Deep Dive on Trusts and Why it Might Be a Good Idea

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, getting into all kinds. It's going to be free estate planning consults. We'll tell you about those. We'll talk about election news, judge selections. We're going to get into individual trustee versus professional trustee.

And again, this is about helping you with your situation as well. I'm Morgan Patrick. More Judica County coming up. Whitaker and Hamer presents Judica County with Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hamer. Welcome into Judica County Radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, offices conveniently located just for you.

Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Each and every week it's legalese. We talk about it. Again, we also offer up free consults and this week it will be in and around estate planning. So if you are interested, if you do not have an estate plan, if you have questions, you can grab a consult. Again, we've got five of them. They will go fast. 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. We are about to dive in. But Josh and Joe, how was your week? It was a little bit of coffee. I haven't had enough yet. So my throat's a little, a little fuzzy, a little pixelated. You dealing with a fuzzy throat? Yeah, yeah.

It's a, it's a, it's a legal term. Fuzzy, scratchy, yeah. Don't have strep throat though. I know an amazing amount of people who've had strep throat or the flu this past week. It hasn't hit us though, so that's good. Thank, thank God we're doing this show remotely and apart from one another.

So that's, cause it sounds like you're definitely infected man, and it's coming for you and you just don't realize it yet. I think I'm, I think I'm fine man. I can see it. I just need, we're, we're, we're taping this week. A lot of times we'll tape in the afternoon.

This week we're taping in the morning. So I have it, I have to drink coffee until everything gets like real sparkly and clear. So you're telling me that's your roll out of bed look right there?

That's it? That's great man. That's, that's as good as the, I think it, I think it looks great man. I mean your camera's not great so you're a little fuzzy here too and I think that helps you honestly.

I think that, that augments your look for me personally. The, um, I was going to tell you, Morgan, you opened up and you're talking about the free consultations and I'm feeling a little froggy this morning, a little randy. I think today we're going to focus on estate planning. We're going to focus on different aspects of trust.

That's kind of what we're going to talk about today. Uh, me and Joseph, but if you call this week, I'm going to make this offer. I feel like a car salesman, unlimited free consults this week.

You don't have to be the first five. If you call us this week, you get, you like Oprah, you get a free console. Hey Josh, I'm, I'm feeling, I'm feeling even more generous. I'm going to take that off. I'm going to double it.

We'll do double, double unlimited free console for this week. I'll tell you that with double premiere for estate planning. If you call first state planning, yes, or state setting, not for anything else. You got to, you got a family law issue. You got a real property issue. You got a closing coming up. We're not going to do that.

We're not going to do any of that for free right now, but if you want to talk about estate planning, me or Joseph or Ashley or any of our estate planning folks, we will get you on the schedule and we'll talk to you for free. So we're going to do that this week. So I don't want people feeling like hearing us talk about it in like segment three and think, well, five people probably already call it. I won't even call. So that's, that's our guarantee to you this week. If you call us this week, we will give you a free estate planning console. All right.

Unlimited. There you go. And it's a, the consults for estate planning. You can call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186 coming off a major, um, I guess calorie consuming holiday called Halloween. Um, I'm, I'm just wanted to ask you guys, um, one, how it went, uh, at your households, but to, uh, go back in your memory banks to when you were a kid, what was your go to, uh, for Halloween? What was your, what, what candy did you look forward to most? That's easy, man. That's easy one for me. I don't have a favorite anything in this world other than favorite candy.

I do have all of them. No, no, man. I just, I have a tough time isolating a favorite thing, but with candy, I don't have that problem, man. Cause there's one answer.

And it's Reese's cups, man. There's no, there's literally no other choice. And if you have another choice, you're wrong. You know, that's how I feel about it. You know, I was talking about this with my two oldest kids, uh, cause I don't think my youngest, I don't think he has a favorite.

Uh, but my two oldest, you know, when you get the, the only reason I know this is because we often will get a blizzard or a concrete, right? Wherever you go, they have the ice cream product that's mixed with a candy and yeah, Reese's peanut butter cups kind of wins the day. But I will tell you if I have a choice between Reese's peanut butter cups and Reese's pieces, I go with the pieces.

Nobody's doing those free concerts after they heard that, man. That's that just ruined everything. Honestly, man.

I was going to say this, this will be in, in your wheelhouse. Josh, do you know the movie that they introduced Reese's pieces in? Uh, they used it as a product launch. Yeah. ET. Yeah. Do you ever play that video game?

I know we've had to talk about this before. You ever play ET the video game on the Atari? Yeah.

Yeah. I've got it. I still have, I have it right now.

I have an Atari and I have the game at my house right now, man. You want it? I bring it to you.

If we play a live on here. Do that. Do that.

I would like that. I don't know if it works. If you, Oh, you gotta, you gotta Google the ET video game story. They rushed it out. It didn't get Purdue, didn't have enough time for production. And so they rushed it out. And so if you were a kid and you got your parents to get you the ET video game on Atari, you quickly found out it doesn't go anywhere. It's not finished. Like you get stuck in pits. There's nowhere to go.

The story doesn't make any sense. They just, they rushed it to market and, uh, they had a bunch of them. They didn't sell and they all got dumped in this dump in Arizona and collectors have gone and found them. It's a New Mexico landfill. Yeah. Yeah.

New Mexico. Yeah. Uh, but I got ET and it was frustrating. So frustrated. You turn right, you fall into a pit. You turn left, you fall into a pit and you have to collect Reese's pieces to get enough energy to stretch your neck and fly. But you always run out. So you're just, you're just trapped. It's miserable. A miserable video game.

That'd be pretty cool. If that worked in real life, you could just have the longest neck on earth by eating Reese's pieces. Yeah, I never, I didn't play it much, man. I was going to ask when you guys were younger, did you, uh, canvas the neighborhood, target the right houses, go for certain, either Reese's cup or Reese's pieces, uh, based, based on the houses and what they offered. We did the same thing when we were little, uh, we would go trick or treating. We knew exactly which house to go to, to get the full candy bar. And, uh, and since you asked guys, I would go Snickers, uh, full, full blown, full bar Snickers.

Do you, but do you get that a lot? I guess if you target the right neighborhoods and the right, uh, maybe you get that. Probably back in the day when, yeah, when we were splitting up and the kids would go, um, with the wifey poo and I would be at the house, I would have, um, my chair set up in the cul-de-sac with the other dads and we would have a fog machine. We'd have candy for the kids, but we also had a beer cooler for the adults, uh, and they could partake if they lived in the neighborhood.

If we didn't know them, we didn't give them any kind of beverage, but it turned into basically a Halloween cul-de-sac party. It was fun. Yeah.

Yeah. It sounds like fun. That sounds like a good time.

I, um, we, we don't do that. We don't really live in a neighborhood. And I think we, I think we may have talked about this a little bit, but we always did target like the popular neighborhoods where everybody was kind of out in the streets and everybody had a good time. And, uh, and, uh, I think that's what we're doing this year. We got to, we got to, we live kind of in between Cary and Garner and Fuqua. And I think we're going over into Cary this year. We got a neighborhood.

We got to, we got a family member who lives in there and I think that's what we're going to target for this year. But, um, all right, well, we're going to talk a lot about trust and, and, and Morgan in our next segment, what I want to do is I want to kind of focus on. One of the things you have to do when you create a trust and that's have a trustee. And for most people, when you set up your trust, you're going to be your own trustee, uh, for as long as you're alive. Um, and, and once you've passed away, uh, you may want your spouse to be a trustee.

You may have a child. You want to have it as a trustee, the person who's going to be running the trust once you're gone and doing all the things that we've listed in the trust that need to be done. But we're going to talk about an individual trustee, which is like a spouse or, or, or a kid versus a professional trustee, which is like an attorney or like a CPA, or, uh, an investment advisor or an institutional trustee, like, like a bank. Um, those are all potential trustees you can have after you're not, uh, the trustee in the more anymore.

So I figured we talk about the advantages and disadvantages of each of those coming up. All right, so we will be talking trust coming up on the other side. Want to remind you, we have, as the guys have mentioned, unlimited free consults as, as it pertains to estate planning. All you got to do is call 800-659-1186. If you ever had questions about estate planning, if you thought about getting started, uh, this is an opportunity for you.

There's no obligation. 800-659-1186. Again, we have unlimited consult slots. So go ahead and sign up for 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. We've got more Judica County coming up. We are back on Judica County radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick, and we go back and forth on legalese, uh, office locations for Whitaker and Hamer. They're conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Barina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. And here on the program this week, unlimited consults, free consults pertaining to estate planning.

Uh, we've got room for you. If you've got questions about estate planning, get a free consult by calling 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Josh, take it away.

Yeah, Morgan. And one of the reasons we wanted to do that is, uh, you know, I see some folks call the caller or hotline here and, uh, hope that hope they, they got in the first five to call. And even if you weren't the first five to call, we've been, we've been kind of meeting with you anyway. Cause I don't want anybody to be left out. And, um, you know, it's what we do. We talk to people about estate planning. So that's why I decided instead of doing the first five, there'll be no urgency.

You don't have to race to your phone. You call us, we'll get you on the schedule to talk to one of our attorneys about setting up an estate plan, reviewing what you already have, getting something into place. But, uh, Morgan, we spent a lot of time talking about last year, we talked about different things you can do with a trust.

You know, I always think about trust as this kind of magic bucket that you can create where things, if you put things in them, you put things in the trust. You, you avoid probate, which is something in a state planning attorney always wants to do. We always want to avoid probate, uh, because the probate process is cumbersome. It causes delays.

It causes assets not to be available right away. Um, so we, we, we try our best to, to avoid probate when at all possible. And what I wanted to talk about there during this segment is the role of the trustee in estate planning. And like we talked about, usually when you set up a trust, you're going to be the trustee as long as you're able to do it, but you'll need a backup. You'll need someone to be a trustee when you're physically unable to do it.

Uh, can't do it. You aren't here, you've passed away. Um, and so we were talking about an individual trustee versus a professional trustee versus an institutional trustee. And Joe, you deal with this all the time. So tell us a little bit about what the trustee does, uh, in a trust and, and, and we'll go from there. Yeah, man, I deal with it all the time, every single day. And, uh, just to touch on a few things, the few things that you said before we dive into the meat of what a trustee actually is and does, you know, there, you talked about the fact that there is, there's no urgency in the sense of if you, you know, if you don't call us immediately, we're still going to get you in for this free console because we're, we're feeling generous for the holiday season and we're going the unlimited console route. But I do want to emphasize that if you have no estate plan in place in general, there is a sense of, there is some sense of urgency you need to have in that approach because tomorrow is not guaranteed for anybody, man. And you know, it's very easy to procrastinate on this, this type of thing because it can be a morbid type of thought process to get into.

But I'm telling you, we see it every day. We see folks who they wait and wait and wait and then it's too late. So I encourage everybody that doesn't have an estate plan to have some sense of urgency.

You ain't got to call us right away, but call us as soon as you can. Um, and then, you know, talking about a trustee, uh, and, and without getting into the meat of individual versus professional versus all these different classifications of trustee, just generally speaking, a trustee is a, it's a person or it can be an organization or institution that's going to manage and protect assets for the benefit of a third party who's known as the beneficiary. And so a trustee is going to be appointed when the trust is created. And of course the trust is going to kind of dictate the rights, responsibilities and powers of the trustee. And that trustee is going to be managing whatever the trust assets are for the benefit of whoever the beneficiary is. And so, like you said, Josh, most of the trust that we set up are, you know, you have your settler or your grantor, which is you, if you're setting this trust up and you're going to establish it for your own benefit, your own benefit, and you're generally going to be the initial trustee. Uh, but, but like you said, you're, you're, hopefully a lot of folks want their trust to outlive them and you may lose capacity at some point in your life.

So all of that considered, you're going to need backups, you're going to need successors. And so whoever your trustee is, is going to be, to be someone that you trust and that you feel good about to, you know, steward these assets to take care of whatever property and assets are held in this trust and to manage it for the benefit of whoever it's benefit. And whether it's you during your lifetime, if you're incapacitated or otherwise, whether it's your kids, whether it's whoever you're leaving things to, you want to have somebody that you feel good about to make these decisions. And while they are governed by the trust document, you know, your trust can be very specific as to their powers.

It can be very broad and give them broad discretion. You need to have someone that you feel good about because that person's going to have, even though they're checked by the trust and even though they have a fiduciary duty to you, they, they have a lot of power and there's a lot that they can do. Yeah. Yeah. All that's good.

All that's good stuff. And when you're talking about, you know, a trustee after you're gone, there's a lot of things to consider. You know, this trust you may, you may set up a trust where it doesn't last very much longer after you die.

Right? So after you pass away, your trust may instruct the trustee to divvy up all the assets between your two heirs or your five heirs or whatever it is. It may be a very simple trust that doesn't do that. This trust may survive you by a lot, especially if you have heirs under the age of 18 or you've decided to kind of delay inheritance, meaning, you know, you want your kid to get certain things at 18, certain things at 25, certain things at 30. So this may be a trust that's going to survive you by a long time. It may make provisions for grandchildren or charities, and you want a trustee managing principal and dispersing interest.

So, you know, trust, you can, you can make them do a lot of things. And so an individual trustee is great. You know, uh, the trust usually provide trustees can get paid for their services. So when you start talking about a professional trustee, so I'm the trustee for a lot of folks, um, and that's something that once I have to start managing the trust, there'll be charges for. Um, if you go down and get Wells Fargo or bank of America or a bank to be a institutional trustee, they're going to have charges.

There's going to be things they do and don't do. Um, but, but different trustees have different benefits. And a lot of people, you just get to a point in life where you outlive a lot of your friends. Like I've seen a lot of people who have lived a lot of their friends, a lot of their family, and they really don't have anybody personally that they know to be a trustee or a backup trustee. And that's a lot of times when CPAs and attorneys, uh, can be good options, but that, or banks, but that all has a cost and you just need to be aware of that. But if you have a trust that's large enough to need those services, usually the fees aren't a big deal, but those aren't upfront fees. Those are, those are fees that you incur much later down the line, uh, when you need those services.

But, but that comes up a lot. People ask us about backup trustees. Yeah. And I think, I think Josh is important because we do see folks who come in and they don't have anybody that they, they can immediately point to and feel good about appointing as a trustee in terms of an individual person in their life. And, you know, for a lot of these folks, trusts are still incredibly beneficial and, you know, don't be discouraged if you're someone who could potentially benefit from a trust, but you don't know someone that you, you feel good about being a trustee because, you know, professional and institutional trustees, they, they do, there is a cost attendant with that, but they're reasonable costs. Right. And, and you shouldn't be put off from the idea of potentially having a trust, especially if you can benefit from that trust, just because you can't point to somebody, an individual in your life that you feel great about stepping in and making those decisions. Yeah.

Good stuff, Joe. The, and the other thing, I kind of said this already, but I just want to make this clear. These aren't upfront costs. These aren't costs that you're going to have to shell out to get your estate plan drafted and in place. These are costs that come into play when and only when you need the services of a professional trustee or an institutional trustee. So this, this isn't an upfront fee of any kind. This is just us telling you, Hey, these are the things available.

These are the things you can use. These are the things that are out there. Well, it's, you guys have said it before. It's, it's being proactive. And, and also, you know, you're at that point in your life where, you know, having somebody kind of help you along the way gives you that confidence, that peace of mind. It's, I mean, it, it can be overwhelming, especially when we're dealing with, again, individual trusts, professional trustees or institutional trustees. Now, opportunity for you to get a free consult with Whitaker and Hamer is right now unlimited. I'm told that we're opening up the doors and this is estate planning.

If you've got any questions, if you've thought about estate planning, but you haven't really gotten the ball rolling, this is a great opportunity to kind of kick the tires and get to know Whitaker and Hamer. This is a free consult. Call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Again, free consult, estate planning, got your questions, lock and load and bring those questions in. 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Judica County Radio. We've got more coming up on the other side.

Stay tuned. Judica County Radio. Your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

And they have offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. I get to referee between Josh and Joe.

We have a lot of fun on the show, but serious topics as well. And if you are facing issues, legalese, certainly Whitaker and Hamer can help with those. And this week we have unlimited consults available for estate planning. Very important to have that done and certainly be proactive with it. How do you grab a consult? You call this number 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Again, the consult is for estate planning.

Call the number 800-659-1186. They are complimentary. Josh? You know, we're going to spend this segment. We're going to transition. You know, I talk to a lot of self-employed clients, right? So these are clients that run their own business. They have LLCs. They have corporations.

And they're a little like me, right? Where me and Joe own the law firm. I kind of count myself as a self-employed folk. And self-employed people have some different needs than your standards.

You know, if you work for somebody and you get a W-2 and you've got your investment accounts and, you know, you've got a certain kind of range of estate plans for that person. And then the self-employed have kind of different tax concerns and then they have continuity of business. So their business has a value if it's running. And if you take them out of the picture, you've got to figure out how that business is going to run. Is it going to be sold? Can the family or someone else buy it and continue it?

The operation of the business itself may be your most valuable asset. And so coming up with an estate plan for the self-employed can be a little bit different, right? You know, it's like a meme.

I see it go around a lot. Like if you work for somebody and you're a W-2 and you drop dead tomorrow, they're going to hire somebody else to do your job, right? And then they're going to try to plug someone else. They may not do it as good as you do it, but they've got to keep it going. But that's a little different than somebody who runs a business and then drops dead. What's going to happen to that business that may be supporting multiple family members and what have you?

And so the self-employed kind of have a different view or a different take on estate planning. There's more to do. And so that's kind of what I want to talk about this segment. But before we get there, I was going to ask you guys, have you gotten out? Have you voted? When has that taken place again? When's the election? I haven't seen anything. It's coming up. I haven't seen it yet. I've seen nothing about it.

So I do live in a cave. So that might be part of the reason why. Yeah, man, of course. Well, I mean, they're going to. Yeah, they're saying record, record turnout. A lot of people are going early when this show airs. We're a few days away from the actual day, but there are going to be long lines. So they're encouraging everybody to get out early and do their due diligence and, you know, vote your conscience.

And again, it's about participation. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how it goes.

I mean, it will be, I think, riveting television come Tuesday night. I wrote in Josh Whitaker. Yeah. Yeah. I'm already of positions.

I get elected to president and governor somehow. Yeah. The you know, look up your judges.

You know, I know that's always that's always tough. You know, you know who's running for president, right? You know who's running for governor. You might know a little bit about, you know, any kind of lieutenant governor, things like that. But when you get down to those judges, there's those hyper localized, you know, the mayor, the city council.

That's that's tough. But judges, I know a lot of people don't know who to vote for, right? They won't. They haven't been in front of a judge or not an attorney. They don't practice. They don't know the incumbent. They don't know who's running. They don't know anything about them. And in North Carolina, it's kind of nonpartisan.

So it's, you know, the straight ticket stuff doesn't really work. But there are a lot of good resources out there. And I'm telling you, you know, the judge election, I think, is one of the most important ones on there.

Whoever wins president, it's probably not going to affect your day to day life too much as you know, maybe a little, but not too much taxes you pay or or what have you. But those judge elections, if you end up in front of one of those judges, you know, we got some good ones that we got some not as good ones. But, you know, try to try to look that up.

You know, if you can figure out ahead of time who's who's running. Josh, I was going to ask you, you mentioned their resources out there. Do you have some off the top of your head that people can go look at and and just. No, no, we don't. We don't call Josh Whitaker cell phone.

He'll tell you which judges to vote for. That's what you do. I mean, and certainly you can go to the search engines and everything.

But I thought maybe had something on the. No, there used to there used to be a good guy. I remember before I was a practicing attorney. You know, I had I had family in law enforcement and family who worked for the court system. And so I kind of always knew who they liked and didn't like, you know. But I don't I really don't know off the top of my head because now I just know I probably should have done some research and looked that up.

And maybe maybe next year. No, we're encouraging we're encouraging the listeners to do that research. And once you do that research, get back to us and let us know the resources that you found. Yeah, I found most promising if our listeners could take. Yeah, if our listeners could take a day off work and really just hit it hard and then come back to me with some.

And then schedule schedule your estate planning console right after that. We'll give us some show credit, give us some props. Yeah. Yeah.

We got some shirts laying around. I think we can get back getting back on track, man. You talked about you thought, you know, touching on the self-employed interests. Right. And so you touched on something very important, I think, because if you are self-employed, there can be some additional nuances to your trust and you're leaving this business behind.

Right. So you're arguably talking about you could potentially need some advice that kind of goes outside the scope of just traditional estate planning. So I think personally, one of the more important things you can find in an attorney is because there's a lot of attorneys that do a fantastic job that specialize in estate planning. And they can talk to you about estate planning all day and give you fantastic advice.

And that's perfectly good and well. But if you are in one of these situations where you are a self-employed individual, having an attorney that has a little bit more of a broader scope, maybe they have more attorneys available at their disposal that hasn't have knowledge about different practice areas. You know, finding an attorney that also has some of that business knowledge because you're almost in a situation where you need some combination advice because you need the estate planning piece. But you also could potentially need some business formation or reformation type of advice, too, in terms of that business structure and what it's going to look like after you're gone. So, you know, another little plug for our firm, you know, we've got we've we've got the best of both worlds there.

That's a Hannah Montana quote. But but in terms of we've got great, great business attorneys, we've got great estate planning attorneys and and being able to go to one place to get help with both is is a great thing. So. Yeah, that's a that's a little plug. That's a little plug for our law firm there.

I figured out I'd drop on you. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we should we should be doing that on this show. But but yeah, there's some things to think about when you're self-employed. Do you want to move your membership interest, your ownership interest to the trust?

Do you want the trust to become the owner of the business? Do you have someone, an employee who who might want to buy it, you know, if given an option to buy your death, you know, and you think I think about other things, too. Like if you, you know, we sound like, you know, we start talking about death a lot and you're talking to people about death. You can get a little flippant about it. So when me and Joe are talking about people dropping dead, we're just talking about things that we see on a day to day, you know, level. So if it seems a little bit insensitive, forgive us. But this is just we deal in this, you know. But if someone, you know, if someone is to drop dead who is running a business, their family is going to need income immediately, like 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.

A lot of people can't go 90 days without income. So setting things up and trust that things keep moving and having some having some options is always pretty. Yeah. And you and you touched on it there, too, man. That's a that's an important piece of it is interest. And this is like a whole nother segment. And I know we've got to wrap this one up. But like, you know, you can't you can't understate the screeching halt effect that you could potentially have.

If you have a solely held business interest, you pass away and then you got to go through the probate process before anybody can really make any kind of moves with that business. So, again, of critical importance to get in to see somebody if you're in one of these situations and to to make sure that you've got everything buttoned up in case the worst happens. Judica County radio.

We are going to be back on the other side of the break. Want to remind you that Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts of the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And the firm has conveniently located their offices everywhere.

Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. Again, for your convenience and on the program today, we have free consults pertaining to estate planning and we have unlimited. So we were at five. Now we have opened it wide open. An opportunity for you to jump in here. If you have not started estate planning or had questions about estate planning, this is your opportunity. Call the number eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six and secure one of those estate planning consults. And again, it's absolutely free. No obligation.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. We've got more Judica County coming up. Judica County radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. They are managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and they've got offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. And each and every week it's legalese and we are all about trust this week. But we also have the consults available for estate planning and these are unlimited, meaning the number of consults available. A lot of people trying to get in on the five. So now we've opened it up. So we'll take as many as you got. And again, if you've got any questions about estate planning, this is your opportunity to really come in and kick the tires, get to know Whitaker and Hamer and also ask your questions about estate planning.

Very important to have one. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six be proactive as opposed to reactive because reactive can be probate. And that's trouble. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Josh. All right. So in our you know, we're trying to do a couple of different topics that have to do with with trust. That's kind of what we've been focusing on today. Earlier in the show, we talked about the different kinds of trustees, individual trustees, professional trustees, institutional trustees. And we talked about how you could have a trust that is just split up and divided. Everybody gets paid out after you've died and the trust is terminated.

Right. So that trust doesn't last for a very long time. You can have a trust that lasts for a long, long time and is is designed to take care of your heirs, pay them a certain amount monthly or quarterly over time. You know, and the more assets you have, the more likely you're to you would set up a trust that lasts longer to provide for your heirs, especially if you have heirs you don't want to dump a lot of assets and a lot of money on right after you've passed away. And so the trust becomes a good vehicle to make sure that they get the benefit of their inheritance, but they don't have the opportunity to to blow it.

I think I think last week or the week before we talked about how 18 year old Josh, if he got three million dollars dropped in his lap, would probably be a different Josh Whitaker today than 18 year old Josh who didn't have that kind of. Yeah. So so a trust can do that. And when we when we start putting a trust together, we have different standards.

So right. We talked about how you're the trustee. Usually you don't have to be. But a lot of people are their own trustee as long as they can do it, as long as they're alive, as long as they're competent. But when you have your backup trustee step in, you have to give them a standard like, what do you want? What do you want them to do?

So you can be pretty specific, right? I want 18 year old Josh to get twenty five thousand to help him with college. And then I want him to get half a million when he's 30. And then he can have the interest in between. And and as you got to give your trusty guidelines and you have to give them standards. There's there's there's I just picked two standards because they're kind of opposite polar end. But one is I call it the HIMSS standard. Right. That's where you tell your trustee to to take care of the beneficiaries health, education, maintenance and what does that stand for? Support, support, support, support.

All right. Health, education, maintenance, support. So you're trying to you try to keep up their standard of living. You may give your trustee, if you think the interests right, you know what's in the trust. If you think the interest is enough to keep everybody going, you can limit the trustee to the interest. You can give the trustee the right to invade the corpus. Right. The principal to to meet this this standard. You want your you want your beneficiaries taken care of.

And then on the other end. Right. That gives that gives the trustee a standard. So the trustee probably wouldn't be justified in buying a kid like a four hundred thousand dollar Lamborghini under the him standard. Right. Pay tuition, buy books, rent or a house, you know, things like that. But, you know, you're not going to you're not going to lose money to your to your beneficiaries wanting luxuries.

All right. So that's kind of the him. That's a limited standard for the trustee. And so the opposite of that is is giving your trustee absolute discretion, which happens to you, probably seeing that a time or two, Joe.

Yeah. You know, there's this is the thing, man, this is the beautiful thing about a trust. And this is the one of the big selling points when I sit down and I talk to folks is the the amount of latitude that you have in creating that trust. You can be as broad and general as you'd like.

You can be as specific as you like. And the trust gives you the ability, even when you're not here, to still have control of your assets and to make sure that those assets are being stewarded, stewarded exactly as you would have them be. And so, like you said, Josh, you touched on the him standard and then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you've got the just kind of broad, generalized discretion. And and this is a sliding scale that has a virtually infinite number of possibilities in between. You can literally dictate any manner you see fit for your trustee to kind of have, you know, whatever latitude and discretion they want in dispersing and managing these assets.

So you can you can really do anything, man. And we like to when we sit down with folks, because there's a lot of people who haven't really put a ton of thought into this. But that's one of the first questions I generally pose to people who are going the trust route.

It's what do you want this to look like and how do you want this? How do you want whoever's making these decisions for you to make these decisions? And so there's a ton of factors that can go into that. And one of the primary factors is going to be, you know, kind of that that individual versus professional or institutional type of situation. Because if you've got an individual in place that you know, that you trust, that knows your your your beneficiaries and kind of knows their needs, then that's a scenario where a lot of times you can be more broad in that discretion.

And you can say, hey, you know that, you know, I trust that you're going to know the needs and I trust that you're going to make good decisions. And and that may be a situation where you go with a more broad spectrum type of approach. But if you've got someone who's kind of disconnected from your beneficiaries and you want them to just kind of be making more of a kind of a calculated business decision, then then that's one where being more specific in those standards is more important. And, you know, in addition to the standards in terms of how you determine what reasons to disperse funds for.

And you touched on this some to Josh. You've got you got a ton of latitude and discretion in how you can set it up for when, how and where you want money distributed in general. So you can take and you can set up these standards for discretionary distributions and you can just have mandatory as of right periodic distributions built in as well.

That's the thing about a trust man. It's it's fully customizable. You can do what you want with it when you want. And and there's just an infinite number of possibilities for how you can establish your assets to be managed, you know, either during your life or after you pass.

Right. So when you're when you're sitting down in your state planning console, you know, you can again trust can do all kinds of things for you. And so you may come in and you don't envision yourself like, you know, the. I think a lot of people's goal right is I want enough assets so that when I retire, I can support myself. And then when I die, if the kids get something great, if I used all my assets and then died, I got to zero. That's fine. Right.

So, you know what you your plan is and what you're going to hope you leave or not leave the next generation. And so a trust again, a trust may just be a tool to get things out of probate. And you may want to wind down that trust or have your backup trustee wind that down as soon as you passed. That may be all the trust does is avoid probate. But that's a lot.

Right. So so even if the trust just does that for you, you've saved your family a ton of stuff. You've kept your personal business out of the county records.

You know, I think I told you one day I was downtown. My grandma died in 98. I went and pulled her state file because I had never seen it. And it's still there and everything's in their bank accounts when she died.

Who got what? Like it's all just there. It's public information. And so the trust you don't need. You don't need to go downtown when you have a trust. Everything is going to be taken care of in house. Everything can keep running the day after you're dead. No one's waiting for a death certificate.

No one's waiting for a meeting at the clerk's office to get everything opened. So, you know, we're talking about some other things you can do with a trust. If you have assets, if it's going to be open for a long time and try to take care of your beneficiaries after you die. But you don't have to have a lot of assets to make a trust worth the time and energy of setting it up.

Right. Because, like I said, trust is like a magic bucket. You put things in there and you avoid probate. And they're immediately available the day after you're dead to your beneficiaries. Bank accounts don't get frozen. You know, you can keep driving the cars.

The houses are you can go and sell a house if you need to. You're not waiting for the probate process. Yeah. So that is an advantage of the trust. Yeah.

Yeah. And that and that's one of the things I touch on, too, when I sit down with folks, you know, there's your when we sit down, you're going to go primarily in one or two directions. You're going to go will base. You're going to go trust base. And so when when and and that that decision is going to vary depending on the individual. Right. It's a very individualized decision.

But like you said, Josh, it's not. A lot of people I've had people sit in front of me and they're like, well, I don't need I don't have a lot of stuff. I don't need a trust. And and that's kind of a misconception because some of the best benefits of the trust don't require you to have some kind of crazy, ridiculous sized estate and be completely loaded with money. And one of the primary number one benefits is, like you said, that avoidance of probate, which even if you don't have a ton of stuff, man, the the the amount of peace of mind that you're giving the folks you leave behind, the amount of legwork you're taking off of their plate, just there's there's just so much to be said about how, how beneficial that is to somebody who's who's dealing generally in a very tough situation where they've got a lot of motions going on. And so that's a that's a big selling point. And then one thing we haven't really mentioned and and we haven't said a lot about is, you know, there's an element of protection from creditors as well. So, like, even if you don't have a ton of things, you know, you drop your personal residence into a trust and you know, that's going to that's going to kind of insulate it from any kind of unforeseen judgments, liens, things of that nature that that could pop up against you, which, you know, no one anticipates that happening to them. But but it happens every day. So just just there's I feel like we could talk all day about the benefits, man.

I feel like it's really it's one of those things where you can't fall into the trap of of thinking that it's not for you, just because of some things you've heard and some misconceptions you have. Judica County radio again, we are talking about trust today, and there's an opportunity for you to get on the calendar with Whitaker and Hamer law firm. And these are complementary consults dealing with the state planning and just the importance of having it in place. You don't want to go to probate. There's so many of you out there that are probably thinking about it, but you keep putting it off.

Be proactive, because when you're reactive, that's when it gets kind of dicey to grab one of these consults. 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. Again, the state planning, it's complementary. We have an unlimited amount of these consults.

We used to say five. They would fill up very fast. So now we're going to open it up. So if you've got questions, you can grab one of these consults. There's no obligation. You're not agreeing to become a client. You can get your questions answered.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. We've got more Judica County radio coming up. We are back on Judica County radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners. Whitaker Hamer law firm right here in North Carolina.

They're practicing attorneys here. Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, Morehead City. I'm not just naming cities in the great state of North Carolina. I'm telling you where the offices are located for Whitaker and Hamer.

Again, Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. And today, this week, we have unlimited free consults dealing with estate planning. And all you've got to do is call the number. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Final segment. Josh. You know, we've been doing this show now. I don't know how long.

A couple of years. I know we've at least had a couple of discussions. I know we've been doing at least a couple of Halloweens.

Yes. Because I know we've discussed like Halloween movies before, and I think I've been very vocal. I grew up. I did not like Halloween. I'm not a big fan of Halloween. You have scary pants?

Is that what it is? You don't like horror? You don't like horror flicks? You don't like dressing up?

You got some. I think there's two kinds of people. There's there's and they're similar.

They're very similar. But there's the kind of person that really enjoys comedies, stand up comedy movies. There's there's the kind of person that enjoys laughing. Right. And there's the kind of person that enjoys being scared. You know, like. Yeah. And likes and likes that.

And I actually think they're pretty similar people. They just they get that they get that release from either laughing or being scared. Hey, man, you're I don't like you're wrong, man, because I'm this is the time because I love the scary movies, man.

I love it. But but I don't really get scared what what you're talking about, because I like to laugh, too. But they make me laugh, man.

I don't know. I think I usually watch them with people. I try to watch scary movies with people that I know hate them. And then I laugh at them getting scared, because that's very funny to me personally.

So that's where my enjoyment comes from when I when I watch these these films, man. There was there was this thing and there was this theme, you know, Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it. Twitter. That's what I'm going to call it till I'm dead.

Twitter. They had this thing going on where different comedians would come in and they would just be like, look, it's basically like their worst version of a haunted house. They were like a haunted house, but it's this right in every room. And there was all these different variations.

It was really funny to watch them do it all. But the one that got me there was one is like, all right, hear me out, a haunted house. But in every room, there's a person whose name you should know. You don't remember. I was like, oh, that's my worst nightmare.

That would be terrible. But they had all these different. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, that's the word. Hey, pal. I like chief and boss, man. Hey, boss, man.

What's going on? And hey, lady. Hey, hey, it's you. But I am I am like I usually I remember a face like I remember where I met you. I remember like if you're a client or like you helped me coach a basketball team or like I'll remember. I'll remember all that stuff, but I will not remember your name.

I will not. And I know other people are like that. I coached a team. One of my kids was a was on a baseball team. And I coached the whole year as like the first base coach, you know.

And at the end, the guy that was coaching the team would call me. My name is Josh. You call me Jason. They always called me Jason.

He would never call me Josh. You assumed Jason as a role. Right.

I was like, OK, I'll be Jason. That's that's fine. And I never corrected him. Right. So if you don't correct him the first time, we're like in the ninth practice, like we've had like four games and I've never corrected them. And at that show up in a Jason mask.

I like it. But my kid was younger then. And he would hear this guy call me Jason. And he was so confused. Look, he just thinks my name is Jason.

It's too late to really correct him, you know. And I haven't seen I haven't I don't and I don't remember that guy's name at all. Right. You know, but I would I would remember him if I saw him. But that was my haunted house.

I mean, I think that is such an intellectual choice when it comes to the haunted house. You fear the most is basically a house full of people you should know and you don't. And you're embarrassed that you don't remember.

Right. And you got to creatively work around, like not mentioning their name. But like I said, I'll usually remember where I met you from. So I'd be like, oh, I hadn't seen you since we both worked at Arby's, you know, like I'll figure that out. But I won't I won't know your name.

I got no shot. Well, and you're just holding your breath, hoping somebody comes up that says their name when they when they come into the group or something like that. A good trick that I like to use and you can use this at home if you if you want to use it. But a good trick I like to use if I'm with my wife, I was like, oh, you haven't met my wife, Charlotte. And then she knows what to do. She'll introduce herself. And then and then we get to, oh, it's Jim. You know, you figure out who it is. You know, that's a that's a nice trick that I like. Yeah.

Sadly, I've got that same setup. We are going into any event. I'll say, look, if somebody comes up and they act like they know us, just introduce yourself. Because if I don't immediately say something, I have forgotten their name. So that's your wife, your spouse can be a good wingman for you in that type of scenario. So like if we did go into that haunted house, me and my wife, I think we'd get through it.

OK. And we could take it from there. But you meet you meet so many people just doing right. Just kids playing in sports, going to school, church. You just your brain can only remember so many names. I mean, think about think about the teams your kids have been on and the number of parents that you're around. It's a lot of names. It's it's a lot of names. So I'm like you. I have reverted to chief, bud, pal, fella.

You know, those types of greetings because, you know, cutie pie invested the time because you're cutie pie. Well, yeah, that might get you in trouble with. Yeah. You know, maybe not.

But anyway, I mean, you know, whatever, whatever floats your boat. But I mean, you look at it as you know, you have all this time invested in your kid. You're around these other parents, but you haven't invested the time into remembering names.

And, you know, I've gotten better at it over the years, but I have graduated from team sports, thankfully. I read I read an article one time a long time ago, back when people had Rolodexes, you know, you didn't have a phone. All your contacts weren't in your phone. So you had a Rolodex. And you had to be like, if I need to call Morgan, I had to flip through and look him up and have his home number and his cell number in his pager number. Right.

That's how it used to be back in the day. And but I read and I know not everybody liked Jesse Helms when he was a senator for North Carolina. But I read this story on Jesse Helms that he always knew who you were. And like when he met somebody, he would go home and he'd make them a Rolodex card. First and last name, how he knew them, what they talked about. And and he would put it in his Rolodex or his file or whatever. But like if you if you met Senator Helms at any point, like he'd remember who you were.

And I guess he had a good memory, too. But but I always read that. And you don't have to worry about that anymore because everybody's just in your phone. Right.

Their email, every conversation you've ever had text, every time you've called them, it's all just in your phone. But he used to try to recreate that so he could remember everybody he talked to. You know, also that was cool. Yeah. He's a better man than me, man. I can't remember.

I have a tough time myself personally. Well, he's passed away. Yeah, he's he's passed away.

He still probably has a better memory than me, even from the grave, man, honestly. Joseph, your kids, what are your costumes? What are they where they dress up as? We're we're after Halloween.

Yeah. So several several costumes, man. They usually they're early in the season. They'll get real jacked up and they'll they'll get a costume like right when it starts getting cold.

And then as we get closer to Halloween, they're usually like they want to they'll get like a different mask to throw on there. So we had I had a I had a ghost face from Scream. I had a Jason Voorhees.

That's my hockey playing son. And then I had my daughter, my oldest daughter. She was just kind of I don't know, nothing really.

And she's kind of old for it. And then. Yeah.

And then my youngest daughter was a zombified Taylor Swift. So that was what she decided to be, actually. Oh, that's nice. Yeah.

Shake it off. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. My oldest is kind of done with it. My oldest is kind of done with it. And then my middle one really wanted to be where do a Where's Waldo kind of thing. So he was he did that. And that worked out well for him. And then the youngest wanted to be a zombie Iron Man.

But at the last minute, we really couldn't put that together like we like we had hoped. So he went as what's the guy's name from Nightmare Before Christmas? Isn't it like it's Jack Skellington.

Yeah. So we went to the old Spirit Halloween store and he ended up being being being Jack. But they had a blast, man. They enjoyed it. All right.

Well, we hope you had a wonderful Halloween. We want to remind you, we have unlimited free consults on estate planning available. All you got to do is call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Very important to have an estate plan. Be proactive about it. Call this number 800-659-1186.

These are complementary. You're not agreeing to become a client. This is an opportunity for you to learn about estate planning.

And then, of course, see the importance of having one. 800-659-1186. Another edition of Judica County Radio is in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners Whitaker and Hamer law firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

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