Judica County Radio: Appellate Court Review for Trump, & Abortion Laws in NC

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. We are here to talk legalese, the hottest topics from the law. That's coming up next, right here on Judica County Radio. Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

They have offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Farina, Gastonia, Moorhead City, and a new office in Cleveland. Okay folks, it's always legalese. Josh, welcome in. Joe, good to see you. What is going to be on the topic list today? Morgan, we have topics and we're going to get there, but Joseph, do we ever decide what we're going to call the Cleveland, the 4042 office? Do we ever figure that out? I think it was going to be a mystery office. I think it was just going to be a true mystery, man. Make people guess.

I feel like when we say Cleveland, I don't know that that resonates with people on the North side of town or other places in the States. We're going to have to think on that. 4042. 4042. People know that. The folks around these parts who are servicing, they know that.

They're well familiar with the terminology. We're happy to be down there. We've always had our Garner office, we've always had our Clayton office, so we're kind of in our Raleigh office and our Fuquay office, so we're kind of circling around the 4042 area, but the growth there since I've been an adult is just bananas.

Every time I go down there, I was down there last week, there's always something new that I hadn't seen before. You were a young adult too, man. I feel like you were an adult at like 15 years old, younger than me. How long have you been an adult, Josh?

It's been a minute. I was just thinking, you're seeing it's homecoming for a lot of high school football teams, and I was seeing a lot of reunion talk. A lot of people get together, a lot of reunions are around. Homecoming, and so I saw a Garner reunion, and I remember the people, they weren't that much older than me, and they were having their 30th, and I was trying to think about it. I was like, my 30th is next year. So it's been a minute.

No comment. Yeah, you seem so young and fresh. I remember when my parents had their 30-year high school reunion, how old everybody, I love my parents to death, they're not old, but how old everybody seemed at the time when I was a kid.

We're getting up there, I guess. Well, I think the biggest thing on reunions, guys, and obviously, have you been to many? Have you been to a 20? Did you do a 25? I think our 25 got knocked out by COVID, but I believe I went to a 10, and then I went to a 20. Yeah, 10 doesn't matter. Nobody's done anything by 10, but the thing you start to notice is just how people have aged and changed, and it is kind of a shocker, because you just look at yourself, you see yourself in the mirror every day. You don't think you've changed much, but you have. Joe, again, you're a youngster. Have you done any reunions at all?

Yeah, just a young boy. We had a 10, and then our 20's supposed to be this year, and nobody's done anything, so it doesn't sound like that's a thing that's occurring. I would say, well, watch out for the 30th, because you come in and you're almost 50 years old, there's a lot of angst. We had a huge fight at my 30th.

That sounds awesome. Yeah, I'm not kidding. One of our head cheerleader, very, very involved person in our high school married a young man who was the quarterback for our rival high school. Again, we are 30 years out of high school, and two of my classmates ganged up on the former quarterback, and they had a huge fight in the middle of the dance floor, in the middle of our reunion, and we got kicked out of the old Broyhill Center at Appalachian State. Now, I was not there. I had left 10 minutes earlier because we had an early tee time, but I knew everybody involved, and I guarantee you, if we would have waited a little bit, I would have been at least trying to be peacemaker in the middle of this brawl. But anyway, we were no longer allowed to go back to the... You got to let that ride, man. That grudge that's been brewing for 30 years, man. You got to let those people get that out.

You can't stop it. That's crazy, man. That sounds great, man. I want to do that. I got to pick a fight with someone at my next reunion. I got to figure somebody out that I don't like. Well, it looks like you're going to have to organize it, though, right, Joseph?

Yeah, just for that purpose. I'm only going to send invitations to people that I don't like, and this is going to be an ambush. I liked everybody I went to high school with, man. I got along with everybody. We had a good group of folks.

Yeah, I did, too, man. I don't really have anybody in high school that I disliked. And now, especially as you get older and everybody's had kids and been through it, man, everybody's kind of the same. Life has a way of beating you down and making you more agreeable, I think, in general. Is that what you think, man? That's a pessimistic life for you, man.

Well, it doesn't have to be. Everybody gets, you know, you lose that fire. Yeah, you lose that passion to live.

You lose your desire to continue to breathe air. But anywho, I don't know where I was going with that. I don't know either, man. You're talking about being old. I was just talking about being old in general, which is what I normally talk about. When you became an adult, man, how old were you when you started coaching me basketball, man? Because you were a full-grown adult at that point.

That's the 18 or 19 thing. You were young. You were a young man.

A young man. You looked real different. I had a... probably a little bit.

Well, I was surprised, man. I called you, Joe, this weekend and was going to try to talk to you for a minute, but you were all up in the youth hockey. The youth hockey's taking over your life.

Yeah, just the weekends. Are you new to youth hockey, Joe? Are you new to youth hockey? This is our fourth season, man. This is our fourth season. So we've done it.

You're a veteran. Yeah, I'm in it, man. I'm in it.

You know the smells. Yeah, this is the first year. So we did 8U for three years, and 8U is like real... I thought it was very organized compared to other sports, but there's no score.

And it turns out it's very disorganized compared to the 10U, which is the next step up. They go full ice. They play positions. It's been very fun, man. I'm a big supporter of the... shout out to the Arctic Arsenals. That's the... that's my kids' team name.

They're putting together a strong season, brother. Well, that's a tongue twister. Yeah. They got a merch shop. You can go buy merch. But you had... well, Gail, I'll have to hear that.

Literally. Did you... but you were... you had stuff Saturday, and you had stuff Sunday, and it was all in different places. Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, so Saturday... Saturday's practice, and we practice stupidly early.

That's the one thing about it. The younger kids, it's 6.40 in the morning. Ice time, yeah. 6.40 in the morning practice in Cary, and then we had a doubleheader Sunday. So we went Cary, and then we went to Hillsboro. We played the Hillsboro Hogs, which is a fantastic name, man.

How'd that go? We... it's destroying them. Boink, boink. We're talking about the Arctic Arsenals, Josh.

What are you talking about, man? You should see some of these kids we got skating up there. Have you seen a hog on skates? Yeah, and I know nothing about hockey, right?

Have you seen a hog on skates? It's not pretty. I'm learning about hockey, but I didn't grow up with hockey. We didn't have it. It wasn't an option for me as a young boy, so... Nah, nah. I can't teach my son how to play hockey. I can't show him anything.

So I feel real powerless, but... So, Joe, what sparked the interest in hockey for your young man? I mean, obviously, probably a Hurricanes fan, but... Canes games. Yeah, we started going to the Canes games. Any of his friends' skates? Yeah.

That was it. Going to the Canes games. He saw some Canes games. He got obsessed with him fighting and getting penalties. That's his favorite thing. His dream as a player is to get a penalty.

That's all he wants to do. Um, so... We gotta talk him down from that all the time. The, uh... I always wonder if me and you, like... We really are, like, great hockey players. We just never got a chance to play, so we just don't know. Oh, we tried. For sure. For sure, man. We could've been... We could've been in it. I'm one of the best to ever do it that didn't do it, you know? I feel confident in that, so... Alright, today, today, today, we are going to talk about legal stuff. I wanted to go ahead and put it out there, Joseph.

We're still doing... If you give us a call, Morgan knows the number, but if you give us a call, we will meet with you. One of our attorneys will meet with you and talk about estate planning. We will consult with you about estate planning for free. That's what we're doing this week. Okay.

Well, let's take a break. I'll give you the phone number. You can grab one of those free consults.

It's on estate planning. Again, here's the number, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. These are complimentary.

You leave the checkbook at home. If you've got any questions about estate planning, want to get started on it, call the number, grab one of these consults, 800-659-1186. Again, Judica County Radio will take a short break. I want to remind you, we have offices located with Whitaker and Hamer conveniently for you. Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland. Is it 442?

Is that what we're saying? 442. 4042. 4042. 4042, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and Morehead City. Again, to get a consult, grab this, call this number, 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. We've got the latest from the legal headlines coming up next. You're listening to Judica County Radio.

Music We are back on Judica County Radio. Your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. The power behind this program. And Josh and Joe are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They've got offices located convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. We go back and forth on the legal topics. And we've got some articles we're going to go over. But the top stories.

Josh, take it away. Yeah, you know, it's one of the things we like to do on the show. We like to take legal topics kind of out of the headlines. And when I was sitting around thinking about what we talk about today, I was kind of thinking about political ads that I've seen. You know, we're getting it's that time of year. Hopefully we don't have a lot of these.

You know, we don't have much longer to deal with this. But the political ads every every time they're they're worse than they were the time before, I think. And so some of these political ads, you know, they just they make these claims. They just throw them out there. And, you know, I thought it might be worth our time to kind of kind of think about what they're throwing out there, because there's never really a lot of it's getting worse and worse. Or they just it's almost like they make stuff up or throw out a half truth and there's no support. They used to like, quote, newspapers and stuff or like, but there's just a lot out there.

I thought that maybe we can as attorneys just clarify, just talk about what is. Is there an election coming up? I think I think the word on the street, I heard some people whispering about it. But yeah, I haven't seen anything usually. I think we got one coming up. Is North Carolina an important state in the election?

Because they're here every other week. I went out to our local early voting site on Tuesday of this week and it said the wait time was 10 to 30 minutes. And I went there and the line was around the building. I've never always go do early voting, always do it pretty early. Not the first day, but like second or third day was wrapped around the building. So the turnout is going to be and that's what they've been saying on the news.

The right turnout is going to be nuts. That's good because you really want that. There's no in between. Right. You support one one. Yeah. One hundred percent.

One hundred percent turnout. Judica County radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices conveniently located.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, Morehead City and now in Cleveland. So they basically got you covered. We are going to open up consults for estate planning. All you've got to do is call this number. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. They're complimentary. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And sign up for one of those complimentary consults when it comes to estate planning.

You need one and make sure you have one. Josh, back to you. Yeah. So one of the things we were going to pull out of these commercials, you know, one of the ones I saw, you know, likes to refer to former President Trump as a felon, which is I guess that's actually accurate. He was tried in New York and he is found guilty of many a felony all in the trial. We've talked about it on the show before because I think to most legal observers, the trial had some very questionable tactics by the attorney general up there in New York.

And the reason I'm bringing this up is because last week the New York Court of Appeals. Right. So he was convicted at the district court level state court. And it all revolved around representations he made on personal financing statements to obtain mortgages. Right.

Commercial mortgages. That was the thing. And there was a lot of stuff going on there. And it went it got appealed.

And so the New York that's the next level. You go to the Court of Appeals and there's a panel of judges and they get to ask the attorney's questions. And if you saw any of that, the judges asked a lot of the questions that I think we we all said on the on the show. You know, it was it was like kind of a weird situation. You had two parties, you had some banks. You had Donald Trump and his companies and they were negotiating the terms of a mortgage. And they said Donald Trump overrepresented his wealth on what's called a personal financing statement, which is when the bank asks you for your the value of your assets.

Right. You're not an appraiser. You give them the value of your assets and then the bank is going to do appraisals. They're going to get a formal valuations on collateral.

They're going to fill in the gaps. They just want you to tell them it's kind of like a loan application that you would fill out for a mortgage, but it's a little bit different. And so that's that's kind of what he got convicted of. He was he was alleged to have misrepresented that information. The banks, in theory, relied on it. Of course, here the banks weren't complaining.

Right. No one was complaining about this. There was no damage to the banks. The banks got repaid. And so it was an odd situation to find yourself being convicted of 34 felonies for transactions that nobody was complaining about.

So you have to make this argument that it affects the larger consumer base. Anyway, the Court of Appeals asked all these questions. Why was this brought? Why would you why would you bring this if no one was complaining and no one's been hurt? No one's been damaged. And then the judgment was something crazy.

It was like 460 million. They're like, well, how did you get to that judgment? Doesn't that seem to be pretty severe for a situation that didn't result in any harm or any damages? And so I think if you're a lay person, if you're not an attorney and you hear someone call former President Trump a felon, that's technically true. Currently, that is that is a true statement.

But I think most people need to look. If I had to guess something's getting overturned, maybe the judgment award, maybe some of the convictions, maybe all the convictions, the Court of Appeals. They won't rule on it for a little while.

It's like the Supreme Court where we just hear oral arguments and you kind of try to figure out where the judges are going. But so I think you take that with a grain of salt. And I think years down the road, we'll kind of be looking back at this as as kind of an example of kind of a crazy thing that happened. That's not that's not a legal term, Morgan. But I think it's I think we'll kind of look at this with a little more.

It's a very legal term. Yeah. I mean, the window that we're in will be looked at 20 years from now.

And people are going to be like, what? Overall. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think I think a lot of the legal commentaries, you know, and again, we talk about where you get your news from and how that's a pet peeve of mine, whether it's where you get news from somebody who really favors kind of a conservative approach or whether you get it from someone who favors a more liberal, democratic approach. Like, I don't think this was ever reported on well. But if you read like practicing attorneys who practice in this area, talk about this case, I think they were all a little taken aback.

You know, because who anybody in New York could be found guilty of these I'm doing air quotes, these crimes. Right. Everybody who's ever provided a personal financing statement is your opinion. Right. That is true.

The bank is asking you your opinion and the value of your assets. So anyway, that's been in a lot of commercials. And every time I hear that in a commercial, you know, convicted felon or I don't want to vote for him because it's convicted. He's a convicted felon. That always is a little weird to me because maybe he shouldn't be a convicted felon.

And we'll find out sooner than later. But anyway, that's that's something that bothered me on political commercials here lately. Josh, if that's the only thing that bothers you about these political commercials, man, I think that I think that that's really you're doing better than most because I can't I can't stand the political commercials, man.

It's it's very, very off putting. They're everywhere. I just want to watch my football and I want to see my gambling commercials. And that's all I want to do, man. I don't need you know, I don't need your politics all in my face all the time.

All right. Judica County radio, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, Manning, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, the power behind this program. And again, Josh and Joe are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. And they have put offices almost everywhere for your convenience.

Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. And here on the program, we are here to help. We talk about the legal topics, but we also have a state planning consults available for you. 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. That'll grab you one of the complimentary consults. Call now.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. We'll take a short break. We're back on the other side with more Judica County radio. Welcome back into Judica County radio. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina are your hosts.

I'm Morgan Patrick. Want to remind you that Whitaker and Hamer have offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. And here on the show each and every week, we do offer up complimentary consults each week.

There are five of them. Again, it will be a state planning if you've got any questions there. Take advantage of the complimentary consult by calling eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Again, just ask for that complimentary estate planning consult and you will be signed up. And again, you're not agreeing to become a client.

This is an opportunity for you to get to know Whitaker and Hamer. Again, eight hundred six five nine one one eight six and get your questions answered when it comes to estate planning. So we have been talking about some of the latest legal topics that are out there.

Obviously, in New York, the appeals court expressing skepticism this week about the civil judgment of more than 450 million that a trial judge had ordered former President Donald J. Trump to pay after finding that he had fraudulently inflated his wealth. We discussed that as we kind of opened up the show. Josh, where are we going next? Well, I do. You know, the whole the whole everything that we talk about today, Morgan, came to me after watching election commercials all week long. For some reason, during football, you know, I'm watching more like during football, you're watching live TV, right? And that's the only way they can really get you right now. You got to be listening to radio.

Yeah. You're a captive audience. They're spending a lot of money to get their ads during these games because they know they've got millions upon millions watching this.

It's either football or baseball. So the election, the the election commercials have kind of fueled a couple of topics that I see thrown out there. And I never know how, you know, once you're an attorney and I've been an attorney for over 20 years, 22 years, something like that, longer than a decent amount of time. And I always I don't know how non attorneys kind of take some of the stuff that comes through on election commercials. I don't know if you take it at face value, if it's somebody that you support or if people are even listening at all. You know, I think this stuff, even if you're not paying attention, I think it still gets it gets you right.

So you take it a step further. Social media, your smartphones, the ads will pop up. I mean, they are absolutely everywhere. And sometimes it's hard to filter out what's real and what's you know, what's not what's exaggerated. I mean, political ads have gone to an all new low. And we seem to say that every single election cycle. But man, I tell you, they don't care.

They just throw it out there and see what sticks. One of the one of the commercials that I've seen a lot of that that kind of bothers me a little bit, because I think it's a little bit, you know, both sides kind of do fear mongering. Right.

Both sides. You know, I think former President Trump kind of seizes on immigration because that's a big issue. And so he he will throw ads out there about immigration that maybe aren't always the most truthful. And then, you know, abortion is a big issue, abortion. And then that that's out there.

And there's state by state, every state's different. So you're getting these commercials that aren't really tailored to North Carolina, like you're just getting these these commercials. And one of the things that bothered me was you'll hear you'll hear some of these election commercials talk about IVF treatments. Right. So fertility treatments for couples who want to have a child but are struggling or otherwise can't. And so you go through these fertility treatments where multiple embryos are fertilized.

Right. And there's been a couple of states, actually, I think just Louisiana, but there's a couple of states who have said destroying those embryos. You know, the states that have gone, you know, we talked about Roe v. We've already talked about this on the show, how Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. And obviously that was huge news.

Everybody's going to talk about that for a long time. And so basically what that did was leave the regulation of abortion to the states. So every state's kind of taking a different tack. Abortion is legal in North Carolina for up to 12 weeks, longer than that for certain exceptions. North Carolina, I think, is kind of in the middle when it comes to abortion, which is fine. That's where we're at as a state. Some states took this opportunity to outlaw abortions.

We talked about Texas laws one time. We've talked about Louisiana's laws on a different show. So some states have kind of taken a stricter approach to abortion, trying to ban them outright, which that's what it is.

It's state by state. Right. So if you live in Louisiana and you want an abortion, it's going to be tougher than if you live in North Carolina or you live in New York. And depending on what side of the fence you fall on, that's either good or bad. But that's just that's what it is. That's the lay of the land. And some states have gone so strict on abortion laws that doctors aren't allowed to dispose of the fertilized embryos that result from IVF. So the UN, I don't know what the term is, the unutilized embryos, if they are destroyed, you know, that can be murder in some states. Well, Louisiana, I think, is the only state. But so you're seeing a lot of these election commercials that are fear mongering on that. You know, this could be your state.

You know, Donald Trump, they're usually here to Donald Trump. Right. But former President Trump is going to ban IVF, you know, and I don't think that's on the table, you know.

And it's such a convoluted issue just to make a statement about immigration or a statement about abortion. They have to. That's what the commercial is designed to do.

But it bothers me, Morgan. That's all I'm saying. Well, I mean, in your you look at the industry as a whole. And when I say industry, I'm talking about politics. And you're trying to get your person or your party elected in a certain state.

Maybe it is the the overall presidential election. And you've got 30 seconds, you've got 60 seconds, and you have to get your message across. And as you mentioned, one of the I don't want to I guess I can say it, one of the easiest ways to, you know, to do that is to strike fear. And so the verbiage is going to be very critical. It's going to be on the edge. It is going to be shocking.

They'll use if it's a video, they're going to use, you know, different kinds of images and how they edit those images and how it basically appears to you. You know, it's that's what politics does to us in a media cycle. We understand that we're going to get hit with 30 seconds and 60 seconds and it's got to have an impact. And sometimes it just goes.

I mean, this is crazy time. The. So that's another one that that's another one that bothered me. That's another election cycle issue that bothered me. And it's a complex it's a complex issue.

And to simplify it down to like these one statements, it's just it's just it's just difficult. But we're going to follow back up. You know, we like to talk about maybe controversial topics. We kind of like to look at how legal things are treated in the news. We'll always do that.

But the reason the reason we're here is we want to get in front of you today. We're kind of focusing in on on estate planning. Everybody needs an estate plan. Everybody needs power of attorneys. Everybody needs a will. And there are some things that not everybody does need, but are very useful.

Right. So you might need a trust. You might need a revocable trust. You might need a living trust.

You might need a testamentary trust. You might need to take care of grandchildren. You might need to take care of your children and different children differently.

Right. You might have one child who isn't that good with money and you don't want to leave them everything at once. You might have a kid who'll do all the right stuff with money. So you're not worried about leaving it for that kid.

Everybody has these little these little things. Right. And we usually in your estate planning console, we'll talk about trust. We'll talk about how these things can be handled after you're gone. We talk about how you keep things off out of the public record. Right. You know, we always talk about if you if you end up your will has to get probated. We that's downtown at the clerk's office.

Anybody can pull that file and take a look at it. So we talk about using trust to keep everything out of the public sphere. But estate planning consults.

Morgan, we got we got some of those. Yeah, I was going to ask you this because we end up talking about estate planning and getting these consults. Maybe explain to our listeners just the importance of having the estate plan. And I guess the best example would be what happens if you don't. And that what if scenario if something happens to you or your spouse and you're no longer here and you don't have an estate plan.

What happens? Yeah. So if you don't if you don't have an estate plan, if you don't have your will, if you don't have your trust in place, when something happens to you, it will be unexpected usually.

Right. Sometimes you go in and you get a bad diagnosis and you know, you got six months. But a lot of time we lost in my personal sphere of friends and family. We lost two people last week, one that was my age and one that was a good bit older than me, but still not not old. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, it was a car accident for one. And one was kind of like a lifelong condition that they had, but wasn't necessarily fatal.

So it was still a surprise. But if you don't have this stuff in place when it happens, when you pass away, if you don't have anything in place, your loved ones are going to kind of literally have to pick up the pieces. They're going to have to find assets, figure out how they're titled, start an administration instead of a probate. You start an administration downtown. They're going to have to report everything to the clerk.

Some assets might be frozen until you can get an estate opened and certain documents issued and off to the bank. So it's a it's a jarring process if you die without an estate plan in place for you, for your loved ones. Well, and the other part of it, too, is it's I mean, it's you know, you need to have it and being proactive. But it's not that difficult to really do this ahead of time. I know a lot of people are almost like, well, I'll do it next week, next month, next year. And that that's a lot of us.

I mean, we all procrastinated a lot of things. But this is something where if you're proactive now, you know, it's not quite it's not as complicated as people think. And you can get things in place just in case things go kind of haywire at some point in your life or your spouse's life. So you at least know you've got a legal roadmap on what you need to do and what can be done. Yeah, our attorneys do this.

We do this statewide in North Carolina, and we do it for a lot of folks. And it's very easy compared to how it used to be. It's very easy to get everything prepared. We know exactly what to ask you.

We know exactly what we're looking for. A lot of folks, we get organized better. You know, we deal with a lot of self-employed people, a lot of people that own investment real estate.

You know, or, you know, annuities or other investments. And we know how to get this all situated. So that when that time comes, because we're all going to die, we all come from the same place. We're all going to the same place. It's just a matter of when you'll never be ready for it. It's always going to be unexpected.

Very few people have the time ahead of time to go get their affairs in order. You get it done. You'll sleep better.

You'll feel better. It's not as expensive as you think. It's not as time consuming as you think.

It's something that you can get done. Well, it's an opportunity for you to get to know Whitaker & Hamer Law Firm. And you can do that with a complimentary consult when it comes to estate planning. If you've got any questions about where you are, maybe you've been thinking about getting this done, this would be an excellent opportunity at no cost to get the ball rolling and ask your questions about estate planning, what it's going to take, and get something in writing and start working on it.

Being proactive so the headaches that would be in your future if something did happen are non-existent. 800-659-1186. Call that number. Grab one of these consults. That's 800-659-1186. Get some peace of mind when it comes to your future, your family's future.

And eliminate as many of these legal headaches when it comes to your estate plan as possible. Again, call the number 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Five complimentary consults available right now at Whitaker & Hamer.

800-659-1186. We've got more Judica County radio coming up on the other side. Welcome back in to Judica County radio.

Your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They're the managing partners, Whitaker & Hamer law firm. Again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They've got offices conveniently located for you.

Raleigh-Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, and each and every week we talk legalese, the legal topics, the hot stories. We've already talked about the elections.

We've talked about the importance of an estate plan. I guess the political advertising that's out there, again, everybody's seen it. We're bombarded with it. Television, radio, smart phones.

It is absolutely everywhere. We want to remind you, too, that with the estate planning here on the program, we do open up five complimentary consults when it comes to estate planning. And again, this is to give you an idea of what goes into an estate plan, the importance of having an estate plan, being proactive, getting this stuff taken care of before you actually need it, as opposed to scrambling when something happens. All right, so 800-659-1186. Grab one.

800-659-1186. All right, so Josh, we're going to continue the discussion. So we go from the estate plan. Now let's kind of dive in on the trust, maybe explain the importance of maybe at least considering a trust. Yeah, and so when we do the estate planning consults, we've been doing this for a while, and we've kind of tried to make it as painless as possible. And so when you call us or email us or reach out to us, however you reach out to us and say, hey, let's do some estate planning.

Let's consult about it. We ask you a lot of questions, right? It's not an overwhelming amount of questions, but we want to know if you have kids. We want to know if your kids are adults or minors. We want to know if they're married.

Do you have grandkids? We're going to ask some questions about your assets. What real property do you own?

Do you own, if you're self-employed, do you own a business interest? You know, we're going to talk about that stuff because we basically need to figure out what do you own if you died today? What do you own that's a probate asset or non-probate asset? And I know, Morgan, you've heard us talk about probate versus non-probate. But the law says there's some items that pass automatically and they're non-probate and then there's items that pass through probate if you don't otherwise avoid it.

Okay. So like if me and Morgan, like if I have a bank account and my wife's on that bank account with me, that's a non-probate asset. That's going to automatically go to my wife because the bank already has her information, right? It's a non-probate asset. If you have annuities, investments, investment accounts, things like that, you and your spouse are on or you've named a beneficiary like, hey, I'm not married but if something happens to me, I want the kids to have this. Like you take care of all that, that's a non-probate asset.

That's going to automatically pass according to what you've already done, right? Life insurance is a non-probate asset, right? So life insurance, it's a contract. You've said, hey, when I die, I want my kids to get this or I want my wife to get this or whatever, what have you. So that's non-probate.

That's going to pass automatically. So non-probate's good. Probate items include like real property, personal property like vehicles and boats, things like that. Those are probate assets.

Those are things that if they're not otherwise taken care of before you die, you're going to have to probate a will or administer an estate downtown and those are going to pass through those mechanics. And so one of the things we talk about when we talk to you about trust is we talk to you about making those items non-probate, right? So that's why you hear a lot of people will have like a revocable living trust and they'll put their house in there, right? Or they have an LLC that owns real property and they'll put their LLC interest in the trust.

And so what they're doing is they're taking non-probate assets and they're taking probate assets and making them non-probate. So that's what a trust is designed to do. You've heard me on the show before say trust don't die, right? I'm going to die one day.

Unfortunately, Morgan will die one day. But if we have a trust set up, the trust is not going to die. And so your loved ones, if you have an estate plan set up and you have everything in trust and you have everything set up just the way it needs to be and you keep up with it, right? So as you get older, if you buy other property, sell property, get new cars, if you keep the titles and the deeds and the name of the trust, when that day comes that you pass away, the trust just keeps going. You don't go downtown. You don't probate a will.

There isn't anything anybody can look up. Your trust is private and your family just keeps going. Like I said, they're going to mourn you, Morgan, because you're not here.

Yeah, I would hope so. And we'll all be sat here at the show, but your family will just keep moving. Let me ask you this, Josh, of I guess clients you've dealt with and are dealing with, obviously, you know, you guys talk about the estate plan, you know, percentage wise, I mean, are you recommending the trust or do they come up with it on their own? I guess, how does that conversation happen when they're sitting across the table from you if they don't know about the trust and how that all happens? Yeah, yeah, that's a good question, Morgan. Well, we usually will sometimes the client is interested, you know, the client has heard the show or they've heard someone else, you know, on TikTok or somewhere or have a family member that has a trust and they get recommended to have a trust.

So it does come up that way. But we will mention it if we think it is useful. And it is not useful for everybody. So this isn't like a hard sell. This isn't like selling you a car and making sure you pay for the rust coating. Yeah, if it's a good fit for what they've got. Yeah, because the trust does add expense to your estate plan.

It needs to be drafted. It takes the attorney time. So if you're going to get an estate plan with the trust, that will cost you more in attorney's fees than if you just you don't need one. And some people don't need it. Like if you don't own your house. Right. We have people come in who have a lot of assets, but it's all liquid. It's all investments.

It's all annuities. And maybe they rent. Right.

They don't own a house and they don't own a car. There are people that a trust really doesn't do much for. And we we could still do one if there's a desire, if it helps on the tax side or help somewhere else. But it's not something that we at the law firm like push on you.

But it is a very helpful tool for most people. Right. When you start acquiring assets and for a lot of people, real property.

Right. When you buy your first house and then maybe you and you get married and you and your wife move into a new house and you keep your old house to rent out. There's a conversation to be had there about, you know, should that house being an LLC? Should that LLC membership interest be in a trust?

You know, that kind of usually starts the conversation. And but it's it's all about just making your estate plan as simple as possible. Sometimes trust help and sometimes they're not necessary. I mean, just important to know what your options are. And again, you're protecting yourself, you're protecting your family's future by having this in writing.

And again, we're talking about either the estate plan or a trust within the plan. And again, it's worth that conversation and the opportunity to have that kind of talk with Josh, Joe, the entire staff at Whitaker and Hamer. We do offer up the complimentary consults. There are five of them. There are there until they are filled in there for our radio listeners.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. You can call that number to say I'm interested in one of those complimentary consults when it comes to estate planning. You can ask questions about trust. Certainly, you know, everybody's situation is going to be different. And as Josh said, you might be in a category where you're not you don't need to think about the trust, but the estate plan always a good idea to have that in writing because you never know. I mean, there's there are the what if scenarios that are going to happen in life.

And wouldn't you want to be proactive as opposed to, you know, your family trying to be reactive when anything happens? And certainly we hope that it doesn't. But again, life happens. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Well, we've got one more segment coming up on the other side. Josh, what are we going to get into to wrap up this version of Judica County radio? Well, Morgan, when we come back, I want to talk about something else trust can do, and that's kind of regulate inheritance. Right. The timing of when your heirs receive the inheritance from you. And so I want to spend a little bit of time talking about that before we leave today. All right. Regulating trust.

We'll do that when we come back on the other side. Again, you're listening to Judica County radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're also practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. They have offices located conveniently for you.

Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City. And again, those five complimentary consults are available to you. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Just call it. Say, look, I want one of the complimentary consults. You're leaving the checkbook at home. It's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Remember, it's better to be proactive than reactive when it comes to estate planning, trust. Again, get in here. Grab one of the complimentary consults. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. We've got more Judica County radio coming up on the other side. Judica County radio, your host. Well, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They've got offices in Moorhead City, Gastonia, Fuquay, Verina, Goldsboro, Clayton, Cleveland, Garner and, of course, Raleigh, North Carolina. And again, they're here to help you. If you've got a legal situation, you've got questions.

You can always call the firm. And of course, through this show, we're talking about a lot of estate planning and trust. And we have five complimentary consults available when it comes to estate planning.

So if you don't have one good way to get started on it and it's complimentary. So you got no excuses. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. So we were talking about trust when we went to break and you wanted to get into regulating the trust. So let's let's explain what that is. Right, Morgan.

So we went to break. We're talking about regulating your heirs inheritance. Right. So let's say you have a considerable amount of assets.

I always use the example. Let's say you've got a you've got a single man, got a good number of assets, and we've already had the discussion about getting your probate assets into a trust to make your assets non probate. So let's say he's done all that.

And so our imaginary single man client has gotten everything into a trust. So he's all set up. And then the unthinkable happens. He's in a car accident. He dies.

We're not going downtown. We've got a trust. And so there's a trustee. He is named someone to be the trustee of the trust after he's passed away.

And this person is kind of in charge. Like the trustee is is almost like a will the way it's written. It's going to say, hey, I want this person to get this and my son to get this and my daughter to get this. And grandchild one to get this.

So it's all going to be right now. And there's a trustee that's going to follow those instructions. But the good thing about this is you can set certain parameters. You know, if your youngest son is under 25 and you're about to leave them a million dollars, maybe you don't want to do that. Right. If you die without a trust and without a will, your 18 year old son, if his shares a million bucks, he's getting a million bucks. Whether that's a good thing or not, I'll leave that up to you. I know 18 year old Josh Whitaker would have wasted as much of that million dollars as humanly possible. And I feel like I was a pretty responsible kid and I still would have run through a lot of that money. Now, let me ask you this. When you when you were 18, let's just say hypothetical.

You were handed. Let's just say a million, probably after taxes around 700K. What would be one of the first things? Let's say you could get yourself one thing back when you were 18. So think about that year. Think about what was hot. Think about what you wanted. And you could splurge. You could do one thing.

What would it be? That would have been about 1990. That would have been mid to late 1990s. It would have probably been a vehicle. It probably would have been a car. I don't I don't know exactly what kind of car. Maybe a new Corvette or something like that.

But how about you, Morgan? Gosh, when I was 18, I'm a little bit older than you and my most likely would have been would have been a car as well. I mean, we're dudes, right? I mean, that's kind of the age.

We're 18 years old. And I drove some classics, man. When I was in high school, I had the 1976 Toyota Corona station wagon and it was nice. Candy Apple Red automatic, no power. I'd pull up for dates in high school in a station wagon.

And the parents are just sitting there going, no. So, yeah, I'd probably go with a little bit of a sports car. And, yeah, I think the Trans Am's were really big back then. Camaro was really big.

The IROCs. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, yeah. Hot cars back in the day. And I recently saw one putting around, I shouldn't say putting around, zooming around Fuquay-Varina recently. And I was like, it took me back.

It took me back. So, yeah, I would probably do an IROC-Z. So and maybe young Morgan and young Josh would have splurged and then maybe saved. But I did not have a high money IQ at 18 by any means.

And even if I had. Anyway, the point of the story is you may not want your 18 year old to inherit a million dollars from you the moment you pass away. But in a trust, you can determine, hey, I don't want him to have a million dollars right away. But go ahead and give him 50 so he can buy his car.

Right. And then and then give him interest on the rest of the money so he can support himself. So you go to school and maybe when he's 25, give him half of what's left. And then maybe when it's when he's 30, give him give him the rest of it, you know. And so a lot of people will do that in their trust.

They'll make these provisions. So they're, you know, the 15 year old isn't getting a million dollars when they die accidentally in a car accident, you know. So that's a good tool of the trust. And then if you have if you have a child, an adult child who maybe is not good with money at all, you can not give them everything right away. You know, or you're afraid if you give it to them, they'll spend it and won't get to your grandkids. You can make provisions for that. You can be as specific or not specific as you want to be.

And it can be different for different kids. You know, the key there is that whoever is going to be the trustee after you die, because usually when you make a trust, you're the lifetime beneficiary. You're going to get the benefit of it. You're the trustee. You're in control of it as long as you're alive.

So you need it. You need a backup trustee. And sometimes that's a brother.

Sometimes it's a wife, a spouse. Sometimes it's a professional, like an attorney or a CPA or a bank if it's a big enough trust. But you got you have a lot of control, you know, and most people want to take care of their heirs and they want to take care of their heirs in a responsible way. And the trust is one thing that allows you, like we were talking about, Morgan, to regulate inheritance after you're gone. Well, and think about it. I mean, if there's if there's money involved, if there's an estate involved, it kind of clears the noise.

Right. People are going to be clamoring to gain control or get the money. But if it's in a trust or it's in in that estate plan, it's pretty much you know, it's carved in stone.

You don't there is no debate on what's going to happen. And it's also a good tool. You know, if you're if one of your kids, your adult, I say kids, but one of your adult children, you know, maybe marry somebody like you trust that adult child, but you don't necessarily trust the spouse. You know, you can keep things out of the spouse's control.

Just just a lot of a lot of a lot of tools. And if you like, you own a lot of real property and you want it sold after you. You don't want kids fighting over the real property. Who gets the lake house?

Who gets the beach house? You can order the trustee to sell it and split up the proceeds or, you know, you just you just have a wide variety of options. So we talked to a lot of people who have a lot of stuff who've been very successful. And the trust or multiple trust, you know, are really good, good tools to kind of get that to the next generation. Well, I tell you, if you've got any questions about your situation and maybe a trust is a good fit for you. But certainly in a state plan is a good direction to go in. But you haven't made that effort yet.

You haven't moved in that direction. The opportunity to do so is on this show right now. We've got five complimentary consults available with Whitaker and Hamer. All you've got to do is call eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Claim one of those five complimentary consults when it comes to estate planning. Can ask questions about trusts. Again, we are here to help. There's a lot of there's a lot of noise out there.

You need to make sure you're being proactive when it comes to your assets and also your family's future. So think about that. Call eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

Grab one of those complimentary consults. Last thing I want to hit on the show and I'm just going to ask Josh this question because, Josh, it is your show. And again, it's right around that time of year when the kids are going to be out. They're going to be trick or treating when you were out and about. What was your favorite costume? And did you map out your neighborhood based on previous history of the candy that the house would give out now?

And I'll make comments after you do, because, yeah, we definitely had a recipe for success. So we grew up in the country and so we didn't have we lived on a we lived on a highway. And so we would go to different neighborhoods. And so we would plan like what neighborhood we were going to try. It seemed to always be different neighborhoods. It was never it was really the same neighborhood. So we didn't have a map going. But, you know, we we tried to pick some other richer neighborhoods to go get into because you figured they'd have better, better stuff.

And that's not always the case. But we we would do that. That's how we did it. But costumes, you know, we grew up where you grew up.

You know, you're a little bit like you said, you're a little bit older than me, but not too much older. We didn't have good costumes back in the day. But, you know, you may have come up with your own, but like if you were buying a costume, they weren't very good when we were kids.

No, I mean, you had to go. I mean, Star Wars was really big. Raiders was really big. Freddy Krueger, Friday the 13th. You know, again, Jason, I mean, all these movies that have been around forever. I mean, they were pretty popular when it comes to costumes. But yeah, going back to candy, though, we certainly went for the houses that went with the full candy bar. Oh, yeah. And it's it's funny how it all works, because it transitions when you become an adult and you start welcoming trick or treaters to your house.

You remember what you liked and what you didn't like. So candy corn. Sorry, if anybody likes candy corn, that's out.

We're not doing it. We're not doing candy corn. It's always the whole candy bars. And I think about the parents. And as long as I know their neighbors and they're in the neighborhood, I would have a big cooler of beer and the kids would come along and they'd get the candy. And then I would offer up the parent, you know, a beverage as long as they're not dry.

And again, that was a huge hit. And we ended up we ended up having a cul de sac party in the middle of trick or treating for the adults, which was fun. It's nice to adult it up a little bit, because, you know, when you have the little kids and you're you know, you got the wagons and you got their coats in case it gets too cold.

You know, it's it's a lot of walking and we're old. I've never been anywhere where they were they were they were nice enough to hand me a nice cold beer, but that would have been nice. Well, we have another edition of Judica County Radio.

It's in the books for this week. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker Hamer Law Firm are your hosts again. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick.

I get the privilege of hanging out with the guys and talking legalese and sometimes, you know, the best candies that are out there. Now, the five complimentary consults real quickly. You can call 800-659-1186. Again, this is a state planning.

If you've got any questions, certainly get started on it. 800-659-1186. They're complimentary. That means free.

No excuses. Whitaker and Hamer offices located Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll see on the radio next week. Judica County is hosted by attorneys licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on this podcast may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion on this podcast is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live has the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on this podcast are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of this show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at JMW at MWH Law Lawyer.