Top Legal issues people are Facing and What it Costs

Coming up on Judica County Radio hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. We will get into ARAG legal issues, the top legal issues that people are facing and also the costs behind the legal proceedings. It's an interesting conversation.

You don't want to go anywhere. Again, Judica County Radio starts right now. Welcome in to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They've got offices almost everywhere.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. Remember Whitaker and Hamer, they want to be your law firm for life. And Josh and Joe are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Each and every week we hit some legal topics. We have some Q&A.

You're going to have questions, possibly a lot of questions. We're going to be talking briefly about a legal situation you're facing. 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 Josh and Joe, I bring you in. And before we jump into what's been happening, we're going to offer up some free spots. These are consults.

Explain what's going to happen if they're fortunate enough to grab one of these. Well, Morgan, we did this a couple of weeks ago and I liked it. We got a lot of calls and we got a chance to set up some consults with listeners and get them into the estate planning frame of mind.

And I like that. And so I figured we'd do that one more time. I figured we're here at the top of the show and we're going to offer five free estate planning consults with one of our estate planning attorneys. And as a reminder, we're only practicing in North Carolina. Like Morgan says, we have offices across the state of North Carolina. We can do these consults in person. We can do them by Zoom. We can do them by phone.

Whatever works for you. But we got a lot of calls and we went ahead and tried to take everybody who called last week. We had some folks who couldn't get scheduled.

So I think we got the most everybody, but we couldn't get everybody. So we're saying the first five to call in. But call in anyway, even if you don't think you're one of the first five, because we still might be able to get you in.

Yeah, there's a waiting list, right? We've got the velvet ropes out. We get five in and then they can stack up at the velvet rope area. And then if one of the five exits or doesn't show up, we let somebody else in.

Yeah, yeah. So we don't, you know, we're not charging. It's a free consult. There's no obligation. We're going to meet with you, get the information that we would normally get from a client who's coming to us to possibly do an estate plan and talk to you about the documents you'll need and go over any questions that you have. And so we enjoyed that.

I think we want to do that again. So yeah, don't email us to do this. Don't call in the law firm's main number. You need to call into the show's number.

And Morgan, I know you have that. Yeah, the 800 number is, again, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Again, just say, hey, I want one of those free consults, again, estate planning, and you'll grab one.

800-659-1186. All right, so the ARAG legal issues top 10. Again, this obviously grabbed your attention. You wanted to discuss it today. And we're going to get there. We're going to get there.

But first, I think we have, me and Joseph were talking earlier, and we had a more pressing question. And that was, I think we're going to poll us here. What is your favorite, or your more favorite, I assume they're both favorites, what is your favorite Space Jam movie? The first Space Jam or the second Space Jam? The Michael Jordan Space Jam or the LeBron James Space Jam? No, hands down. In my opinion, first.

It's not a very easy question to answer, man. I don't think it is. I don't think it is. Really? No, really. I'm kind of anti-LeBron, so I guess I watched the trailer on the second one.

But Jordan's Jordan. Anyway, the first one, I'm kind of an older guy. I like the first one.

You know- That's what you're saying too, just- You know, you know, yeah, probably, man. If for nothing else in the sake of nostalgia, like I sent you the song, the, you know, one of the main, the soundtrack for that, first of all. Tell me one song off of the soundtrack for Space Jam 2.

I couldn't do it. The Space Jam 1 soundtrack is completely iconic, man. You understand how good it was?

Quad City DJs. You had R. Kelly. You had I Believe I Can Fly. Oh, that's good. Oh, yeah, that was big time.

That was big time. Even the movie was terrible. I Believe I Can Fly. Yeah, off of the strength of the soundtrack alone, I think it edges it out, man. I don't, you know, I don't like Michael Jordan as much as the next guy, I guess. I don't either. I'm not a huge fan.

I'm not a huge fan. And, but I did like, I did like Larry Bird being in there. I did like Larry Johnson being in there. Bill Murray, right? Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley. And John Bradley, Muggsy Bogges.

I think you're answering your own question here, man. And I would have until, until a few weeks ago, I think I would have told you the first Space Jam is my favorite, but I tell you what, I think I like the second Space Jam because I don't like LeBron James either, but I didn't like Michael Jordan, so that's kind of even, right? But it cancels each other out. The second Space Jam came out during COVID when you couldn't go to the movie theaters. And so we were streaming it at the house and my little, two of my, I got three boys, but two of my smaller boys made like tickets and invited the family over like it was a movie in there. So I have that nice memory of Space Jam 2, but also they had more cartoon characters. They had more of the old school cartoon characters. I probably liked the concept better. I probably liked the concept better. But if you're, if your kids were alive during Space Jam 1, man, they would have had the, the, the tape version of the soundtrack and it had been blaring it and their little portable boom box all day.

And you have those types of beautiful nostalgic memories as well, man. I, uh, I did not, I did not think today when that question came up, I would go with Space Jam 2, but I'm going with the, is it, what's the official name? It's just called Space Jam. Yeah. They're probably Space Jam.

Space Jam. Yeah. Yeah, there's probably some little phrase after the second one, the return of whatever.

I don't know. It's a new legacy. A new legacy. I wonder if we'll ever see like remakes to the extent that we saw it, like in the 2000s, like when every like Blues Brothers 2000.

We will, man. Cause there's no, there's, we're already, there's not a lot of original ideas out there, man. So it's all coming. But at the turn of the full circle again, at the turn of the millennium, everybody did a such and such 2000 version. And we won't, we won't get that again until what?

3000. I know we won't get another, we won't get another soundtrack as good as the original Space Jam soundtrack for a very long time. Are you looking at it? Of course I'm looking at it, man.

Are you looking at it? Honestly, I might just put it on in the background and not even listen to you guys this entire time. It's really good. Okay.

All right. I didn't know if you had any other songs. Yeah, it's got a lot of every song on it.

There's very few songs that are not just certified bangers. Look, the first thing, if you Google it is why is the Space Jam soundtrack so good? Fantastic. What?

Fly like an eagle? Well, you know what? Yeah, but that, that was, I guess that was on the soundtrack, wasn't it? Come on. It wasn't written for the soundtrack.

But it was on the soundtrack. Oh my God. Every song on here. Jeez, man. Jeez. Everybody get up, it's time to slam down. We got a real jam going down. Welcome to the Space Jam. Here's your chance, do your dance at the Space Jam.

All right. Let that be the whole show. Literally. Just play that song the whole show. Ratings through the roof. Everyone, no one would even have legal problems anymore, man. Because they'd hear the song, Peace on Earth. That should have been the state of the union, man. They should have just blared that.

That would be a lot of people texting. Hey man, you got to listen to this new station. It's all Space Jam. All right.

Now that we've figured that out, I guess Space Jam original one, two to one. But all right, so ARAG. So you might not know this, there's legal insurance, right? There's a lot of insurers just like Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Health Care, or medical insurers. There's a lot of insurance companies that provide legal insurance. And a lot of folks get that as a benefit through their employer. ARAG is a legal insurance company.

Some people call it ARAG, some people call it AROG. But ARAG is a legal insurance company and they have issued a top 10 list that I found fascinating and figured we would talk about. You know, over at Whitaker and Hamer, our big slogan here is your law firm for life. And the way we're set up with our attorneys is that we can help you with any issue a normal person encounters during their life, good and bad, right?

And if for some reason we can't help you, we can get someone involved that can. But this is ARAG's, ARAG's top 10 legal issues the average person faces in their lifetime. Top 10 legal needs for an average person and the average cost.

And this is a national call, so some of them are accurate for our area. But I wanted to kind of go through that, kind of have some talking points. So, you know, Joe, what do you think?

Well, Joe, you've seen the list. Morgan, what do you think would be number one, the number one legal need for an average person? Just by the rate of divorce, I'm going to say family law, and it would have something to do with divorce. That's coming up. And that's not number one.

That would be my guess. Number one, the number one legal issue that most people will have to face. They've just got wills here. Got it.

Right. So that ties in pretty good to our little first five callers. And then maybe some callers after the first five get the opportunity to have a free consultation with one of our attorneys regarding wills, regarding estate planning. And so this list, they say wills is the number one average legal need. They say a simple will takes an attorney about four hours normally, four hours of attorney work to consult with you, draft, get everything signed. So it's like a four hour process.

And the average cost of attorney's fees, according to this, the national average for a simple will, $1,375. Well, I think we've got to go back to the drawing board and reassess our fees here, brother. I think we're giving our clients a bargain. Right. Right.

That's a national average. So it'll be more expensive in some places, less expensive in others. We rarely ever just prepare a will. We can and we've been asked to and we will if that's the request. But usually we're putting your will together with a trust, with some power of attorneys, with things like that. So it's that's what that's what we call it. We say estate planning and not just wills, because estate planning is more than just a will or can be.

You know, so that I thought that I thought that was interesting. One thousand three seventy five, four hours of attorney time for a simple will. But that is that is the one it's like that's like the one thing everybody's going to have to deal with at some time. You will have you need a will. Right.

You need to plan for your state. You'll have family members pass away and have to deal with the will have to deal with the state administration. And you're going to die, too. So we're like every single person listening to this at some point. Yeah. You're going down. Your ticket will be punched.

Yes. We have a we have an ad we we run sometimes and it's of these calming waves and it's got these words right flashing across the street. So it's got these calming waves, ocean waves, and it's got this calming music. And then it says it tells you that everybody's going to die. Right.

No matter what, one hundred percent of you are going to die. Feel good. I like it. Take me to the ocean when I'm fully intact.

Just like I just like I am and just drop me in deep. All right. Well, we are up against the break. We're jamming. And we are going to be back on the other side. We'll talk more about the A.R.A.G. legal issues top 10. And number one is, of course, what we're going to offer today. And that is the will.

Again, it is about estate planning. We have five spots on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer. And you can call at any time during the show. These are complimentary. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And again, if you want to throw a question at us for a future program, you can always do that. Info at Judica County dot com. Again, we have Judica County radio coming up on the other side.

Again, we'll hit that top 10 legal issues and what the costs are. And we've already hit wills. We've got nine more to go. That's coming up.

We'll be right back. Welcome back in to Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, offices located all over the state.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City. Remember Whitaker and Hamer law firm, your law firm for life. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We are talking about the A.R.A.G. legal issues that are out there. The top 10. We've talked about the first one.

Will will probably kind of revisit that just a little bit. But Josh and Joe, I mean, top 10 plus these are legal issues people are facing and the cost behind them. And again, we're going with the national average. And I believe the will was just under fourteen hundred dollars across the country. Thirteen and some change.

But again, just so you have an idea of some of the legal issues you could be facing and the costs behind them. But what's up next? All right. So again, A.R.A.G., a legal insurance company, they are the their top 10 legal issues that their average client deals with. Number one was wills.

Number two, Morgan, this was your guess. This was divorce. And specifically, they're they're actually just they're just putting in divorce, uncontested divorce. Divorce kind of comes under the family law banner. And we have several attorneys that practice family law here at the firm. But that could be you know, that's where you talk about separation, alimony, equitable distribution.

Yes. Thank you. Just have some distribution.

I'm here for you. Child custody, you know, child support, all these things kind of fall under this family law header. Divorce uncontested. I guess that is the most common nationwide.

And so uncontested divorce. The average cost on the national level is two thousand seven hundred forty four dollars. Seems and it it it runs much less. It's going to seem steep.

A lot of these seem steep. Yeah. A true uncontested divorce in North Carolina is much, much cheaper than that normally. But a true uncontested divorce is you've taken care of all your issues. You don't need a separation agreement from the attorney.

An uncontested divorce is literally just getting a divorce granted after you've been separated for one year. So uncontested divorce as the number two, according to the age list of top 10 legal issues their clients face. Divorce is number two.

You might want to guess on number three. Just seeing the list. I really guess Morgan's the only one. Yes. Yeah, I can't.

I can't. I'm going to say track traffic traffic by traffic is the number three. You're a soothsayer, Morgan.

Minor, minor, minor. I thought that would be number one. Well, Wills makes sense to be number one.

It makes a lot of sense to after a divorce came up, not number one. I'm like, well, it's probably traffic because we're all dealing with traffic at some point. Everybody's going to die, but not everybody's going to get a traffic ticket, you know, and not everybody's going to get divorced.

You know, so a lot of people are going to get divorced. So traffic traffic citations, minor offenses, speeding registration. You know, we're not talking about felonies or DUIs, but minor traffic offenses usually take about three hours of attorney's time to resolve.

According to this list and the average cost, a thousand dollars, a thousand and twenty nine dollars. I feel like some of these are a little bit inflated, brother. Well, a speeding ticket, depending on how fast you're going, should come in under that in North Carolina.

Eight hundred miles an hour to break the sound barrier, maybe. So that is that is that is number three. That is number three. We obviously have attorneys here at the firm handle trafficking criminals. So we we do get that call quite a bit kind of across the state. And that's very low locality specific.

If you get a speeding ticket in Wake versus a speeding ticket in Mecklenburg versus a speeding ticket in Guilford County, all these counties kind of have, you know, there's a statutory framework, but they all have their different things that they do and how DA's handle certain things. But anyway, number three was traffic. I don't know. You want to guess on number four while we're guessing? Are you tired of guessing? No, I'll guess somewhere somewhere in the real estate area. Yeah.

Number four is the sale or purchase of a home, man. Morgan's on fire. And I promise you, I don't have it up here.

I have no I have no idea. I'm just so I'm I'm pretty much three for four. I feel pretty good. But I know I'm going to need some help.

I'm not I'm not going to run out of awesome help on these others. Yeah, pretty much. We we you know, here at the firm, the firm has done literally I don't think people believe me when I say this, but the firm has done tens of thousands of real estate and transactions, real estate closings over the years. We have a little ticker on our website and we updated every year. And I think the last time I saw it get updated, we were at sixty six thousand real estate transactions over our 20 years.

Wow. So we've we've seen about all there is to see with a real estate transaction here. This list, it's number four, number one average hours, average hours for attorneys to resolve. This has six hours and the cost. They have two thousand fifty eight dollars. The average cost nationwide for the sale purchases of a home. Two thousand fifty dollars.

Again, it runs a little on the cheaper side. I was going to say, Joe, how does that compare to with what we have in different states are different, right? And so you have some you have some states that would that are title states and some states that are attorney states. So they could be looking at states where title insurance is a part of that equation. And if you add in title insurance, you're probably getting close to that here in North Carolina.

But if we're talking strictly attorneys fees, you're usually going to be anywhere from nine fifty to fourteen hundred dollars, somewhere in that range. So it's not terribly far off, but it's still a little higher than it is in this area, I'd say. And I'm not going to make you guess this next one, this next one, number five trusts. Right. So we talked our number one on this list was Wills. And we talked about how Wills we kind of have it under the estate planning header at our firm. Trust is also under that that header.

But here it's separated out. So a trust, the most common is a revocable trust average attorney hours to resolve five at a cost of one thousand seven fifteen. And so trusts are a good tool. They're a good estate planning tool.

They do they do a lot for folks. It's good asset protection device. We we talked to a lot of people about trust and fees can fees can range. It really depends on how complicated you can make trust very, very complex. They can be very, very simple, just like a will. Will can be very, very simple. Everything to Josh or they can be very, very complicated. And you can put limitations on beneficiaries when they inherit what they can do with it. So you can get us controlling, really dial it down or are simple.

So fees can fees can range. But on the ARG legal insurance top 10 legal issues list, trust come in at number five. We got five. Oh, my God.

We do. But this but this is a good opportunity to remind our listeners that you get a chance to get a consult complimentary. If you've got any questions about Will's estate planning, you can call.

Grab one of these appointments right now. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly with calls about and obviously just say, hey, I want one of the consults and you will grab one again.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. And again, if you've got any questions of your own, you'd like to hear the show tackle at some point in the future. You can send those questions to us.

Info at Judica County dot com. OK, so we're through five. Will number one divorce family law. Number two, traffic three looks like home real estate closings, that kind of thing.

Number four and then trust at number five. We have five to go. Nonviolent misdemeanor.

Is that in there anywhere? Now you got something you got to tell us, Morgan. No, no, no. I was just I was just taking on taking taking a wild guess. Taking a wild guess. So we'll we'll we'll go ahead and take this chance to field some some listener questions in the upcoming segments. And then we'll get back together here in a segment or two and finish out this list. All right. That sounds good.

All right. Here's the number again. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. We have five consults. Again, it's about estate planning. If you've got any questions there, you can certainly grab one.

They are complementary. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. We'll return with more Judica County radio and we've got question and answer on the other side. Welcome back into Judica County radio.

Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're attorneys. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. And again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, offices located conveniently for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Each and every week the attorneys go back and forth on legal topics.

So we are hitting question and answer on real estate today. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact information briefly with the calls about an attorney will be in touch with you. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six or email your questions to the show will answer it on a future broadcast. It's info at Judica County dot com.

That's info at Judica County dot com. Again, Q&A, real estate, the focus. Josh. Yeah. Yeah. We had some we had we had a real estate question before the break, but we're going to we're going to move into something else.

We might come back to real estate. But this next one, this guy, this guy asking this question, I'm trying to boil it down because it's like a paragraph. But basically, this guy was in a car accident.

Right. He was in a car accident. The parties couldn't settle. He was not at fault. He was injured significantly or severely. And they ended up going to trial.

Right. Because that's what happens. You're in an accident. Sometimes you try to meet, you know, there's a mediation and there's a whole process to try to settle a personal injury claim. A lot of times they won't settle until you have to prepare for and go to trial. So this one went to trial. I got one, a judgment. It doesn't have an amount here. I must say it was a million bucks.

And he's basically asking now what? So he won. He won the trial. The insurance company was on the hook for a small amount. Let's say really small, let's say thirty thousand dollars. He gets a judgment against the driver that hit him for a million dollars. That driver has insurance, but not enough to cover it. So that insurance company just turns over what they owe.

And his question is now what? And so basically this could be any situation where you have a judgment against somebody. It's nice when there's insurance there to cover it. A lot of times that's what personal injury attorneys are looking for. They're looking for insurance coverage. So sometimes you sue people and they're what we call judgment proof, meaning you can get a fifty million dollar judgment against a defendant, but that defendant may be judgment proof.

What does that mean, Joe? What does it mean when somebody is judgment proof? So, yeah, basically if you're judgment proof, it just means that there's nothing for you own, nothing that a judgment could attach to. Right. So you don't have real property that a lien could be placed on. You don't have, there's just no way for you to realize any value from this judgment. So you could have an infinite, a ten billion dollar judgment against somebody, but it's only as good and as valuable as the person that the judgment is against.

Yeah. This, you know, when we have folks who move, you know, me and Joe, it's a good time to remind you that we're only licensed to practice in North Carolina. So we're always talking about North Carolina law. But when people move here from other states like Florida and Texas and New York, they ask me questions at closing about what do they, what do they need to do to set this up as a homestead? They ask about homestead exceptions. And in some states you can exempt your residence from a judgment. That's what that's what a homestead exception here in North Carolina.

You don't really have a homestead exception. You have statutes that reserve a certain amount of equity in your home, a certain amount of equity in a vehicle, certain personal effects. So the statutes automatically protect some of your more basic property from the execution of a judgment protected in a bankruptcy, that kind of thing. And so when we go out to serve our million dollar judgment on this defendant, he's got to have something in he's got to own something in excess of what's protected by statute. And a lot of people don't own anything in excess of what's protected by statute. You know, if you have an extra if you have a super fancy car, a lot of the equity in that car, if you have any is not going to be protected. If you have a big house, you know, only a certain amount of equity is protected. And so this lien, this judgment lien can attach to everything you own that's not protected by the North Carolina.

It's the exemptions, exemption statute. So that's what judgment proof means. Like I can try to collect on this judgment and the sheriff will go out there, not be able to find anything to sell.

Not you know, you can use a judgment to foreclose on real property, but there has to be real property that's not exempt for you to be able to do that. And so there's a lot of protections against a debtor to a certain extent. And so a lot of times personal injury attorneys will look at that. They'll say, OK, this is all the insurance that's available.

But we know these folks own this or they own that. But that is that's what's next. And then the other thing that could be next is it could be appealed.

Right. You know, if you if you go to Superior Court in Wake County and you lose, you might have an appealable issue and you can go to the North Carolina Court of Appeals if you have an appealable issue. So that's the other thing that could happen.

You either have to go and start collecting this judgment or in a certain amount of time, the defendant can appeal it to the court of appeals. I think that answers this guy's question. What happens now? Yeah, you're welcome, guy. That's a good answer, man. Well, I got to I got to I lost my line in my next question. So you were in but you were in the zone on that one, man. Like if you never answered another question like that's your. I feel like a slam dunk. I feel like I walk off for a walk off question.

Yeah, it's a walk off. We should do. I mean, we should do that more, man.

Get better and better at answering the same question every week, man. All right. About I'm about to my next question here. All right.

Well, I'll do this. You're listening to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer. And again, offices conveniently located for you.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and Moorhead City and their their motto. Your law firm for life, Whitaker and Hamer. If you've got a legal situation that you're facing, look, we get it.

It can be frustrating. You can get answers to your questions by calling Whitaker and Hamer 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact info briefly what the call's about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. We are in the middle of question and answer doing some real estate, doing a car accident question there. What's up next, Josh? I got the next question I have. I'm going to bounce back to real estate because the next question is a private road question. And we just talked about an easement. Usually easements. Another word for those in the in the vernacular is a private road. Right. An access easement.

And so here we've got someone who who has access. That's not the issue. So they've gotten over that issue. They have access to a main road versus a private road. But their question is maintenance. And so they're basically asking, hey, we purchased a home, several homes in the cul-de-sac share a private road.

There is no maintenance agreement. How do we go about maintaining the private road? And so that actually comes up quite a bit. Joe, you probably see that a lot. Yeah, I see it a good amount, man.

A good amount. And it's it's one of those things. And, you know, kind of to piggyback on that private road maintenance agreement issue. You've also got a lot of people don't understand that when when a new subdivision is developed around these parts, the roads aren't automatically made public.

Right. Like you're you're going to the plat of the subdivision is going to be the dedication of those roads to become public. But for them to be accepted, there's various things that have to happen. And there are standards that must be met for the NC DOT or whatever municipality is going to be maintaining these roads to accept them. So there's also going to be a component in those situations where a road is going to ultimately be public.

But it's the same concept. You need an agreement in place dictating how the maintenance of that that road is going to take place. So you're going to set forth who's responsible for it, whether it's an individual, whether it's a developer, whether it's a group of people.

And the more firmly and the more, you know, the more well spelled out you can talk about the obligations of each person and what they're going to do and what they're going to owe and what the maintenance obligation is going to be, the better. Yeah, a lot of these when I think about private maintenance, private road, in my mind, I'm thinking about a country road that comes off like, you know, a highway like off Highway 401 and not a not a planned subdivision, kind of like family land. It's been sold over the years. And so it wasn't created with a purpose of other people coming in. And so you end up with a situation where you might have access, which is what a closing attorney is concerned about. They want to make sure you have access if you go buy this property.

But the closing attorney is not very concerned about maintenance. But when that comes up, you know, everybody does have an obligation for for maintenance. But how are you going to enforce it?

How are you going to get everybody to chip in? And this is a big problem. You know, we have some clients up in the mountains and this is always a big problem in the mountains because a lot of those mountain roads see some pretty bad weather and they have to be some of those mountain roads are scary. Those gravel mountain roads.

Yeah, man, they're scary, dude. They're scared to drive on. There's bears and they have to be maintained and they have to be maintained. And that can be kind of costly. And so most most homeowners get together and figure it out. There's always one homeowner who doesn't want to doesn't want to or isn't able to contribute. And you kind of have to figure that out. But but hopefully there's a recorded maintenance agreement, you know, and that's something you can ask about if you're buying a home on a private road.

Your closing attorney is going to make sure you have good access. That's something you watch out for bears. Watch out for bears, bears, man, you know. But but maintenance is sometimes a good question to ask, because that's yeah, that's that's that's that's a question that can kind of dangle. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to have those questions dangling.

All right. Judica County radio, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, they're your host. They're also the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They have offices almost in every corner. They're kind of like Starbucks or McDonald's.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and Morehead City. Again, Whitaker and Hamer, the motto, your law firm for life. If you've got a legal question you're facing, you need some answers.

You can always call the firm. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact info briefly what the call's about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch.

Again, the number eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. And you can always email your questions to the radio show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast. Info at Judica County dot com. When we return, we've got more question and answer with Josh and Joe. Welcome back in to Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Of course, Whitaker and Hamer, the power behind this program. They have offices located conveniently for you.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you can always call the firm and get some answers to those questions. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast info at Judica County dot com.

Josh, take it away. You know, when we do this, when we sit around and answer these questions, we hope it's useful. I think the hope is it's entertaining and useful, but at least at the very least useful. And we take these questions as they come and some of them are more interesting than others. But anyway, with that said, here's the first question I got out of our pile here is how do you get your court case continued?

All right. That's the question. How do you get your court case continued? And they're not telling us what kind of case it is. So we're going to have to go through a couple of cases here.

But how do you get your court case continued? You walk in. Front kick to the door. Bam. Smack it open.

Storm in. No, it's a you know, you're you go and you ask for a continuous man. That's really it. And like you said, there the court is going to have leniency in some situations and they're going to be less lenient in others. And they're going to look at a variety of factors. And, you know, if this is your if this is the first time you've come to court, it's a minor infraction or offensive, assuming this is some kind of a criminal matter. You're likely to get a continuance fairly easily, right?

Yeah, I think in traffic. I think in traffic court, you know, small claims court, maybe some district court, you know, it's it's it's easier to get a continuance. And like you said, at least once, at least when maybe several times. Right. Like there's traffic tickets that you may be able to get several continuances on that you might have to be. You might have to give a reason, you know, an attorney would, you know, if you're if you've got an attorney and you're going to let the attorney know ahead of time, the attorney can probably do more than you can walking in the day. But there's the court understands and there's some things built in. Now, it's hard to do without actually being there. Yeah.

All right. So you've already made the trip down and but that being said, but once you move up to like Superior Court Court of Appeals, continuances are doled out easily. No, you're going to you're going to need a fairly compelling reason, especially after that initial continuance, if you get that.

Yeah. So, you know, when you're when they're setting stuff, Superior Court is very regimented. Things get set for mediation. They get set for trial. And, you know, the courts just aren't going to move that because that inconveniences, you know, once you get to the Superior Court level, you've got witnesses, you've got jurors, you've got, you know, attorneys, you've got parties and usually a lot's riding on it.

And it's not as as easy to move. And so you should always be ready to deal with a case when it's scheduled because it's, you know, things happen. People go, you know, have to go to the hospital. You have health. You have you have things.

But, you know, the dog eating your homework kind of stuff is not going to go over very well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's true. And has it ever worked for anything in the history of things? I think I knew somebody.

I think I knew somebody whose dog actually did chew up their homework. Yeah. I don't know if it worked. Even if they did. Like, did it work? Like, I mean, that's I feel like that's the most tragic thing that can happen to you.

Like if that genuinely happens to you and you have to give that as a legitimate reason, you're gonna have a tough time. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Anyways.

All right. So that question was easy enough. Good question. But I remember, you know, I've I've seen people in traffic court, you know, which is designed, you know, for folks without attorneys. And you get to talk to the judge, get to talk to the ADA. But I've seen people, you know, yeah, like on their eighth continuance, you know, or whatever.

And sometimes you're waiting for something else to happen. But that's that's definitely not the rule. That's the that's the exception, I would think. Yeah.

Anything over those very like the super lowly infractions in traffic court. And yeah, you're gonna need a fairly compelling reason, most likely. All right. Next question I got here is, can you sue a veterinarian for malpractice? That's the next question I got.

Yeah, brother. You can you can sue a veterinarian for negligence. You can technically sue anyone for anything.

I mean, you may not win. But that didn't stop you from suing them, man. So you can you can sue a veterinarian or a lot of different people for for negligence. Right. That's not performing their duties up to the normal standard of care. And so if they do something wrong, you know, I've seen where some veterinarians have you sign some waivers. Right.

Where, you know, kind of like a kind of like a doctor, you go in for surgery, you're going to sign a waiver where there's risk attendant with any creature surgery, just like there are for any human surgery. Yeah. And, you know, the the law looks at dogs and cats. I mean, their personal property. Right. They're the same as a car. Are they the same as the car? Yeah, I guess they would be the same as any personal property. So it's it's not a it's not a human. So it's not like a medical malpractice. But it's, you know, they screw up your dog.

Now, what's the value of a dog? I feel like we've talked about that before, too. Yeah, we talked.

Yes. Have we? Are you doing the radio show? Did we get into the conversation about if another person's dog bites you like they're like it's. Yeah, we've talked about dog bites for sure.

We talked. Yeah, we talked about dog bites and the statute. Speaking of which, man, as an aside, yeah, there's apparently a wild, wild pack of dogs terrorizing Barbour Mill Road area of Clayton. That's always crazy to hear that.

No, I haven't heard that. I heard that they're attacking. They're killing like other people's pets and stuff.

They're at large to this day. Now, are we are we sure they're dogs or could they be coyotes? No, it's a ragtag group of dogs like whoever seen them has described them. It's like six dogs and they're all different breeds and they're like it's not like just all of one aggressive dog. It's like six random dogs that have just formed a gang. And they're terrorizing the community. It seems like that would be an easy enough thing to stop after the first.

You would think so. Tell it to these dogs that are still at large, though. So they might have been hurt, I guess, or they just I think they're getting animals to this point, but you don't want to get rolled up on by the the gang, the sixth street posse of dogs.

You know, that's kind of crazy. That's like that should be like a anti Disney movie. These dogs.

Yeah. It's like what was the what was the movie where the dog and the cat and they're all friends and it's an incredible journey or something. Homeward bound.

Is that what it is? Well, there's two homeward bounds and you've got I could actually tell you a lot about these movies. They run away from home. They actually know they don't run away from home.

They get taken like that anyways. They form a group. They don't form or they are in a group. They're a part of a family from the jump, Josh. And so they they.

OK, well, I was thinking about that. That may be except they're not good. They're not good dogs. So it's the opposite of homeward bound. They run into some rough characters and homeward bound. The dogs do you never seen homeward bound, man? I think I had to read the book. I'm pretty sure you've got I know the dog.

I know the animals names, but the actors. I think you got Michael J. Fox. That's the first one at both of them. There's two. He's and maybe there's more. I know of two.

You got Michael J. Fox and you got I'm pretty sure you have Sally Field as the cat sassy. The flying. I don't know who plays shadow shadows.

The old wise golden retriever. I see doctor is I think he's almost I think he's going to die. And then I think he just doesn't.

Anyways, I want to look at who that actor. They usually kill. That's very important. They usually kill off an animal in one of those movies. Yeah, they pretend like they're going to. And then they. Yeah, Disney is usually the mother. The mother usually passes away in some form or fashion. Homeward bound.

The incredible journey is that I didn't know that had a subtitle, but it does. Let's see. Judica County radio. Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners at the firm Whitaker and Hamer. The power behind this program, your law firm for life offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. Couple of ways you can get in touch with the firm. If you've got any legal questions, you can certainly email the show. Info at judicacounty.com will answer the question on the future broadcast. Info at judicacounty.com. If you need something a little bit quicker, you can always call the firm. 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. We've got more questions and of course, some antics between Josh and Joe. That's all coming up in our final segment of Judica County radio.

We're back right after this. Welcome back in to Judica County radio. Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They are your hosts for this show and the power behind the program is Whitaker and Hamer law firm, your law firm for life. They've got offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. And today we have five consults when it comes to estate planning. And these are complimentary.

You can call at any time and grab one. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

We are going to wrap up the A.R.A.G. insurance legal top 10 things that issues that people are facing. But also how much it costs. And that is a national average of some of these numbers are you know, they're up there. So the will was number one right around thirteen hundred dollars for that divorce in at number two, just over two thousand for that nationally traffic right around a thousand. And that was at number three.

And then home sales, home closings. That was number four in and around two thousand. And then the trust right at seventeen hundred rounds out the top five.

We have five remaining, Josh. So number six on on A.R.A.G. 's list, A.R.A.G. 's list, consumer protection debt issue. So this is like the security company won't let you break your contract or the mechanic messed up your car or you've even even you've engaged in a consumer transaction where you're getting the raw end of the deal. We I just refer to these kind of breach of contract cases, breach of warranty cases, things like that. So this is number six.

They have seven attorney hours necessary to resolve the average consumer protection issue. And and they have the cost at two thousand four one. And and these are these are tricky, right? Because you you know, let's say you take your car in for repairs. The repairs are expensive, right? They maybe they cost like three grand, let's just say. And the mechanic really didn't get to the issue or did something wrong.

It creates a new issue. How much do you want to spend on an attorney to recover three thousand dollars? There are some statutes that kind of give you some leverage where you can make your damages more than they actually are. You can get attorney's fees back. But these consumer protection issues, they're they're tough.

You know, they're tough for folks. And and it's something that A.R.A.G., a lot of legal insurance plans will cover this, which makes it a lot easier for you to get an attorney on your side and one of these things. And if they cover it, they're saying the average attorney spent seven hours. That's a lot of time on a consumer protection issue to the average cost of two thousand four oh one in attorney's fees. So, of course, we've all had those kind of problems. Yeah. Consumer protection. And they're tough to make because that's a call we get and we have to tell people a lot of time.

It's not worth the money you're going to pay us. So, you know, in this scenario, legal insurance makes a lot of sense. You know, it's one huge benefit to having it. Yeah.

I had I had an attorney when I was younger that I really liked that my family really trusted. And I don't remember why we're in there to see him. But he gave a big speech about throwing good money after bad money.

Right. You're already lost this. What are you what are you willing to spend?

What are you going to throw? What are you going to throw at this in hopes that you get it back or you get some sort of resolution? And it always resonated with me looking at, you know, attorney's fees. Look at a business decision. Right.

Just coming in. We'll always be honest with you. This is what it's going to cost you. This is what we can do.

This is what we can't do. And it's either worth it for you or it's not. And so I've always kind of respected that. But that was consumer protection. Number seven is bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is an area where the attorneys that practice it are very specialized. And here at Whitaker and Hamer, we do not practice bankruptcy law. We work with a lot of great bankruptcy law firms with our clients.

But but we don't we don't practice bankruptcy. But bankruptcy was number seven. Eight attorney hours to resolve.

That seems like to me at an average cost of two thousand seven hundred forty four dollars. And so number seven was bankruptcy. Number eight is kind of like consumer protection.

It's a tough area. Civil damage claims. So this is kind of like, you know, my neighbor cut down my tree.

Right. That's a civil damage claim. Somebody hit my car. I don't have an injury, but my car's damaged. You know, I need the insurance company to pay me what I need to be paid or they need to pay for it or whatever. So civil damage claims like a tree falls on your house and you have to sue your insurance company to get the coverage that you think you're entitled to. So civil damage claims.

We see a lot of those. This is 10 hours. They say they usually attorney spend 10 hours on these type of claims to the tune of three thousand four hundred thirty dollars.

That's probably cheap, man. If you're litigating, usually you're talking 10 hours. It sounds like litigation.

And that's that's at the low end of even the simplest of litigation. Yeah. Yeah.

Those can really those those can really add up. Number nine, they have it at property protection, which I think, you know, would would include some LLC formation. Some talk about trust. I think a lot of things can go under the property protection heading. They got six hours of attorney's time on property protection to the tune of two thousand fifty eight in attorney's fees. And lastly, they've got they've got a category they've called child support, child alimony. So they've taken this out of the divorce heading and put child support, child custody by itself. Eight attorney hours to the tune of two thousand seven hundred forty four dollars. So that rounds out the top 10 legal issues that are a legal insurer sees their clients deal with. Tell you, it's it's it's a list that I mean, a lot of you don't really think about it, but these are things that could be in your future. Certainly we hope you have legal counsel when you are are going through this. And obviously you're going to seek that.

There's going to be an opportunity right now to get on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer. They have estate planning consults. There are five of them and they are complementary. You can call right now. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Secure one of those five free consults. Again, estate planning.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. And you can email any question you have legally and we'll answer it on a future program. That's info at Judica County dot com.

That's info at Judica County dot com. Again, real quickly, your top 10 rundown. Josh and Joe, the will comes in at number one. This is the A R A G insurance companies, the legal issues that people are facing. And again, average costs will at thirteen hundred. Number one divorce at number two. Just over two thousand traffic at number three, right around a thousand.

Again, national averages. Number four was the home, the home sales, home closings. Just over two thousand. The trust was in there about seventeen hundred at number five.

Consumer protection. Again, breach of contract, as Josh phrased it, in at number six, right around twenty four hundred. Bankruptcy twenty seven hundred at number seven. And then civil damage claims right around three thousand dollars. It comes in at number eight and then property protection at number nine, two thousand.

And then child support slash custody at twenty seven hundred rounds out the top ten. I need to take a knee. It's time to play the Space Jam song. OK, well, another edition of Judica County is in the books. I see Joe's already on his app for sports betting. We'll see how he does next week on on the show. But anyway, have a wonderful week, guys.

Another great show. And we will see you right here 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 JMW at MWH Law Lawyer.