Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, along with fellow attorney Cassandra Nicholas.
They are getting into, yes, real estate closing questions you need to have the answers to. That's all coming up next on Judica County Radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. They're joined by fellow attorney Cassandra Nicholas, also with Whitaker and Hamer.
I'm Morgan Patrick. And again, offices located for Whitaker and Hamer almost everywhere. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. And now a new one, Cleveland.
So we're expanding the empire. If you have a situation you're facing, we often talk and should be talking legalese here on the show, but we offer up free consults with Whitaker and Hamer. If you've got a legal situation, if you've got questions about real estate, maybe a will, legacy plan, that kind of thing, you can call the firm, 800-659-1186.
We have five complimentary consults. Just ask for one and you will be booked. 800-659-1186. That's a good kind of booking.
800-659-1186. Josh, take it away. Morgan, you know what I want to talk about today? I have a feeling we're going to take a brief pause and go on a different path before we get into real estate closing questions you need to have the answers to. I'm just guessing.
No, no. I don't have, I like to get off track, but I don't have anything that would get me off track today. No concerts, your son's football games, basketball stuff, anything going on there? Well, football did start. You know, high school football started last week, right? That was for everybody or was that just... Hey, are you sure that happened? My kid had a high school game last week. I don't know, man.
Let me look. It's weird because football is coming. I think it's safe to say the season has begun. Has it for everyone?
How did I miss that? Maybe not for everyone. Maybe some people got some early starts. I think maybe this week. Maybe this week.
Maybe not. It's always good. Growing up, I didn't play football. I played basketball, and I worked a lot in high school, so I never really went to a lot of high school football games. I had a lot of friends who played, so I didn't really spend a lot of time out the Friday night lights scene. But I really enjoyed that with my boys getting a chance to do that.
Sure. How'd you miss that? I was growing up in Garner. How'd you miss that? That was a big deal. Garnt football was... I guess it still is, but I know it was a real big deal around those times.
Josh, again, I didn't know you when you were 16, 17, and 18. What was your physical stature? Was football a sport you physically wanted to play? Oh, he was a stud.
You should have seen him. I was a much thinner man back then, and very slow. I was the odd, slow, skinny guy. My talents didn't really translate to football. I played more basketball, but it's exciting for the kids, man. I'm glad they get a chance to do that if your kids are out there playing football.
It's just a lot of fun. I did the football, man. Football was pretty big in Clayton at the time, too, for a long time. I think it, again, to a degree... Is it still? It still is to a degree. But Clayton was a smaller town then. It wasn't as big, so it was more intimate, I guess you'd say. But it was a big deal, for sure. And that was what everybody did, right? Friday nights, that's what you did.
And the whole town rallied around the football team. I went back and my mom was going through a bunch of old stuff, old newspaper clippings. Back in your day, working at the newspaper, Josh, I'm sure.
Oh yeah, probably. And it was funny, because as we went through the playoffs, it was a big deal, man. The newspaper had multiple articles in the paper during the week following it. It was a different time then, man. I feel like you don't get that same vibe now with the lack of the physical print media.
You know what I'm saying, Josh? I was going to say, too, it's almost like we've got a high school in every corner. There's so many football games. It just seemed like, you know, just 10, 15 years ago, that Friday night high school football roundup show wasn't quite as complicated as it is now, because there's so many schools. Football Friday. Let's get it right. That's another thing I found when I was going through those old clippings.
We were on Football Friday, my junior year, and I got a Tom Suter autographed piece of paper that I guess I took. It's got to be worth billions at this point, man. Yeah, man.
You could retire on something like that. I'll see you guys later. I'm actually locked up.
I'm out of here. I'm on a big time, you guys, based on that. But no, I figured this would be, there's a lot of stuff in the news about real estate, you know, so we've got the National Association of Realtors. They were sued, and we've mentioned it briefly before on the show, but that settlement, a lot of the changes that came from that settlement are going into effect now. And so I figure we'll kind of talk about that, just kind of the, and that's not so much legal, that's just about how real estate transactions work and get started.
But that was litigation that has changed things, and so we'll talk about that. And then I know one of the presidential candidates, you know, one of the big problems right now is the home market's a little frozen. Everybody who got very low interest rates during COVID, the two percent, the three percenters, no one's in a hurry to sell their house because right now their interest rate would be six, seven, eight percent. And so people can't really afford to buy and sell easily, and the market's a little frozen.
And one of the presidential candidates threw out a policy about giving, about trying to unfreeze the market, giving folks 25 grand in assistance and, you know, that kind of thing. And so I figure we can talk about that. And then we do so many real estate closings here at the firm.
We added it up one time, and it was a crazy number, the amount of real estate closings that we've done since 2004 when we opened. But there's all different types of things that, questions we get about real estate closings and the timing and the contracts. And so I figured we can talk about that for a little bit, but we're going to have a very real estate centric show today. I was going to do the Joe Nichols update. Yeah, let's do it.
I like that. I didn't have anything to contribute to football, but before we dive into real topics, I talked about that I was going to go to the Joe Nichols concert on the show last week. And I did go, and it was great. Oh, was it?
Yeah, it was great. I really was concerned about the venue being a field behind the baseball diamond, but it was perfect. They had it all set up, food vendors, drink vendors, all the porta potties you could need, three parking in a big field, three minutes from Taco Bell. How many people you think showed up for that?
I know you don't know, but how have you guessed? Like a couple thousand. Oh yeah, big crowd. Yeah, it was good. They definitely had room for maybe double that. It was all bring your own chairs. We were back behind the sound stage, so I do think it was at least as many people as they had expected since we were pushed back that far.
I highly hope that more artists come through Swanboro, North Carolina. Did he sing the song about the disabled veterans? Did you figure out which song that was?
Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off? No, it wasn't that. He did play that song.
I still don't remember the name of it, but he was playing all of the music videos on the screen behind the stage. Well, if you did not cry during that, then you don't care about the veterans as much as he does. It was very touching.
It was a very touching video. Joe Nichols looks like the type of guy who likes his football too, man. Just looking at him. He kept all his hair. It's still all there.
I don't know how much of it he paid for, but it's impressive that it looks the same as in the videos from 20 plus years ago. Well, that's good. We got Sturgill Simpson tickets in October. Oh, that's great. Yeah, I saw the roots. I saw the roots are coming. That might have already happened. I'm really behind the times, but I gotta get on it, man.
I gotta get on it while it's nice outside. Absolutely. Judica County Radio, we have our Joe Nichols update, and did he sing What's a Guy Gotta Do? The other question I was going to ask is give me that girl Broken Heartsville. Did he sing Broken Heartsville? Yes. These are real songs? Which songs? Yeah.
Well, you let off with Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off. That's probably his biggest hit. Yeah, that's the top one. I saw Broken Heartsville. I didn't hear that one because I ducked out a few minutes early, and I think he was saving it for the encore, so I did not hear his most popular song. Give Me That Girl.
That sounds a little forceful, man. One of the songs, everyone got up and line danced, and I wasn't expecting that. I don't know. I did learn a lot of line dancing in gym class in North Dakota, but it was mostly to the electric slide.
Do you remember the song they jumped up and line danced to? Oh gosh, I wish I did. I'll update you next week. I'm going to do some research. She only smokes when she drinks. Cool to be a fool. If nobody believed in you, I'll wait for you.
Size matters. Sunny in 75. Sunny in 75. That is the song that people line dance to from Joe Nichols is what I'm told. I thought you guys would all know.
I thought it was a local thing. I don't even know who he is. He has great hair, though.
I will agree there. I guarantee you, like if you surveyed the entire nation, like every radio station in the entire nation, we have talked more about Joe Nichols than anybody else in the nation. More than any country station. I've heard this mystery regarding the interest in Lionel Richie around here.
Lionel Richie's the best. Yeah, what are you talking about? You said around here. What does that mean? What are you talking about? They hate Lionel Richie in North Dakota?
Neutral. But there's some like high level interest here. And I've just been surprised by the Lionel Richie support in North Carolina. I just thought that was nationwide. I didn't think that was North Carolina. North Dakota is like the Luxembourg of Lionel Richie fandom. Well, Moorhead City. I mean, maybe he vacations there. I don't know.
I think everybody that I know or have ever known has held a positive view. Well, the mystery is still not solved, but at least it's confirmed. Well, he's certainly in everybody's, I guess, viewing crosshairs, however you want to phrase it, with American Idol. And he's a pretty good songwriter and obviously great history in music. Lionel Richie fan club.
We're going to take a break. Juga County Radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts. They're the managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.
And of course, fellow attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, Cassandra Nicholas, joining us on the program as always. We are going to get into more of the real estate closing questions you need to have the answers to. And again, we have those five complimentary consults.
Maybe you've got something going on. You need some legal help. Call 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186. More Judica County right after this. We are back on Judica County Radio. Your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, offices located.
Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and Moorhead City along with Cleveland, the newest location. Cassandra Nicholas also joining us on the program. Fellow attorney at Whitaker and Hamer. We do have five complimentary consults if you've got real estate questions. If you've got a legal situation you're facing and you need some answers, grab one of the consults. 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186. I'm Morgan Patrick. And again, each and every week I try to herd the cats, so to speak. And we talk legalese. And today it is real estate closing questions you need to have the answers to.
Josh, take it away. Well, let's talk about the process. You know, usually if you're going to, you know, this is only transactions that involve real estate agents, right? So sometimes people will embark on selling their property on their own, right?
Or for sale by owner. And so that really... Call it a fizzbo.
A fizzbo. And that's something that can, you know, you can always do that. That's if that's something you want to do. That really can change. But if you're going to use a real estate agent in the past, you know, you would, you would go see a home that was listed by an agent and that listing agent would offer compensation to your buyer's agent, to your agent as a buyer. And that is the biggest part of this settlement, this lawsuit against a couple of people. It got settled.
The NAR settlement is that the listing agent, the agent that represents the seller can no longer offer compensation to a buyer's agent on MLS. Is that, is that right? Is that, is that how you guys understand it?
That's, that's the gist of it, right? The listing agent can't say, look, I'll give you a 3% commission if you bring a buyer and, and, and put that in all the MLS is where everything gets listed. The agents look at, it just can't be offered in that fashion.
Yeah, I think that that's the, that's the key is the key is how it's shown, right? Because, and practically speaking, you're going to still see a lot of situations where, you know, in essence, these commissions are going to be paid. These buyer commissions are still going to be paid by the seller. It's just the way that that, the way that it's approached, the way that it's offered in the key to all of this, the, the one through like the thing that permeates everything that the NAR has put out has been negotiation. They want this to be a process of negotiation and disclosure, and they want everyone to be aware of what's going on and they want the buyers to understand the process and how this works, which not to say that they necessarily didn't before, but there's just a whole, it's a lot more conspicuous now.
Yeah. So it's, it's a little bit different, uh, buyers agents now, uh, will need to, you know, I think what's going to happen is a buyer's agent is going to have to educate their client a little bit more than normal on how they get compensated. Because if a seller or a listing agent is an offering compensation, uh, the buyer, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to pay your agent out of your own pocket.
Yeah. And what you're seeing is what you didn't see before is, is, is piggybacking on that as you're seeing buyers, uh, buyers are entering into these, these compensation agreements where they're stating, you know, this is, this is the agents are agreeing to work for this buyer in exchange for whatever the fee may be. Let's just say 2.4% of the sales price.
And in the past, like you said, Josh, this is something that it was pretty much a no brainer. The, this was going to be something that was paid out of the listing agents percentage and their portion of commission. So the buyer would have no responsibility for that cost. And now we're looking at a situation where you've got agents who were showing these homes and they, they don't necessarily know, at least they don't know at the onset what amount, if any, the seller is going to be willing to pay of that commission. So you could have situations where your, your buyer's agent has agreed to work for X amount of money.
The seller's not offering that. And then you've got a situation where that buyer's covering that fee, or there's some kind of a negotiation to reduce down the amount that the agents agree to take. So it's, it does add a little bit of a tricky back into things that was not present before the ruling. And a lot of folks are freaking out about it. A lot of real estate professionals, I should say. Well, you know, it definitely changes things and, and, and I wasn't a huge fan of, of the settlement in the end.
I guess you, you have to do what you have to do. The industry will get used to it. Everybody will get educated on it, but for folks who are buying or selling a home starting now, it's kind of new. And so your agents are going to have to explain some things that maybe they wouldn't have had to explain in great detail before. Uh, but yeah, a lot of new forms for real estate agents, maybe some new procedures. Um, it might be a little more difficult for you to, to go see a house, you know, get an agent to show you a house. You're gonna have to do a little more documentation than maybe, maybe before.
Yeah. If you, what I, what I'm, the consensus seems to be, I'm seeing a lot of, a lot of folks who are, cause essentially the ruling States that before an agent can, can show you a property, you're going to have to enter into some form of agreement with them. And so a lot of these agents are doing more limited in time agreements rather than an exclusive agreement where you're going to sign up, they're going to be your agent for, you know, however long it takes to procure a property.
They may sign a more limited agreement just as to that property or as to a limited period of time. And again, you're, you're going in with an understanding of you could be ultimately having to pay some compensation to this agent if you consummate this purchase and go through with it. And you know, I mentioned the fact that a lot of folks have been freaking out about this, especially realtors. And, and I, I think as it gets fleshed out and as we see things, and I think you're going to see some changes, I think as this gets implemented and we see how it plays out in practice, you're going to see some things be revised as they, you know, see some of these things in theory play out. But ultimately with all the people freaking out, I think at the end of the day, folks that really have a good understanding of it and can, can adapt are going to be almost benefited by this in a way. And, and it's going to help their business as crazy as that may sound.
So don't freak out if you're a realtor about this. Change is scary, Joseph. Yes, that it is. Cassandra got me thinking. What, what would you, what would you, everybody, what would you say your favorite Lionel Richie song is? Can it be a Commodore song or is it got to be Lionel Richie? No, no, it's got to be a solo Lionel Richie project. Ah, man.
I don't know, man. I'm not going to go first. No, you, it can be, I changed my mind.
It can be a Commodore song, but it can't be night shift because Lionel Richie had already left the Commodores when they did night shift. I'm going to, I'm taking brick house. That's what I'm taking. All right. What about you? Hello?
Hello? Is that yours? Yep.
Is that the one that's a video where he's, uh, the lady's making the sculpture? Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad that Morgan knows I was in a mostly post video era. Uh, oh yeah.
No more videos on MTV. Sorry. I like Lady. Uh, that's the one he did with, um, I want to say he did it with, um, oh gosh. Um, oh, come on. The gambler. Um, Kenny Rogers. Kenny Rogers. Yep. Yep.
Those are all, those are all the wrong answers. The correct answer is sail on. That is the best Lionel Richie song.
I would have accepted, I would have accepted easy. Uh, but, but sail on is, is the best. You think so? Yeah. Oh, I know.
So you think so. You talk about MTV, Facebook page, you, uh, you talk about MTV this weekend. I found out that on YouTube and maybe other people know this, but you can, there's people who are just uploading like blocks of like two hour blocks of old MTV commercials with commercials. Yeah.
And bump bumpers. And, and so I watched a 1985 MTV top 20 with the commercials. I also watched, I also watched an hour. You might ask yourself, doesn't Josh have better things to do than do this, but I watched one hour of the USA cartoon express from like 1986.
And it was all Hannah barbaric commercials and a high end of barbaric cartoons and cereal commercials. That's a lot of fun. I highly recommend if you find yourself with some free time, I like the picture you and your chair on a Sunday with your cigar, just in your underwear.
And you've done, and it's tidy. Whitey's he's in the lake, Joe. No, no. He's sitting in front of the, he's sitting in front of the TV. It's kids keep coming in and he's just like, get, get out of here. Daddy's watching this car with my cigar. My kids were not interested in it whatsoever. So I can't even fake, you know, like I was, I was watching it with my kids. And you're eating cereal with your hands.
You just shove it in your mouth. Big bowl. Yeah. But there, if you haven't seen the hair, the hair bear bunch, you remember those before?
Yeah. There's a lot of good cartoons on that USA cartoon express, but it's fun to watch. But like with the commercials and everything, you're really, you know, like if it was just the cartoon, you'd be like, Oh, I remember that cartoon. But when they throw in the commercials and the bumpers, it really brings you back. It does.
It really does. Peak nostalgia, man. I went to a cartoon and cereal event at a theater a couple of years ago, and it was a lot of fun. It was like Saturday morning and they were playing them on the big screen.
It was great. Like throwback cereals. What kind of cereals? I mean, they're, they're cereals that have been around a while and some cocoa puffs.
So that sounds good. Hey, it's the hair. It's the hair bear bunch, man. I just want to make sure if there's any purist out there, what'd I say?
I want to hear bear bunch. You did say, I think that's exactly what I said. We will have to roll back the footage, man. I feel like we'll do that.
We'll do that during the break. Hard hitting legal conversation. Judica County radio, your host, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, and also Cassandra Nicholas attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer. Obviously, Josh and Joe are managing partners there. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices located Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Morehead city. We do have five complimentary consults. Call the number, grab one right now. 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186. We've got question and answer Q and a coming up next. Welcome back into Judica County radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices located conveniently for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Morehead city, Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life. I'm Morgan Patrick consumer advocate. Josh, we are again having some of your all star attorneys joining us on the program.
Who's up next? Next, we have attorney Ashley Penner. She is with our firm, has been with our firm for a long time, handles estate planning and trust. Today, our theme has kind of been talking about how you can use your attorney to kind of do some planning. We've talked about business planning. We've talked about family law planning with Ashley. We're going to talk about estate planning. And later on in the show, talk about what happens if you don't do estate planning, what becomes purview of the court, public information. What do you have to deal with if you don't do your planning?
And so, Ashley, in that vein, I know one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today, one thing I want to ask you about is this planning process. You know, and what you can do to keep your information private, to keep your stuff out of the purview of the court. None of us ever want to have to rely on a clerk's order or a judge's order or get our assets caught up in an estate probate or an estate contest or something like that. And people in that vein, you know, we're going to talk about, you know, your estate planning, a will, which I think everybody's pretty familiar with what a will is and what a will can do. That doesn't get you out of probate versus a trust, which a carefully crafted and managed and a monicured trust would keep you out of possibly probate.
So that's where I'll start it with you, kind of the advantages of, you know, what is a trust and kind of the advantages of trust. Yeah, the trust is a legal document that, of course, you would create as a part of the estate planning process. It can hold assets during your lifetime and then speak to or control what happens to those assets, how they're distributed or how they're held in trust, who they can benefit after your death. And it's the ability of the trust to hold those assets while you're still living. That gives you that probate avoidance. They've already been transferred into this this legal entity, so to speak, that you've created. You've already designated someone who we call the trustee that's going to be in control of the assets after your death.
And it streamlines that process so that you do avoid the probate process or administration process where a clerk is involved in making sure that what you've said in your will is honored in the in the administration. So when I was when I was growing up, I think the first I was trying to think about earlier today, the first time that I ever heard anybody talk about a trust. And I think the first two times that I can remember hearing anybody talk about a trust was, oh, man, who was the rich guy on Gilligan's Island?
Oh, it was his name, Mr. Howell, Mr. Howell. And or Beverly Hillbillies, Beverly Hillbillies a couple of times. But and maybe that's why I think about trust. I think about they're just for the rich people. They're just for people with like tons of assets. And and and that's really not the case.
No. Yeah, I definitely grew up thinking the same thing. Any time I heard them, of course, no one, no one in my family ever had a trust. Nor have I ever been the beneficiary of a trust.
So most of my my actual knowledge of it comes from law school, like like most of us, probably. But it is certainly not reserved for folks that have massive amounts of wealth. I tell a lot of my clients, you know, if if the only thing you end up using your your trust for is to hold your real estate, you have done yourself and your family a significant service.
Because, again, it's going to really trim up what they have to do and how quickly they can do what they need to do, depending on what that is. So, yeah, I've always heard this rule of thumb of five million dollars. You should have roughly five million dollars in assets before you should even think about or worry with or bother with a trust.
And, yeah, not the case. It has so much benefit to so many different folks. You know, and it's it's kind of one of your biggest estate planning tools. And, you know, a trust is basically I think of it as, you know, it's kind of like starting a business. Right. You start an LLC, you start a corporation, you're starting the law sees that as its own entity, its own its own thing.
And so I'll talk to people a lot about probate assets and non probate assets. But the trust is like a magic bucket that you can put things in and trust will not trust is going to die. It may terminate on its own. It can only go on for so many years. But in theory, it's going to outlive you. And that's the convenience of it. It's like this is kind of oversimplifying and maybe kind of dumb, but I like it as a metaphor. But it's like you put stuff in this bucket and this bucket automatically goes to your heirs.
Yeah. No one looks in the bucket. No one's going to ask you questions about the bucket. You've got some basic asset protection if someone was going to sue or challenge the way you're distributing your things. So it's like this magic vehicle and there's tax advantages and there's other advantages, too. But it's this magic vehicle to get stuff to your heirs easily.
And, you know, you think about it. If you if you've got a house with equity and you've got vehicles and you've got your 401K and you've got your investment accounts, we may not think of ourselves as as having a lot of assets to average American who might be looking at this. But you've got a lot of assets to protect. Certainly. If you you might have a different stance on that if you're being sued and you start looking at what could become subject to a judgment in the you know, in the event that one is in place.
Yes. Then you absolutely have a lot of assets. And then, you know, something you mentioned, I think that is also good to point out what the trust is. It has so much flexibility because it is that, you know, that existing entity. It can undergo changes a little bit more easily than if you're changing how your will distributes your property. There is a lot more rigor involved in the signing of a will than in the signing of a trust, but also the privacy that it brings with it. The fact that, yeah, no one's going to be delving around into that document and no clerk is going to be looking over the shoulder of the trustee to make sure that, you know, they've they've adhered to adhered to the rules in the trust.
It has the privacy that a lot of folks want in keeping all of their business out of court filings. I guess there's certain things we're talking about trust and I've talked to them as magical about being magical and things like that. There's things trust don't do that you need your other estate planning documents to do. So one of the things that you pointed out to me before is, well, you know, if you have a good trust, your will is what we call a pour over will, right? Where the will is just saying, hey, anything that I haven't managed to get into my trust, please give it to my trust. So that's a pour over will.
But there's there's other things that will can do for you. And and actually, you always point out to me, I always overlook guardianship. You know, that's an important one to your minor children. Right.
Yeah. Making sure that anyone who's under the age of 18 has that you've been in control of saying who they should be with, who should be caring for them. If you don't have a will.
Right. You're leaving it up to the courts to determine with whom they should be placed. And also, you know, sometimes, unfortunately, there might be people who you as much as you want other folks to be the guardian of your children, there are folks you don't want to be guardian of your children. And the will is a place where we can make that known as well. If you don't leave a document behind that addresses that at all, it could be the person that you ultimately did not want to be guardian of your children who goes and applies for that guardianship.
And now they are being raised by someone that, you know, in your mind would have never your children would never live with. So a trust is certainly a very important estate planning and can be kind of the primary estate planning vehicle, but it can't do everything that we need. So I tell a lot of my clients, you might have a will and not have a trust. But if you have a trust, you should still absolutely have a will.
Because aside from addressing guardianship, let's say you don't have minor children anymore. You go out and you acquire assets. Let's say you've you've gotten this trust prepared and you're working on getting everything transferred into it. And then something happens, sudden death and you don't get a chance to continue in your your funding of this trust mission. You've still got a valid will that's going to get everything there. Yeah, I talk to a lot of clients who who who definitely think it's an either or situation like, well, I've already got my trust or I've already got my will.
But you really need both of them. And the will handle some things you can't handle with the trust. And there's also kind of a fail safe there so that that does come up. I know there's other ways we're talking about the trust being this magic bucket which can make otherwise a probate asset, an asset that would have to go through probate, non-probate, private. There's other ways to make probate assets non-probate. Yeah.
Yes. So, you know, you might have things like bank accounts, life insurance, retirement plans. And on all of these assets, you know, we counsel our clients. You want to make sure you have beneficiaries designated a primary beneficiary and a contingent. And maybe, you know, if you're a married couple with children and you have this trust, you're going to name your spouse as the primary beneficiary. But then you name the trust as the contingent beneficiary. But even on things like bank accounts, you can name a payable on death or transferable on death beneficiary. And these are ways that you can ensure that those assets avoid that probate process.
There's not going to be a significant delay in being able to access those funds. Of course, you'd have to have a death certificate. We don't want people are designated beneficiaries being able to show up at the bank and say, hey, she died.
Can I have her money? Right. We want them to show that proof through death certificate. But that's going to be a much shorter process than going to the clerk's office and setting up that estate, that probate estate, and then transferring the account into an estate account and then documenting for the clerk what funds were in that account. That's going to hold up things.
And particularly if we have a situation where, you know, parents are lost and there are children that, you know, will have needs that need to be tended to, it'll allow for much less disruption in the basic maintenance and care for those minor children. Well, actually, I think that's I think that's a good discussion today, kind of on this, this using your attorney to plan things out for you to make your life easier, to keep out of litigation, to keep you out of the court, keep you out of the clerk's office. So I appreciate that. You know, the first step in estate planning is to is to give us a call. If you call Whitaker and Hamer, if you call our law firm and you want to talk about estate planning, you're going to end up talking to Ashley.
And that's for good reason. She handles many, many, many of these every month. And she's she's a good place to start. And we'd be happy to help you with that. But, Ashley, I know we'll talk about this again, so we'll we'll see you before too long.
Absolutely. Looking forward to it. That's Ashley Penner again, estate planning with Whitaker and Hamer. We are again visiting with the all star team of attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer.
Again, hitting a lot of different questions that the firm gets quite a bit of. And folks, if you've got any situation you're facing and you need answers to those questions, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.
That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast info at Judica County dot com. When we return on Judica County radio. Yes, we have another attorney and she's very familiar. Cassandra Nicholas joins us. It's about estate planning. We're looking forward to this discussion.
Again, that's coming up on the other side. Welcome back into Judica County radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer and the power behind this program, where you can find Josh and Joe. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.
They have offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you've got questions, you need some answers. You can always call Whitaker and Hamer eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.
That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly. What the calls about an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And as always, you can email your questions to the show info at Judica County dot com. We'll answer them on a future program. So we have another attorney joining us on the program.
Josh, who we got. All right. So if you're if you've been a regular listener of our show, you know, and already familiar with Cassandra Nicholas. But she is our attorney stationed out of the Morehead City office who deals with a state administration and probate across the state of North Carolina. But we bring Cassandra on to talk to us about a lot of different things today. Cassandra is here to talk about state administration, probate.
You know, there's those words kind of go together. But basically, you're dead. And someone, hopefully someone you've named and planned is taking care of your affairs, taking care of your estate, taking care of your assets because you're no longer here. And me and Joseph, we spend a lot of time talking about planning ahead of time using, you know, using your attorney to plan ahead of time to avoid probate. Right. We're going to try to avoid the whole process to the extent that we can to try to keep your information private. Keep your heirs or your fiduciaries from having to go downtown and deal with a clerk, deal with a deal with a judge, keep things moving along. And Cassandra, in that in that vein, I was going to talk to you kind of about what a state administration looks like when you when you can't avoid it.
Right. So you're you're usually only involved if we can't avoid. And we just spent some time talking with Ashley about trust and and planning to kind of keep things out of a probate. But let's just say you don't do anything. You never plan and you die.
What's that going to look like? So I absolutely want to funnel people to Ashley. If you're not already in a situation where you need a state administration, please do your estate planning. Trusts are an excellent tool to be able to avoid a state administration entirely. If you're not using a trust or not causing assets to be automatically transferred to your intended recipients by some other means, either as naming them as beneficial beneficiaries on specific assets, pay on death beneficiaries on bank accounts, putting folks on vehicles with you as joint with right of survivorship so that those automatically transfer just as a function of generally a contract.
If that's not the case, then there are two camps. When you get to me for a state administration, there are folks who did estate planning and have a will and everything, but still need a state administration because there are assets that did not automatically transfer by some other means. So you can die test date with a will with assets that the clerk needs to assign award to your intended recipients, or you get stuck with the state's default rules. And that's dying in test date without a will.
And there's there's nothing inherently wrong with that. The lawmakers did think, you know, long and hard about how to come up with the schemes of intestacy and how heirs would inherit. But those default rules aren't necessarily what everyone wants. And understanding what those default rules are is important in your estate planning or in in considering what happens. A lot of folks don't realize they think if if they are married to someone that the default rule must be that their spouse gets everything when they pass.
But that's not the case. The intestacy statute. If you have a spouse and children, your your assets are split between your spouse and children. So if you want your spouse to have everything and you don't want it to be split with your children automatically, you want your spouse to have, you know, the authority to do what they want with those assets.
That needs to be done through estate planning rather than allowing just the default rules to exist. Yes, it's one of those it's one of those nightmare situations that we we unfortunately see, you know, everybody everybody thinks depends on how old you are, how you know, I'm in my late 40s now. Surely I'll make it from my 70s. Right.
And people in their 60s. Surely I'll make it. I hope you do. I mean, thank you.
Me, too. But but you always think you've got more time and maybe hopefully you do. But we were in that situation where someone dies way to her. You know, so we we've got the situations where the 40 year old father of three has a heart attack and passes away. You know, it hasn't done any estate planning. That's that's young estate planning is hard to think about. And like you said, like, you know, if the house isn't owned correctly, you know, we've had a situation where a spouse is inherited with underage kids and trying to get that house sold or dealt with. When one of the owners is your four year old son is challenging to say the least. Right.
Oh, absolutely. Because then we're also dealing with not just the the intestacy, not just the estate administration. You also then need to deal with a guardianship in order to the the courts are interested in protecting the assets of minors. So a parent can't just automatically make decisions about real estate that a minor inherited for them.
You need to have permission from the courts to do so. And you know that that is a lot of work time. Attorney expense, court fee expenses, mandatory hearings for guardianships to get a guardian assigned. So especially when there are minor children involved, it's it's important to. Do the estate planning on the front end because we are here and we're happy to help with all of those, but we want people to be aware that it's definitely going to be added time and expense when you haven't avoided those on the front end. You know, it's just like anything else, you know, we've talked me and Joe have talked today about business planning. You know, you can do a lot of planning with your operating agreement, with your business assets so that when someone passes away or when there's a disagreement with a partner, you've already kind of planned out what's going to happen and it doesn't necessarily have to become something that's litigated.
Right. Our big theme today is things that the courts have to be involved with, things that have to be public versus things that you can keep private and plan around. And so we've talked about that as, you know, business planning.
We've talked about Taylor. We've talked about family law planning, if you know, you know, prenup separations, agreements, planning before separation. There's lots of stuff you can plan and agree to and keep private rather than putting it on display in the kind of public arena. And, you know, we've talked to Ashley about estate planning, try to avoid probate. But here, you know, our example, our 42 year old who passed away way, way, way too early without any notice. He left his family with a lot of trouble because he hadn't planned. And that's no knock against him. That's the way these things go.
But to the extent that you can stop what you're doing and think about it. You know, when I was growing up, I felt like trusts were for rich people, right? Rich people had trust.
But that's not the case. And I know we also help people administer trust. A lot of folks will create a trust and not have a son or a daughter or a spouse who can who can run the trust, administer the trust.
We will do that a lot for folks, too. But I was going to ask you, Cassandra, in this public versus private discussion that we're having. If you have to if you're passed away and your heirs have to go open an estate for you, whether there's a will or not. So they have to just do some estate administration. What kind of information is public at that point? So estate administration files, the entire file is public. So some of the counties have e-filing now. So a lot of this is also available.
Just click the button on anyone's browser. So your heirs, whoever whoever your heirs are through intestacy, their ages, their addresses, what your assets are and the exact value of each asset. What your debts are, the claims against the estate. So it's it's a lot of information that's public, even down to the bank account statements. The the account numbers are redacted and on the online filings, you can't pull those bank statements.
But in the physical file, which is public, those are accessible as well. So, yes. So, yeah, there's a lot out there. I saw I'm a big, big wrestling fan. You know, but somebody wrote somebody wrote a book about Ric Flair.
It was like it was supposed to be like a biography of Ric Flair. And they did it just everything was just based on files that could pull in the Mecklenburg County courthouse. So any estate that he was a beneficiary of divorces, guardianships, any kind of civil lawsuit. It's all public record. And the guy wrote an entire book just based on what he could get off the public record. So it's.
Yeah, definitely. And then so I'm happy to keep talking about what's public or not public. But I'd also like to jump back to your example of a 42 year old man who's passed unexpectedly with some debts. There are some tools at our disposal as or at anyone's disposal in filing estate administrations. If the person has a spouse or children under 18, there are ways to protect a spouse or minor children from creditors up to a certain extent. So it depends on what assets exist, what debts exist. But through a spousal allowance, a spouse can be assigned the first sixty thousand currently at sixty thousand of personal property. And that's able to be protected from most types of creditors. There are certain types of creditors, such as medical creditors, that can get at a spouse regardless of a spousal allowance being filed. So there are certain types of debts that a spouse takes on no matter what, essentially. No, it's you know, and again, if all this property was in trust, if all this property was positioned in such a way where it did not become an asset of an estate, you know, that that really helps.
It really helps in everything that we've been talking about. It really helps keep it, you know, your heirs are going to move easy. Your family is going to just move. It's a tough situation, but they'll be able to continue on without the angst of having to deal with what you deal with every day. We're here to deal with that angst for you. But that that is something even for my clients that they they know their estate administration is happening. It's not completely out of their minds, unfortunately, until it's closed. And some of the clerks and courts runaways behind some of this can can take a while, even with, you know, good attorneys in your corner helping you through the process. So we're here to help.
But to be possible. Well, Cassandra, it's good to talk to you today. I always appreciate you joining us.
And thank you, Cassandra. Nicholas, fellow attorney at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, joining us on the program of state administration. Again, talking about the different levels of law there. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. And of course, they are the hosts of this show. And the power behind the program is Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.
We are going to take a short break, come back on the other side and wrap this up. Now, if you've got a legal situation that you're facing, remember, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. They've got offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City, where you can find Cassandra Nicholas. The number to call is 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.
Leave your contact information and briefly what the call is about. And an attorney will return that call from Whitaker and Hamer. And you can always email your questions to the show. Info at judicacounty.com. That's info at judicacounty.com.
And we will answer those questions on a future broadcast. We'll wrap up more Judica County coming up. Welcome back into Judica County Radio. Your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm right here in the great state of North Carolina. The practicing attorney is here in North Carolina. And also joining us, Cassandra Nicholas, fellow attorney with Whitaker and Hamer. Offices located, we always tell you, they're everywhere.
Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. The opportunity to get a free consult, complimentary, it's ongoing during the course of the show. Just call 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186. We're coming out of Q&A and we're going to wrap it up. Josh, what do you got? Well, we have these questions. We're going to, we didn't get to it, but we're going to answer these questions about real estate closings. And we talked, we talked a little bit about it. Um, uh, but, but I think this is probably a good time, Joseph, to talk a little bit about, uh, wire fraud in a, in a real estate closing. I know we've touched on that before, but if you're involved in a real estate closing and you're going to wire money into your closing attorney, you gotta be pretty careful. That's right, Josh.
I feel like this is the start of a commercial. Uh, yeah, no, it's no, you shouldn't laugh, Josh, cause wire fraud is no laughing matter. It's very serious and I take it very seriously. And, and we have, we've done some laughing today, but no, in all seriousness, wire fraud is super legitimate. It's super real.
It's a, there's a lot of things that you hear on the radio and people talk about it. And these, these grand threats that are kind of not really close to home, but wire fraud is definitely, it is a close to home type of thing. And if you're involved in any kind of real estate transaction where you're sending money somewhere, you are a potential victim and you gotta be careful. Yeah, I always assume, I always assume email is, is not, is not secure. You know, email is not a secure form of communication.
And if you're, if you communicate through a Gmail account or a Yahoo account, there's still some AOL accounts floating around out there, you know, the longer you've had an email address, the more likely I think that it's, it's been hacked. And, and, you know, when you're in a conversation with a closing attorney, your lender, a real estate agent, you know, an appraiser, when all these people start talking via email, a lot of times you'll find out one of their emails was compromised. And somebody has been following this conversation and, and they'll insert them, this bad actor will kind of insert themselves into the, into this, into the situation, pretending to be someone to try to get you to send your funds to a bad guy. And we have seen that happen a lot.
We use a lot of software and technology to, to prevent it. But it's still something I saw, you know, that's happening a lot. And then, and then we've got a lot of bad actors who are finding real property that the owners don't reside at, and then trying to pretend to be the owners and trying to sell the property without ever having to meet anybody in person.
Right. I don't know if that makes sense the way I said it, but you're having, you're having bad actors pretend they own one, two, three Smith street and engaging a listing agent, getting a buyer under contract, and trying to sell the property, even though they're not the real owners. They come up with fake credentials, passports, IDs, fake notarized documents. And so we've had to use a lot of new technology to kind of root these, these bad actors out. Um, so fortunately we haven't, we haven't seen it in a long time, but it's still something out there is real prevalent. Yeah, we do know it's happening in North Carolina. The North Carolina bar has taken a really hard line stance.
Regarding closing attorneys, making sure they take all of the necessary precautions to avoid any wire fraud, especially when closing attorneys like us are sending funds out, making sure that we are sending funds to the correct accounts related to a closing. But the implementation of the software I think has been really helpful in preventing potential issues. So I'm excited we have that, that would occur in Hamer. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, we, we do a lot of online verification of folks to prove they are who they are. It's, uh, it's crazy. You know, technology has come a long way and bad guys can, can use that, you know, technology kind of against you.
But they're always coming out with new tricks and things. So you can, you can kind of combat that, but, uh, yeah, man, before you wire money anywhere, you have to double and triple check those wiring instructions. When you wire somewhere, it's gone. And if it's out of the country, there's not a lot the authorities can do to get it back. It's gone. It's, it's gone.
You know, so I always have to be mindful of that. And, um, you know, my new goal is to get six and a half minutes of, of actual legal information to people during this hour. And I think we did that today. Oh, you nailed it. You absolutely nailed it. Another edition of Judica County radio in the books, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Also on the program, fellow attorney with Whitaker and Hamer Cassandra Nicholas, those consults, there are five of them.
They're complimentary. If you've got any questions about a legal situation that you're in, uh, you can grab a consult right now. 800-659-1186.
That's 800-659-1186. Another edition is in the books of Judica County for Josh, Joe, Cassandra. I'm Morgan. 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 JMW at mwhlaw.lawyer.
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