, I was just at a law school, uh, starry-eyed. I remember you, man.
You did have starry eyes, but, um, Hey, we're doing something new. You know, me and Joe, uh, we do this show, our law firm, Whitaker and Hamer sponsors this show. We do this show to talk to our listeners, to give you, uh, not give you legal advice, but to give you, uh, news, right?
Just information that you can use, uh, to plan, you know, see what you, see what you need to do with that. And we talk about, um, laws, right? We'll talk about new laws. We'll talk about changes in laws. We'll talk about court cases. And then we also do a lot of Q and a, where we take questions from listeners. Um, and we do that because we figure if our one listener has that question, then other listeners have that question.
And we can at least give you some basic information so you can make decisions, do what you need to do, protect yourself. Um, and so as part of that mission that we have, when we do this show, me and Joe made the decision to, to offer. Free consults, right? We've talked about how attorneys get paid.
A lot of attorneys charge for consults for most things. Um, and Joe, so as part of our show today, uh, we got kind of a little call to action here. That's right, man. We're doing, uh, some free consoles, man. And I love, I love sitting down with people so much. I almost, I'm almost willing to pay to sit down with you guys.
That's how much I care about it. But, uh, now for real, man, we're doing five. Is that what we said? We're going to do the first five.
All right. That's generous, man. That's a great value, right?
Like that's something that normally, you know, we would, would, uh, it's just a great value and it's, it's a great opportunity to get in and sit down with us and, uh, and, and talk through your needs. You know, I think I was going to say it's going to be a state planning, correct? It's a state planning console. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Morgan. The, the, uh, you know, the firm handles a lot of different areas of law today. We wanted to focus on estate planning. Cause everybody, everybody needs estate planning.
If you haven't done it, you need to do it. It's just one of those things. We talk about it all the time on the show, wheels, power of attorneys.
Um, you know, but yeah, so that's what we're offering today. The first five people and they have to call the show. Can't Google us and call the firm.
It won't work that way. You have to call the show and we'll reach back out to you. If you're one of the first five and get you on the schedule, zoom phone in person, free car. And the number to call and we'll know it's you is 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Call that number. And if you're one of the first five, you'll get that free estate planning consult. Again, 800-659-1186.
We'll give you that information throughout the program, but 800-659-1186. It's like winning the lottery, man. You don't even have to buy a ticket. You just got to dial a number on your phone, you know? So that's, that's the, the first five people. And again, we do that all, we do that statewide. You know, me and Joe were licensed in North Carolina. Our attorneys are all licensed in North Carolina and we've got offices. Morgan always tells you we've got offices all over the state of North Carolina. Um, and so that's, that's something that we were going to offer today.
Uh, because we, we do appreciate everybody takes time to listen to us. And like I said, it's, it's, it's worth your time to talk about estate planning. Um, so that's a, that's a free consult to talk to me, Joe, or one of our other attorneys here at North Carolina. Um, and talk about what, what you may be able to do to kind of protect yourself, keep your stuff out of, you know, we talk about that on the show a lot too. If you do your estate plan right, you don't have to have, when you pass away, you don't have to have a file opened up downtown.
Your business doesn't have to be a public record. You can keep things private. So that's, that's what we're going to, that's, that's this week.
That's our, that's what we're doing this week. In your business. Uh, and, and certainly if you've got an estate plan, uh, it'll be, it'll be in writing. So very, very important. Again, the number to call to grab one of the five, again, complimentary estate planning consult 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186. All right. We're in, we're in our prime, right? It's mid March and we are looking at all the things that are going on. So guys, what are we getting into today? Well, we've, we've got some good, we got some good question and answer.
Segments. So we're going to take a look at some listener questions and give you answers to those. You know, Joe, I was just reading an article. Um, I don't know how much people, I don't know how much people know about how bars operate in North Carolina. I don't know how much people know about the ABC commission, how you buy liquor in our state and beer and wine compared to other states or the laws that license bars. Like do people?
No, they don't. People don't know. I'm close personal friends with a bar. And I don't even know a whole lot about it. So yeah, I'm going to get, I'm going to be the, I will be the general public and say, we don't know a ton, man.
So I hope you can educate us on that. Well, the statute changed, right? And there was all the different kinds of bars. You could be a bar that serves food. You could be a, a private club in North Carolina. That was a, that was a big one where you could operate a bar and you could serve food as a private club, but you also didn't have to abide by all the same rules as restaurants, which I guess, depending on your take could be good or bad, right?
You. You, you, you still have to keep things clean, right? But you're not under the exact same requirements from the health department. Anyway, that law changed. And so there's a lot of private bars out there. You may eat, you may eat at a private club or a private bar occasionally, but that there are a lot of those folks are going to go out of business here because there's been some changes to that law.
WRAL had a good story on it. There's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of regulations as a, as a restaurant, any other restaurant, which sounds okay, I guess. But a lot of those, a lot of those establishments can't afford to make that change, that upgrade.
And they depend on that for their income. So you're going to see a lot of those probably close over the next 180 days. I just, I thought that was, that I thought it was a story that doesn't get a lot of traction. So I was just going to bring that up as it's one of those that, that people may not even realize is going to affect them until some of the places they like that they don't even realize are affected.
We'll close down. Yeah. Yeah. So that's just something that's a, that's a law that changed a while ago.
It's going into effect in a, what's it like 180 days in the next 180 days. So you'll see that. Uh, but that's, that's one that kind of flew under the radar. So I always feel like mentioning that to our folks out there who may, may own a bar, maybe going through that or may frequent a bar where they, where they get food. You see a lot of food trucks, right? A lot of food trucks at bars and things.
So whenever our listeners that are regulars at, uh, at the local bars. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, again, under the radar kind of law change. It's kind of like the gambling was kind of under the radar for a while when they made those changes. And of course that's all coming to fruition now. And we'll all be legally betting on March madness now.
March 11th. It's not like that day's marked on my calendar or anything, but yeah, when the North Carolina, when they, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people don't follow the North Carolina general assembly super close unless it's like a politically charged issue, but there's a lot of law. They get changed. Uh, every day we do a lot of business law at the firm. Uh, we, we, we, we keep up on this kind of thing. Cause we advise business owners that, Hey, this is a change that's coming, you know, be ready for it.
This is how the government's interpreting it. Um, but it's just one of those things we keep an eye on. Yeah.
And in Morehead city. And today we have five, uh, state planning consults that are complimentary. They're available to the first five callers at 800-659-1186.
You got any questions about estate planning? You need to have one folks, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. If you've got a question you'd like this show to tackle on a future broadcast, you can always email it to us info at judica county.com. That's info at judica county.com.
And it will be available on our website. It was the actor's name kind of got away from me. It's Matthew Broderick. He was in the original war games. Uh, Josh, before we go, do you remember the name of the computer that he hacked into and was playing the war games? You remember? I don't.
Whopper. W O P R W O P R. Anyway, we have more of Judica county radio coming up on the other side. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back into Judica county radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, your law firm for life. They're also practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices, conveniently located Raleigh Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and in Morehead city. And today our first five callers are going to get an estate planning consult, and it is complimentary.
That means leave the checkbook at home. If you've got any questions about estate planning, this is for you. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.
Again, leave your contact information and they will call you back. You'll get that free estate planning consult. If you've got a question you'd like us to tackle on a future program, you can always email the show info at judica county.com and Josh, Joe, I understand we are going to dive into estate planning. We're talking, since we're talking to folks about, uh, estate planning consults, Joe, when you sit down, Joe had a couple of estate planning consults today. Joe, when you sit down with folks, what's the first thing you asked them?
Knocked them out of the park. Um, yeah, man. So, you know, our process is a little bit different than some, some folks process and our process has evolved over time.
Right? So there was a time before, you know, we really honed in and refined how we do things that we used to sit down with folks kind of sight unseen. And start off that conversation with like, Hey, what are your goals? What are you looking for? And now the way our office handles this is, is we like to gather as much preliminary information about your assets, about your, your heirs, about who you want your fiduciaries to be. Meaning the folks that are going to manage your estate after you're gone. We try to get as much of that information as we can ahead of time so that we can come into your consult. What I like to ask folks is that same question in terms of what are your goals? Like what are, what are your goals?
What are you looking to do with this estate plan? And a lot of times folks may not know the answer to that question. You know, they just want to make it, they may say something as simple as I just want to make it easy on the people I'm leaving behind. So, but, but just getting a general sense of what they're looking to accomplish if they have anything specific they're looking to accomplish. And making those recommendations for like, well, this is, I've looked at your, I've looked at your situation, your assets, I've looked at what you have.
I've looked at the number of people you're leaving behind. And this is kind of what I would recommend that is best for your situation. Yeah. And, and knowing that stuff ahead of time really gives us the ability to, when we actually get to your console, you know, we, we were starting from an advice perspective, you know, we won't have all of your information, but we ask you about general assets and, and family members and, and kind of what your, what your thoughts are going in. And I think that helps get our client kind of honed in to what we're going to talk about. And of course we can review it ahead of time. And man, it saves a lot of, it saves a lot of time, which isn't the biggest concern, but what we know more about you when we finally get a chance to talk to you on the phone, zoom or in person, however best, best works for you. But there's so many things that we can, we can do so easily, right?
Yeah. And it's about, and, and, you know, we keep, I keep harping on process, man, but I think it's essential because, you know, you talk about time and it's not so much that we want to, you know, everybody's time is valuable. Your time's valuable, our time's valuable.
It's not so much that we want to save time. It's that we want to spend the time we do have talking about the things that matter, you know? And so we, we put a lot of time in and I'm actually very proud of the system that we've developed, but we put a ton of time in crafting this front end questionnaire. That's not only going to gather all of the information we need from you, but it's also going to inform you and, and give you information. That's going to go ahead and start making your brain work, start thinking about these things that we're going to need to think about and discuss in the console. So it's kind of a two part process. We want to, to prepare you to come into the console with an understanding of, of what you even might need to ask.
And, and, and I've found that since we've really honed in on this, this, this new way of doing things, man, it's really, it's taken the effectiveness, the efficiency, every aspect of that estate planning process, and just taken it to another level with our clients. Yeah, you know, I'm not a big fan sometimes of, uh, sometimes you go to the doctor and you have to, you make an appointment, you tell them what's wrong with you. Right. And then the nurse takes you in the back and says, Oh, what's going on? And you tell them, right. And then the doctor comes in and it's like, all right, well, what do we got going on today? And you have to, you have to tell them again.
Right. And so our system, uh, is, is a little different where, you know, usually when I go into a console, I already understand some things. I'm like, Hey, my name is Josh. I understand you got three kids. You're remarried. We've got a couple of houses that we're, we're worried about protecting.
You're in good health, right? I've already got that summary. And so I go right into some other things like Joe says, maybe the second level, right?
Second level thing is trying to give you advice and kind of think through some, some problems we may see that you may not see. You know, I see that a lot. We talk about a lot here, blended families, right? You know, a spouse that has two kids from a prior marriage, another spouse, new spouse has two kids from a prior marriage. They, they get together. We already know there's some problems there, uh, estate planning problems that we need to kind of be working on. And, and, and, you know, if somebody comes in with nine investment pieces of real property, we know we're going to be talking about some trust and some, you know, some things like that to minimize risk. And so we get to that second level really quick, which may not sound like a big deal, but time-wise, you know, it's a big deal and getting, getting things done.
Um, it's a big deal. We're not pulling teeth to get information from you on the front end. And you can give us all that information in your PJs, right?
It's all, it's all computers. Yeah. I like that.
That's how I like to get it. And you're, you could get, you could, you could theoretically give it to us sitting on the toilet on your phone, man. And you know, our forms are online friendly. Uh, you could sit at a computer and do it.
You could pull it right up on your cell phone and do it. Um, and we've just tried to, again, man, it's a stressful process having to think about your death and what's going to happen to all of your things after you die. So the, the, all of the stress that we can take out of that process to make it as easy as humanly possible from, you know, the intake process to our forms, to the flexible consult options, you know, like we'll, like you said, Josh, we'll sit down with you in person. We will gladly have a phone consultation with you.
We'll do a zoom consultation with you. There's no limit to the, the amount of ways that we will try to accommodate you to make a very stressful process as stress free and streamlined as it can possibly be. I've got a question for you guys, and I've heard this, uh, and again, uh, you guys, the attorneys, but when I hear about estate planning and I hear about all the different accounts that people are going to have, and they're going to bring to the table, and all of these different accounts may have different beneficiaries designated, uh, within that account, is it true that a beneficiary on an account that trumps anything that a will. So if you're updating your will, that's one thing you really need to update your beneficiaries, because if there's an account out there with somebody who's like, let's just say you're, you're married, you get divorced, you leave your ex-wife's name as a beneficiary on a certain account, you get into the will process, you pass away, and all of a sudden the beneficiary is going to trump anything that's in the will.
Is that right? It's a complicated question, but essentially that's correct. So if you have any kind of, if you've got a designated beneficiary on an account or whatever it may be, say it's a real property, that is going to be what we would call a non-probate asset, and it's going to pass directly to that beneficiary. So all of the careful estate planning in the absence of making a change to that beneficiary is going to potentially be for nothing. So it is correct in the sense that if you have a designated survivor beneficiary on an account, and you don't deal with that appropriately, and you draft this fancy will, it's not going to matter at the end of the day.
We look at the whole picture. Yeah, I think a lot of people just forget about it. I mean, it's, you know, over the course of your life, you have so many different beneficiaries on so many different accounts, and you can kind of go through the weeds. So the importance of, you know, go through the cracks, I should say. So the importance of having an estate plan, working with professionals where you're going to talk about this particular aspect of it. Have you updated your beneficiaries on your accounts so you don't have any trip-ups in the end? One of the good things about actually sitting down and doing an estate plan and getting everything in order, getting everything you need drafted, and having an estate plan, like once you do it, and it's there, maintaining it is not terrible, right? If you get a new asset, you get a new account, you get new real property, you kind of deal with it as it comes in real time. And so once you've done it, maintaining it is not bad.
So some people out there are so busy and they have so many things going on and so many different businesses and so many different assets. Maintaining an estate plan can be a challenge, but that's the good thing about it. Once you do it, even though things will change, beneficiaries will move or pass away, assets will come in and out, but maintenance is not bad.
Yeah, it's getting the start, man. And the maintenance piece, what we're going to do, speaking from our experience and the experience we're going to provide you as a client is we're going to set you up with the tools and the information you need to succeed, right? So we're going to proactively have you on the lookout for situations that may require you to come back and revisit your estate plan with us, and we're going to make that process streamlined and easy for you as well. So it's really you come in, you do your estate plan with us, and it's kind of a lifetime investment, right? Because you're going to get the benefit for the remainder of your life, and we're going to make it as easy as possible if you ever need to come back in and do any kind of updates or supplements to it. Judica County Radio, we are talking about estate planning. Listen, we have five consults and they are complimentary.
That means leave the checkbook at home. They're available right now. All you've got to do is call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Say you want one of the consults?
It will be, again, complimentary. Again, that is 800-659-1186. 800-659-1186. When we return on Judica County Radio, it's time for question and answer.
Judica County Radio, your hosts, 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-Varina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. And if you are facing a legal situation, have a legal question, you can always call the firm and get some answers. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. 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 judicacounty.com. We're dialing it in on wills 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 Showbiz Pizza? Rock Fire, something, something, something. It was like the Express or?
Yeah, let's call it that. Rock Fire Express. What was the Chuck E. Cheese band called? It's funny you mentioned 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. The 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, Joe. 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. Well, Munch's was like a scary looking grimace guy. Yeah, he looks just like grimace. Yeah. 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 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 felt 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 $10,000 worth of showbiz tokens playing that four player Ninja Turtle game. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
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'll get a turn later, Mikey. All right, 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 have to 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 my, 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.
It's 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 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 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, 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, 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 want to interrupt your thought because 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 to 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 estate, they have to report to the clerk, right?
So in this instance, nothing was in trust. Your will is, is, uh, 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 estate closed out.
And I'm sure the kids you disinherited and left the buck, isn't going to be super easy to deal with 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 when your will, I mean, it can delegate, it can technically be a sentence. You know, I'm going to disinherit kid number blank or kid, whoever you don't even love them enough to give them the name.
And, and, but usually we, we add language. So there's, you know, the, the, 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 it in a carefully drafted manner, the more unassailable the will will be. Sure. Yeah. I like that word.
That's kind of like unfettered. Yeah. I like that word. We're really using our vocab. We're keeping them coming. The, the, you know, we've seen people like, you may love your, your, I'm going to use this example because this came up about too long ago, but you may love your daughter, but your daughter may marry.
I do. Your daughter may marry someone you, 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 too. You can leave your daughter, uh, things or, 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 ways to exclude people. Uh, but yeah, I don't like the, I don't like, you definitely don't have to leave them 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. Uh, the, uh, but you can, you can do that and you don't have to leave them a dollar. You just really a detail, detail oriented. Cause you're, you're, you know, those, those kinds 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. Yeah, those aren't usually the nice, the nice, reasonable kids. 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 Moorhead 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 and 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 Moorhead 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. 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 and 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 are 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.
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 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.
With 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. Yeah, 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.
And remember you. Yeah. Do you remember grandpa's boat trailer? He forgot to put it in his trust.
Yeah, 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.
They never get it. For when you're dealing with the law firm of Whittaker and Haymarket. 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 have 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. 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? It gets dirty. It gets so dirty. You got to change the oil. 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. So I was in it. 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. If you're on death's door, certain circumstances are met. 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. 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, like, you don't even own this property, brother.
This isn't yours. Like the deed that you put together isn't a deed. Like this is invalid.
Like, I don't understand how the clerk lets you record the register of deeds, but they did. But it doesn't matter. Like 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 know, you're talking about, you know, 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 like dial up a website and do a self-help deed, hoping a lot of times they use legal terms that this state doesn't really use, or they try to create remainder interests that this state doesn't honor, or they leave out legal descriptions. It's like playing Russian roulette, my brother, like you don't have to have an attorney to do your will. Like 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 can come to your house and pull your tooth out. 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. 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.
Welcome back. Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, your host for this program. Remember, Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life, offices conveniently located for you, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. And on the program this week, we have consults, estate planning consults, five of them.
They are complimentary. You can call at any time and grab one, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Josh and Joe, just fresh off Q&A. Now we're going to wrap this baby up. You know, earlier in the show, we were talking about Wonder Years, right? We were talking about Wonder Years and how Wonder Years is.
Wonder Years was filmed in 1988, took place in 1968. If we did it today in 2024, it'd be about 2004. And what happened in 2004? I can't think of anything that was like important that happened in 2004.
Really? I bring that up. You guys may find something that happened in 2004 that was important. But that seems like a long time ago, right?
When we watched the Wonder Years as kids. That's a pretty long time ago, man. It seemed like, okay, well, the firm this year is the firm's 20th year. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say, are we partying for that?
I would say a milestone event for 2004 would be the founding of Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. I'm just going to say that. I'm going to stretch it out there. So the law firm is basically, it's basically Wonder Years. I wasn't thinking about that going in, but that's basically what it is.
I like that, man. We've been around that long now. All of our attorneys have different levels. I've been practicing longer than 20 years. So we all have different levels of experience that we bring to the table. But the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer is 20 years old this year, 2024.
So Wonder Years style. And we do, we cover the entire state of North Carolina, so if you have a question, no matter where you're at, we have an office that's close to you or can talk to you by phone or Zoom. And like Morgan said, this episode, we are doing the five free consults for state planning. Five free consults, man. What a deal for five lucky people, man.
Five blessed individuals. If you want to talk to me or you want to talk to Joe or you want to talk to someone else at the firm, we'll be here for you. And like I said, a lot of our clients, we represent them kind of across the board. We are, you know, can help them, you know, if you get a traffic ticket, we got that person. You get in a car accident, we have that person. We have got that attorney on the payroll. We've got business attorneys on the payroll, state admin attorneys, family law attorneys, divorce, separation, child custody.
So a lot of different areas of law that we can help, you know, help you with across the state. I'm looking at 2004 if we were going to do our Wonder Years version. Of course, we would go back to the formation of Whitaker and Hamer, but also the Boston Red Sox in their slide and win the World Series. First time since 1918 that the Bo Sox win their World Series. So that was a big event. And also Lance Armstrong, unprecedented sixth consecutive Tour de France. Of course, now we we know history tells us that we don't always look at Lance Armstrong in the same way. But again, that that that also occurred, his sixth consecutive Tour de France.
He seemed almost inhuman. And now we know why Facebook got its start in 2004. Man, I know you're a big Facebook guy.
Joshua, you like to like things and poke people. That's real big on your list. That was a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah.
So that's a thing. A whole lot, though, man. It was I think it was the law firm. That's the big thing that happened. That is true. That was a major event. That was 2004 in a nutshell. The Boston Red Sox won and Whitaker got its start, man. Yeah. Yeah. McCullers and Whitaker at the time.
It was McCullers and Whitaker. Yeah. It's a good place, man. I like it here.
I'd say I like it here. We're going to party, right? And invite everybody that listens to the show to the party. Right. We do.
We do. We need to have we need to have a sit down with with clients and everybody and kind of celebrate. Everybody comes and we just do one mass estate planning console during the party. I think that's what it is. And everybody, everybody talk at once.
See how we see if we can handle it. Well, once again, Judica County Radio, we have another edition in the books. And today, our first five callers are going to get that free consult for estate planning. All you've got to do is call the number 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.
And if you've got questions you'd like answered on a future program, please email us. Info at Judica County dot com. That's info at Judica County dot com. Another edition of Judica County Radio is in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You're managing partners Whitaker and Hamer law firm.
I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll see 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 the show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at J.M.W. at M.W.H. Law Lawyer.
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