Scottie Scheffler incident at PGA Championship, Supreme Court Justices making Headlines,

Coming up on Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker, Managing Partner at Whitaker & Hamer Law Firm, and Cassandra Nicholas, also an attorney at Whitaker & Hamer, will talk all legalese. And again, Supreme Court justices making headlines, we'll talk about those stories.

Real estate, there are some changes coming, the National Association of Realtors, the lawsuits that are there, and Scottie Scheffler making headlines. We'll talk about it all next on Judica County Radio. Welcome in to Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Managing Partners, Whitaker & Hamer Law Firm. Again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Whitaker & Hamer, your law firm for life. Joe Hamer on assignment this week, Cassandra Nicholas, fellow attorney at Whitaker & Hamer, joining us on the program. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate.

Real quickly, Whitaker & Hamer, offices conveniently located, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. And each and every week on the show, we open up appointments. These are five consults, they're complimentary. If you've got something going on legally, you need some questions answered. Again, leave the checkbook at home. Grab one of these appointments anytime during the show, 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Got a lot to get to on the program today, Josh, take it away. We do, we do, but before we get there, just to piggyback on what you said there, it's a great opportunity for us to get to know you.

Piggyback on what you said there. We have been enjoying these free consults. We've been doing this for a couple of weeks. It's something new that we're doing.

I've been getting a chance to talk to a lot of listeners and try to help them through whatever situation they may be facing. And I usually don't mind. Well, that's what we're doing. I'll talk to you for free or one of our attorneys will talk to you for free. That doesn't mean we're going to handle your situation for free. But a lot of times people just need to talk to an attorney and figure out what the options are.

Because a lot of people will find themselves in a legal conundrum and not really know what's out there, what they can do or what it would cost if it does have costs associated with it. But I've definitely been enjoying that. If you call in, you're going to leave us a message. Usually you're here in our radio show on the weekends and we're not in the office on the weekends. So you're going to be leaving us a message to just make sure you leave us a good number that people are going to answer. A lot of folks leave us like their cell phone number and there's no voicemail set up, you know, things like that.

We've had that happen. You can leave us an email address. We'll reach out to you by email. But give us a good way to get a hold of you. I've had a few people call and we can't. We've had a lot of people call, but I've had a few people call that we can't get a hold of. So just make sure you're giving us good contact information and we'll reach out to you. But like you said, Morgan, we got a lot to talk about today.

You know, we like to take stuff out of the news and kind of look at it as attorneys look at it. We'll have some Q&A later in the show. But how are you guys doing? Cassandra, how are you doing today? It's nice out here. We've had nothing but rain out here in the Moorhead City office for over a week, but we finally got some sunshine today. So it's nice to get outside. Yeah, we I don't know if we mentioned that, Morgan, but I come from you from I'm down in Garner. I'm recording down in Shady's a bar in downtown Garner today. Cassandra is at our Moorhead City office, so she's always she's always at Moorhead City. And I just feel like that's a nicer place to be than where I'm at at any given time.

But well, I'm an apex the peak of good living. That's right. So, you know, we've got it all covered.

Got it all covered. You know, Morgan, I know you're a big sports fan. One of the big stories from from the past week or so came came to us out of the pro golf arena.

Yeah, it's Scottie Scheffler, world number one. So major championship Valhalla Country Club in Louisville, Kentucky, just outside of Louisville. They had, as Cassandra alluded to, they had the rough weather pretty much all week and they were having to deal with it. And where Valhalla Country Club is located, it is a very tough in and tough out just to to play the golf course.

Imagine putting fifty to seventy five thousand people in the same location, create, you know, create early morning hours, darkness, rain in the area, limited visibility. So first day goes by. No, no big, big issues other than delays getting into the course. But because they had delays the first day, the golfers knew that they needed to be out and at least trying to get into the golf club pretty early because they all have their warm up routines. It's usually a couple hours before they tee off, but the crowds were enormous. And then on top of that, they had just a very unfortunate incident where a volunteer that was there working. The tournament was hit by one of the buses that brings people up to the golf course and there was a fatality.

Yeah, that happened early morning hours on Friday. The golfers with no idea what was going on are trying to get into the golf course. And they were taking liberties and and as far as coming around traffic and trying to get into the golf club.

And from from all the accounts that I've seen, several golfers had done that, had gotten into the golf club. Scotty Scheffler was trying to do the same thing. He's driving his own car. They are given these these vehicles complimentary during the week from one of the dealerships in the area.

And they are clearly marked that that's a player. And he went around and the cops tried to stop him. He did not stop. Apparently, they banged on the car.

He finally did stop. And then everything that we've been hearing happened. He was arrested. There's some cell phone, a video cam from a reporter, but that's about it. The biggest story and you guys are going to talk about it and Louisville Police Department's having to deal with this is their officer turned did not turn on his body cam. So there's no body cam footage.

So there's there's a tremendous amount of gray area. They allowed Scotty to they took him in. They booked him. They have him in a jumpsuit. They have a mug shot. They asked him and this got out into the media if he wanted the full treatment.

And I'm putting air quotes up. So they they gave him the sandwich they always give. They put him in the orange.

They gave him the mug shot. They fed him breakfast. He ended up stretching because he saw the TV in the next room that said tea times were going to be delayed. It looked like he was going to miss his tea time. It was a little after eight o'clock. But because of the delay, he didn't tee off until after 10. So he started stretching in the gel. And by the time he got to the golf course, he was under an hour until his tea time. And he went through the rest of an abbreviated warm up and then got on the tee and shot five or six under in his second round.

He he faltered in the third round and was never really a factor. But that was obviously the big, big story of the week and how that was all handled or mishandled in, you know, in the early morning hours of Friday. But yeah, it was it was bizarre. Yeah, we were I was down in Charleston. I was we took a couple of days off and I was down in Charleston when it happened. And I'm just following it on X or Twitter or what have you. And I saw that come up. And, you know, we're not sports radio, obviously, you know, but we anytime the sports world and the legal world kind of cross.

We always like to talk about it. And I heard what happened and he had been arrested. And I was like, oh, what did they what they charge him with, you know, and they charged him up like he got some felonies in there.

Right. Yeah, there's a I think it's a second or third degree felony where it had something to do with resisting an officer or resisting an officer's order or something like that. And supposedly and again, we're airing, you know, 10 10 days to two weeks after this actually happened. But supposedly, you know, at that point in time, you know, that's that's when it got really, really serious. But we don't have any footage of what exactly happened. And so I I was assuming that after the golf tournament wrapped up on Sunday, he had a an arraignment on Tuesday that got postponed until early June. So that'll that'll be going on after, I guess, right before this show airs.

So we we may have this story all wrapped up by then. But right now, Louisville's doing damage control because the police officer didn't turn on his body cam. So there's not a lot of there's not a lot of evidence.

Yeah, I saw some of the headlines. I wasn't aware of all those details, Morgan, that that'll definitely be interesting because the body cam stuff is like primarily an internal police matter. There aren't a lot of laws on the books regarding the use of body cams yet. Yeah, it's nice when they release it. I know sometimes, again, like you said, Cassandra's internal policies for every police department, and sometimes they're more free to release and other times you'll never see it in a million years.

But, you know, if if the if the police were in the right in something this public, it certainly will help to release that footage. Everybody can see, I think. Well, I don't know if everybody thinks like I do, but I I thought that that was crazy. I was like, surely he didn't, you know, do that. You know, I just automatically I don't know if it's because he's famous.

I don't know if it's because he's a golfer. I don't. But automatically can I take his side and like, this is ridiculous.

This is crazy. And we'll see. Maybe it's not. Maybe maybe we find out that he should have been charged with more, you know, and they did him a favor. But my first inclination is always, yeah, I think this is probably a trustworthy individual. He's got more to lose than the cops have to lose. Right.

I mean, but but but who knows? But I was surprised at how serious the charges were. And there's been at least when we're in the studio today, there's been no walking back of the charges. They haven't been dismissed. And that could still happen after some time, you know.

But but it was the same time charging them, that's for sure. Well, and you look at that, you look at the the overall story. I mean, the back story on Scottie is obviously he's the best golfer in the world, world ranking number one. But he's a new father at the Masters, the original major of the year in April. His wife was due in the next couple of weeks. But he said no matter where he was in the tournament, if his wife went into labor, he was going to leave. Well, he ended up he ended up winning. I mean, he's he won the Masters.

She she had the child after that. He ended up winning the Masters. He went to Hilton Head, won that tournament.

And then I think she had the child after the Hilton Head tournament. But this guy is, by all accounts, just as straight lace, very calm, very down to earth, understands that golf is just a game. He's he doesn't act like he's privileged at all, but he is the best golfer in the world. But he handles it complete.

I mean, with complete grace. So here's a guy. Did he go? Did he lose it? I think he wanted to get in and practice and he had no idea that there had been a fatality.

He had no idea that he was right. You know, upsetting the police officer until they banged on the car and he stopped. This will be interesting. We don't talk about criminal procedure a lot on the show. And we'll keep our eyes on this one because we might bring this one back up and and kind of talk about criminal procedure. And the charging process and what a D.A.

can do and what a defense attorney can do and how deals work out. Right. How compromises get, you know, get done. But we might have to come back to it. I know we're coming up against a break.

Morgan, you know, when we come back, I want to spend some time. There's been some stories in the news about Supreme Court justices and how they're appointed for life and what they can get in trouble for. And this is the time of year where people start asking me, you know, North Carolina state judges are elected. And so if you're an attorney in North Carolina, a lot of times your friends will start asking you what judges they should vote for, because a lot of people don't know what judges to vote for. But I thought it'd be interesting to talk about that, how that works at the state level versus how a Supreme Court justice gets appointed for life. I know Cassandra has been following a couple of stories on Justice Alito and Justice Thomas. And so, anyway, I thought it'd be a good time of the year to talk about judges.

All right. We will jump off on the Supreme Court. We'll also talk about it at the state level.

That's coming up next on Judah County Radio. We want to remind you, too, there are five consults. These are complimentary with Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. And all you've got to do is call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your name and contact information. And as Josh alluded to earlier, you can also leave your email and they will contact you by email. But this is a free consult.

You leave the checkbook at home. If you've got a legal situation, you've got questions, you can get this absolutely complimentary. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Again, when we return on Judah County, it is going to be about Supreme Court justice and also at the state level.

That's coming up next. We are back on Judah County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Cassandra Nicholas. Again, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm where you can find them. And Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life.

This is located at Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. And I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Joe Hamer is on assignment this week. Josh, the consults are going well. We're offering up five of those each week and these are complimentary. If one of our listeners, you, have a situation you're going through, you can always get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. Again, that consult is complimentary. 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. But now we're going to step off on the Supreme Court and also the courts at the state level. Yeah, we're getting into the we're getting close to two elections and Cassandra had a good idea. She's following some stories about some Supreme Court justices and with some of the decisions over the past couple of years. People are really talking about the Supreme Court and how it turns over and how folks get on there and how they might get get off of the Supreme Court.

And I thought we'd take it a step further, too. And since it is election time, you know, in North Carolina, state judges, district court judges, Supreme Court judges, Court of Appeals, they're all elected and they run. They run campaigns, I was about to say limited campaigns, but they have to campaign just like the mayor or the governor or the attorney general.

And they have to raise money and they run. And most people, if you don't work in the court system, or you don't spend a lot of time in court or you're not an attorney, you don't really know what judges to maybe vote for. My wife and my relatives will all ask me before they go to the poll, like, OK, now what judges do you like? What judges? Because they don't they don't know. And then there's some guides out there and you can dig up some information. But that's not how it works on the federal level, is it, Cassandra?

No. So federal judges are appointed by Congress. Every single federal judge is not just the Supreme Court and all of those federal judge positions are life tenure. So it's a completely different system than on the state elected judge system. Anytime I'm talking to a federal judge, I'm always I feel like I'm talking to a king. You know, like a federal federal judges are appointed for life.

They they go they undergo a lot of scrutiny. And that's a that's a tough position to have. But you get to operate with a lot of leeway because nobody's firing you tomorrow. Right. You you're you're you're not going to get recalled. You're not you know, you obviously there's ethical things. And that's what we're going to talk about. There's things you can't do. But for the most part, you know, you're going to you're going to make your decisions and you're going to be a judge, a federal judge until you die.

Right. So you voluntarily retire and occasionally, you know, certain, you know, a Supreme Court justice, you can technically be impeached. Doesn't happen very often. I think when I Googled it because I couldn't remember if it had ever happened. But I had to Google it. Google tells me a Supreme Court justice was impeached in 1805.

That's what it told me a few years ago. But Cassandra, you were following you were following a story for Justice Alito. What was going on there? So in general, judges in both the state and federal systems are supposed to be impartial and or at least publicly impartial. But that's where some judges can get into a little bit of trouble on all of the levels.

Alito himself has been flying flags at his beach house that may indicate his lack of impartiality, or at least that's the assertion. So there have been a couple of incidents. One, he in 2021 was flying the U.S. flag upside down. That's a little bit more vague.

Like, do you know what that means or not? Then just recently he was flying a flag that's specifically associated with January 6th. It's a flag that says appeal to heaven. And he was flying it.

He's been it's been flown multiple times at his beach house and it apparently appears in the Google Earth photos. Like if you happen to know the address of Alito's beach house. But what consequence is there?

That's that's kind of the question. Like he's on the bench for life. Folks are calling for him to recuse himself from January 6th related cases. But he has to make that decision to recuse the the rest of the Supreme Court. Court can't like bench him, can't make him sit out. But like that's a pillar of our democracy, the three branches of government, and they rely, you know, their institutions that rely on the public trust in them. So if we have Supreme Court justices that don't recuse themselves when they've like clearly shown preferences in cases, do we trust the results of those cases?

That's the concern on a more like macro level. We know I know a lot of attorneys because that's who most judges are attorneys and most of them were practicing attorneys. And I'm where we're going to celebrate. I've been out of law school longer than this, but our firm is going to celebrate our 20th year this year. So we've been doing it for for a little while. And so a lot of these attorneys that we've practiced with have gone on and become judges, either elected. Some judges in the state get appointed by the governor. And so you get just over time.

This isn't like a humble brag or anything. But if you live long enough and you practice law long enough, you end up knowing some judges as people, as friends. And most of the judges that I know are they try extremely hard to be impartial. A lot of judges don't even get on social media or really do anything that would make you think of them one way versus the other. You know, they may campaign as a Republican or a Democrat, but they most judges I know try very hard to be impartial. But there are people who have feelings and they have political leanings and they have investments and they have, you know, other things going on. So there's still people and like that Alito story didn't bother me. You know, we've we're kind of in a period where when I was growing up, you kind of had a left leaning court for a long, long time. And now we kind of in theory have a right leaning court. I think it's kind of rubbed, you know, kind of rub some people the wrong way. It's different than it used to be.

And so I think a lot of people are kind of hunting. For ways to maybe to find impropriety, I think the Alito story is probably, like you said, is what exactly does it does it mean or not mean, you know? Yeah. On the other side of things, even, you know, in pretty recent cases, left leaning judges have recused themselves. So that's also the one of the accusations in this situation is is that while the court leans one direction, they might be like taking advantage of that situation.

Yeah. Well, you know, we'll I guess we'll see how it goes. It's been it's been it's been fun and we talk about the Supreme Court more on the show than we have lately. We haven't had as many decisions announced. They're kind of they're not announcing them as they go. There's some big ones coming up that we'll probably end up talking about. But, yeah, a federal Supreme Court justice is there for life unless they quit, die or or get removed. And that that that rarely happens.

So, Sander, can I jump in? What's going on with Clarence Thomas? I mean, it just seems is he getting a lot of freebies? Is that is that why everybody's kind of raising their hand on what's going on? That's that that is the allegation as well. There are reporting requirements like financial reporting requirements on the Supreme Court justices that they're supposed to document certain things and turn it in every year. And maybe not everything was being reported. That's that's the allegation.

But we're back to. So what what impact does that have on, you know, the cases Thomas sits on? Does it have an impact on the court overall trust in the court? Is there any risk of him being impeached or not abiding?

Like what if a Supreme Court justice just wouldn't turn them in at all? Is there anything to be done? Probably not. Yeah, I guess I guess it depends on whose jet he is borrowing. I mean, I mean, I don't know. I mean, it just seems he's making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

And but as you're saying today on the program, it's almost like, what do we do? I mean, they're in there for life. I'd really like to have a rich friend that let me do stuff like that. Because, Rich, I think that's what rich people want.

Right. Rich people have planes and boats. They're not fun by themselves. You want people with you.

And I always thought, like, hey, maybe I could be the friend of somebody really rich. You just needs company. Right. Just that Joe Hamer.

Joe Hamer have a jet. No, no, no. Not yet. Yeah. Yeah. No. All right.

Well, we're up against it. Well, if you had a jet, if you had a law firm jet, you could get to all the offices pretty, pretty quickly. Located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and the one we'd use the jet for would be Moorhead City. Right. Go down to see Cassandra. We have five consults. These are complimentary.

You leave the checkbook at home. If you're facing a legal situation, you've got some questions. That initial consult is complimentary. You can call right now. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your name, contact information. Leave your email address. They'll give you an email. But again, these are five consults.

They're complimentary. 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch.

We have question and answer coming up, and then we'll wrap it up on the other side. Music 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, Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. And if you are facing a legal situation, have a legal question, you can always call the firm and get some answers. 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. Just as a jumping off point, we were talking about, what was the name of the band for Showbiz Pizza? Rockfire, something like that. It was like the Express? Yeah, let's call it that. Rockfire Express. What was the Chuck E. Cheese band called?

It's funny you mention that, because we are obviously very 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. 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. Yeah, 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 and mute 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. 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 asked me or they want to do it.

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

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

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

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

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

I like the grand baby. He can't help his dad is terrible. Right. Right. I can disinherit one level.

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

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

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

Well, you know, I don't interrupt your thoughts. I think I know where you're going there, but I will throw this out there. You if you leave them a dollar, they're involved. Like if you if this will gets probated and you go down the clerk's office and they open up an estate file and you leave them a dollar. That means they're going to get all the notices that go out in the estate. 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, you're your executor, you know, whoever's in control of your state. They have to report to the clerk. Right.

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

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

And I'm sure the kids you disinherited and left the buck isn't going to be super easy to deal with and all that for a buck. Good Lord. So it's it's definitely easier, I think, if you're going to disinherit someone like Joseph was saying, we usually are explicit. Yeah. Yeah. That's my you should be explicit. Yeah. You've definitely got to say you're doing it. So in your will, I mean, it can it can technically be a sentence. You know, I'm going to disinherit kid number blank.

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

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

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

We're really using our vocab and keeping them coming. The you know, we've seen people like you may love your I mean, use this example because this came up about too long ago, but you may love your daughter. But your daughter may marry. Your daughter may marry someone you despise. I can tell you that's exactly what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen. And so there's things you can do, too.

You can leave your daughter things or, you know, if the spouse is that bad, you can skip and just set up a trust for the grandkids, like their kids, you know, or you could 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. But yeah, I don't like that. I don't like you definitely don't have to leave him a dollar. That's that's not a law.

Nor has it ever been in North Carolina. We specialize in petty estate plans, right? Like you could be as petty as you want to be in administering this estate.

One hundred pennies. The but you can you can do that and you don't have to leave a dollar. You just really a detail detail oriented because you're you're you know, those those kind of folks, the kind of folks that get disinherited are usually the kind of folks who who will contest things if there's any.

Yeah, those aren't usually the nice the nice reason. They just let it go. Yeah. Those are the ones. Judica County radio.

We are going to take a short break. Remember, your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And again, we have offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and in 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. An attorney with Whitaker Hamer will be in touch and you can always email your questions to the show info at Judica County dot 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, you know, 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 Judica County dot com.

That's info at Judica County dot 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 like that.

I like how you did your hands. 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 avoids intestacy. It avoids intestacy. Exactly.

So it avoids 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 or automatically going to go to where you want it to go without probate. But there's still always a will because there's always like a, I make the joke, boat trailer. No one ever remembers to get their boat trailer titled into their trust name, right?

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

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

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

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

Precision. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that. But yeah, the will, that's what the will controls. The will controls probate. We talk about a lot of times, you know, people will talk about like a blended family situation where, 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 it. Do you remember grandpa's boat trailer? He forgot to put it in his trust.

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

Except for when you're dealing with the law firm of Whittaker and Hayman. That's one of our questions. Trailer specialists. How many boat trailers you holding 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. Nice things? Yeah. I don't know, man.

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

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

I don't know boats. All right. Here's a question. I don't like this question, but I'm going to read it. Yeah. That's the spirit.

Do I really need an attorney to draft my will? Yeah. Come on.

I mean, technically speaking, you know, technically speaking, not really. 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. Yeah.

But we could ask both questions. You don't have to have an attorney to draft your will. There are statutes that allow you to draft what we call a holographic will, which is one that you've written yourself. Sometimes the statutes allow you to even do a verbal will, right? If you're on death's door, certain circumstances are met. You know, sometimes. So you don't have to have an attorney, but you probably want one.

Yeah. We spent this entire show talking about avoiding probate. I was in an estate. 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 was about 15 years old. Handwritten will. We call that a holographic will.

So a handwritten will. Nonsensical. It made no sense.

It had, you know. 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 you will 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, is one of those self-help ones where somebody has just done it themselves. And I've had to tell people straight up, like, you don't even own this property.

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 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 the state doesn't really use, or they try to create remainder interest that the state doesn't honor, or they leave out legal descriptions. It's like playing Russian roulette, my brother, 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. Music We are back on Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, your law firm for life. Also joining us on the program, Cassandra Nicholas out of the Moorhead City office.

Joe Hamer this week on assignment. Offices for Whitaker and Hamer conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City. And each and every week we have consults available.

There are five of them. You can call at any time and grab one. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact info, your name. And again, they will be back in touch with you very shortly.

That's 800-659-1186. All right. Well, let's wrap this puppy up.

Josh. Yeah. You know, I just want to take a minute to let people know. Again, we were talking about the free consults. Give us a call. Morgan Morgan handed that number out, but give us a call. Leave us good contact information. Let us know what's going on. Let us try to help you. You know, if it's something that you've been dealing with for a while, you know, or you just need to do your estate plan or you just have questions. Let us help you.

And that's what we're here for. Would love to talk to you. Like I said, gotten a chance to talk to a lot of listeners over the past couple of weeks. And it's it's been really it's really it's I kind of just feel like we're talking into a vacuum. I'm just talking to Morgan and Cassandra. I don't know who's listening. If nobody could be listening for all I know. But but people are listening and I've enjoyed talking to them and and kind of helping them figure out what they need to figure out. But I don't know.

What do you guys got? I think we've got one more little headline to talk about, if you'd like. So the Realtors Association, there are a bunch of lawsuits regarding how commissions on real estate. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That finally got settled. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, not for everybody. A lot of the a lot of the lot of the defendants have settled. One of them was the National Association of Real Estate Agents. But if you bought or sold a home here in the past couple of years, you will know that a seller contracts with a listing agent to sell their home and will agree to give them a commission. Let's say five percent and say, hey, your commission for selling the home is is five percent of the purchase price.

And it was customary, usual, I'll use the word usual. It was usual that that listing agent would take a part of that commission, maybe two and a half percent of it, and offer that to a buyer's agent as an incentive to get up to get a buyer looking at the property, you know, and that all happened. And the lawsuit alleged that that was kind of a scheme to to get everybody paid and the buyer wasn't necessarily always aware what a buyer's agent was was getting paid. And that was the fear. And there was a big lawsuit over it. And a lot of the bigger parties have kind of settled out of it. And but basically what it's going to mean going forward is that a listing agent can't advertise a buyer's a seller paid buyer's agent's commission.

I think I said that as confusingly as I could say it. So the buyers are going to need to pay their own agents directly for any commission they negotiate up front, usually, or is the way it's looking like it's going to shake out. The issue that a lot of folks are pointing out is that for the moment that won't that buyers agent commission won't be payable out of any loans. So they would need to have that money up front out of pocket. Yeah, and I think I think the industry is going to adapt.

I think the industry is already working on it. I saw I didn't read the article, but I saw a news article the VA was going to make a buyer's agents commission and allowable fee for for certain things. And, you know, I think so looking at doing it, too. And there's there's there's there's also some talk about a seller's being able to pay it as like a closing cost. You know, sometimes you you go to buy a house and the seller will offer to pay a certain amount of your closing costs.

And could a buyer's agent commission be part of that closing cost? And so there's a lot of the settlement is only a few a month or two old at this point. And so the industry's the industry will adapt and it'll figure it out.

I think in North Carolina, we've been doing it the right way for a while. I don't think it'll affect us too much. But if you're a real estate agent or you buy and sell property coming up soon, that'll that'll be a big thing.

You talk about how your buyer's agents commission will get paid. It's kind of it's kind of changing. It's been that way forever.

So it's just changing a little bit. All right. Well, we are about to wrap up Judica County radio. Again, a lot of great information today. We talked about, again, the Scottie Scheffler story. We'll probably get into that at a at a future date. Everything that happened at Valhalla Supreme Court justices, they're making headlines. We'll talk about that. We'll wrap up those stories coming up on a later show. And then again, the real estate changes, the National Association of Realtors and the lawsuits facing them. Look, if you have a legal situation you're facing, we have consults are available.

They are complementary. We have five of them while they last. All you've got to do is call eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information. And again, briefly, what the call's about. An attorney with Whitaker Hamer will be in touch.

You can also leave your email address and they will shoot you an email as well. Again, five consults complementary. Jump on those.

All right. Another edition of Judica County is in the books for Josh Whitaker and Cassandra Nicholas. I'm Morgan Patrick. We will 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.