Judica County Radio: Listener Questions Probate & Non-Probate Assets

Welcome in to Judica County Radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. On today's show, probate assets and non-probate assets along with probate administration and administration. That's coming up today on Judica County Radio. Welcome in to Judica County Radio.

Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners and they're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They've put offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City for your convenience. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure each and every week to go back and forth with the attorneys.

It's always legalese. There's going to be an opportunity to get on their calendar. We have complimentary consults available.

We'll tell you about those as we move through the program before we dive in on our latest subject matter, which again is going to be probate assets and non-probate assets. Gentlemen, how was your week? Josh, you go first. By being sick, right? I was, I was raised kind of, you just, you take day quill till it goes away and you go to, you go to work.

Right. And, uh, there you go, everybody listening is going to be sick, man, last week, man, I got knocked on my butt and I had to just, you know, luckily, you know, we've, we've got Joseph and we've got some good attorneys at the firm who can step in, but I couldn't do it Thursday, Friday. I was at home in bed and, uh, didn't, this is the first day, you know, it's been about a week. And this is the first day I feel somewhat normal. So, um, I bet it's been 12, 13 years since I've been that sick.

So whatever's going around, it, it packs a wallop. Malaria? Yeah, I never, I'm not a big go to the doctor guy.

Um, so I never went to the doctor, took any, any of those fancy tests, but I was sick. And it sucked. I like the, uh, again, just so our listeners understand, we hook up virtually because we have studios literally in three different areas so we can all get together and, and, and do this radio show. Uh, but we have a virtual hookup so we can see it. And we are also taping video, uh, you know, for, uh, use in the future. And as we started the show, Joe had some nice mood lighting or lack thereof, and now I can fully see you, Joe. So thank you for that.

Yeah. I like to, I like to set the mood, man. I like, uh, I feel like the contours of my face in the dark work a lot better for you guys.

And, uh, I know how important looking at my face is to you. So I do what I can, man. But, uh, I hate you got so sick, man. It was rough. It was rough. And there wasn't, um, you know, luckily I could unite.

I really rested because all I could do was stay in bed. And then I went, um, over the weekend, Saturday, I had a kid at a game. And so I went and kind of stayed out of the way and that exhausted me. Like I was, that was all I could do that day. And then, uh, the other day I had to go clean us.

I had to clean out a sewer line and that, that took all my energy. That was all I could do. You've got so many talents, man. You're a multifaceted person. You get these talents. You don't get these talents on purpose. You get these talents because you get tired of paying people, right?

You have to figure out, you have to figure out at some point in your life. And, and there are people like, like we were attorneys. People don't want to pay us if they don't have to. Right. But there's some things you need an attorney for.

Right. I don't want to pay a plumber to do something that I can do if I can avoid it. So are we changing the diet at the Whitaker household to make sure that the sewer line stays? No, we have a, we have a commercial building. And if you talk to plumbers.

Okay. Wasn't at the house. It wasn't a house. He makes his kids go to the commercial building to use the bathroom.

We got a commercial building. Hey, this is a, this is, I'm gonna tell this to everybody who's listening. Cause the plumbers are telling me this. People are carrying around. I don't know if you do this. I don't, I'd never heard of this, but I guess the flushable wipes that they sell are not really flushable, right? They still, they still sell them. And a lot of people, I guess, carry those with them.

Sure. And flood, you know, go use the bathroom at public places and flush them. And that is messing stuff up, man. Across the nation, toilets all over the place. So you're saying, you're saying dude wipes. That's what we're talking about. Like, I don't know if it's men or women.

I can't, I don't know. In my situation, I think women can use dude wipes too, man. It's not, I don't know what a dude wipe is. It's just a wipe for dudes.

It's literally what it sounds like. I'm sure they have dame whites as well. Yeah.

They did wives. They've got them wipes. Look, I'm just telling you, if you're one of those people that are, they're carrying their own wipes around and then using them and flushing them in commercial businesses, I can guarantee you this commercial businesses are not set up to take a bunch of flushable wipes. Flushable wipes should be banned across the board.

Put a sign up. Yeah, you can ban them. People start frisking people at the door. People don't look at the signs.

They could care less. Bring your guns, bring your knives. But if you've got a flushable wipe, you're not coming to this establishment. You're trying to wipe, wipe away this nuisance. I applaud you.

And maybe there's, maybe there's a reason why people do it. I don't, I don't know. You know, I'm, I don't, I don't use a lot of toiletries in commercial.

That's nice information. Thank you. Josh is all natural, man. I'm not going to use toilet paper.

What a crutch. Free and easy, man. Josh, you got to toughen yourself up. You got to be ready for the elements. Yeah, I like that.

I like that plan. That's gonna, that's, we know how you got sick now for sure. But, uh, but that, that anyway, doing that wiped me out. So I'm just getting, I'm just getting back to normal. I still can't drink coffee. I drink like pots of coffee every day, but when I get sick, I can't drink coffee. So I'm on the hot, I'm on the hot chocolate today.

That's what I'm drinking. So let me, let's just go back for a second. So you're cleaning out a sewer line at work and then you go after the, uh, scented wipes that people use. So I'm assuming that was the cause of the, Oh yeah.

Yeah. It always is every, every time, every time I have to do that, it's, uh, it's just somebody tried to flush an article of clothing or flushable wipes. I just see you like a Shawshank redemption, man, just crawling through the pipe, crawling through the pipe, man, covered in sewage and just grabbing wipes out and just getting your shirt off, staring up into the camera. That's above you as it rains. Just, just to know if you come into any of my establishments, any of my buildings and you flush flushable wipes, I'm cursing your name.

And you find it and he finds out, he's doing a DNA test on your flushable wipe, like Batman, just hunting people down. But I don't know, I don't know if you talk, I've had to talk to a lot of plumbers here over the past couple of years, but they say it's getting worse. It's getting worse. And that's how like, it's an epidemic. That's how they, man, that's how they make money.

You know, like, I don't know, it was very, they should be pumped about it. It's probably, it sounds like a conspiracy. I was going to say, maybe the plumbers, uh, you know, that that's what they're doing. They're pushing these wipes so they have more business.

No, I'm kidding. You know, I don't know, man. Pretty bright plan. And then I know a lot of things can go wrong in the bathroom. You know, I know a lot of things can go wrong and that you might be forced, but did you just wake up and go, you know what? We're going to do potty time. We're gonna go potty time.

The people who flush articles of clothing. That's like, something's really, that's it. Some tragedies happen for you to have to do that, man. I mean, I'd rather put my cell phone number there and just say, Hey, call me for help. You know, if something like that happens, tell me what you need.

And I will bring it to you. So you don't feel like you have to flush that down the toilet. They probably had to flush their shirt because they ran out of dude wipes. And, uh, if you were, didn't you go in there with a shirt on, if you were putting the two or three plot toilet paper in your establishments, man, you wouldn't have this problem. People would be able to, you know, take care of things, but no, man, no hand towels.

No, it's all air dryers. No, you can't give people, people aren't responsible enough to do that. People aren't responsible enough to use the bathroom. If you just put a bidet in your, uh, establishments, man, take them up another level, they'd be 10 times more classy.

And you'd never have to worry about someone, uh, throwing a cardigan in your toilet for some reason. Well, anyway, so the, you know, I was thinking about before the show, Joseph, I was thinking about most of the questions that we get. A lot of the questions that we get from people on the show are based on the probate process. What happens after you die?

And I know we talk about it from time to time, but we get a ton of questions. And so today on the show, we're going to stop talking about the toilets and we're going to talk about, uh, what's a probate asset and what's a non-probate asset. So, you know, you die, haven't done any planning. What's a probate asset.

What's a non-probate asset. And then after we do that, we're going to talk about the actual probate process, the administration process, like what happens to your stuff after you die, if you have not planned. And then in our last second, we're going to tell you how you can change all that, right? Here's how it works.

If you don't have anything, this is the default. This is what your family's gonna have to deal with. And then how you can avoid that almost completely, you know, whether you have 20 million in assets or you have a dollar, you know, these strategies will help you avoid probate. And so that's kind of what we're going to focus on today. And Josh, I was just going to have you explain our complimentary consults that you make available, just so our listeners are aware. Yeah.

Yeah. So especially today, uh, you know, we're going to be talking a lot about how estate planning can help you. And so for today, if you call the number that Morgan's going to give you during the show, we'll set you up with one of our attorneys with a free estate planning consult, right? And so we'll get information from you, talk to you about what we think your estate plan should be, tell you what it would cost, right?

And this is, this is no obligation. We're going to talk to you just like we talked to any other client, right? We'll give you information, give you some advice for free. And then if you agree with us, we'll, you'll know what it costs to kind of continue on. But this is just kind of a free review of your current estate plan.

If you don't have one, just talking about putting one into place. But that's, that's what we're talking about today. So that's what we'll do.

All right. Judica County radio will continue on the other side. Just a quick reminder, your hosts are 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 Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City, the complimentary consult. You can get one of those by calling 800-659-1186. Again, it's estate planning. That's 800-659-1186 that will secure one of those complimentary consults. 800-659-1186. When we return on Judica County, it is probate assets and non-probate assets.

We'll dig in next. Judica County radio. You're listening and your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, Moorhead City, and Cleveland. And just a reminder, both Josh and Joe, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

I'm Morgan Patrick. Each and every week, it's legalese, a discussion. We also give you an opportunity for a complimentary consult. And this week, it is estate planning. 800-659-1186, the number to call to grab one of those consults.

That's 800-659-1186. Again, focusing in on estate planning this week. And the show this week, after we got through our initial segment, probate assets and non-probate assets.

Josh. Yeah, so what I wanted to do today is kind of paint a picture of what it looks like if you die with nothing planned, right? We've, I know in my extended family, we've had a few deaths lately and, you know, just younger people, you know, people younger than me, I'm not young and let's go out and all play basketball kind of way anymore.

But when you're talking about dying, I feel like I've, if I died tomorrow, I'd be like, Josh was so young to have died, you know? So it's all relative, but I've had a, I've had a couple of younger folks who old enough to have kids, old enough to have some assets who probably didn't think they were going to pass away when they passed away. And so it's kind of made me think personally, you know, about certain things and kind of revisiting, because even attorneys, we talk about this, I could do, I could revisit my estate plan anytime I wanted to, you know, me and Joseph, we can update our estate plan whenever we wanted to, but I still don't do it like I'm supposed to do it, you know?

And that's why we kind of harp at people on the, on the radio and on the podcast. It is important to look at it and think about it, not every second of every day, but right now, we're going to talk to the people that don't have anything in place, right? And so that's what I was going to do, Joe, is just have you like, we'll take a family, we'll take a, you know, we've got two spouses, two kids, underage, a couple of vehicles, a house with a mortgage, 401k, maybe some life insurance. So kind of, kind of taking the average, the average person, you know, middle-aged average person, and if they were to die without a will, you know, kind of what are their assets look like, you know? Cause there's assets that are probate assets. That means there's assets that have to go through your estate. And then there's non-probate assets. So there's assets that are already kind of going to be taken care of.

You've already made arrangements, even if you don't, if you don't realize it, right? So if we take a look at that, Joseph, what do, what do we get? What do we got? Well, first off, man, I feel like you're going through an existential crisis to an extent, man. Like I'm, I'm starting to get a little worried about you.

That sickness really took its toll. And I feel like you stared death in the face and it's like a final destination movie now. I re recently re-watched all of those by the way, not to get off topic. It is relevant to this topic. So, and it can come for anybody apparently. So just a heads up on that, but I've never seen it.

I realize what they are, but I've never seen any of those. Yeah. People, people die, man. That's the, that's the gist of it. That's actually pretty good.

Those movies are pretty good advertisement for this estate planning services. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, man, dying. So we, in our hypothetical, we've got this very nice person, not named Josh Whitaker. That's right. Who's going to live forever with medical advances. That's what we've determined.

That's right. And they don't, they don't have a will. And so again, we're talking a hypothetical. So there could be endless variations of, of what this person owns in terms of property. But if we're keeping it as simple as possible, let's just say they own a home. Let's just say they're married. You say they're married, happily married. Yeah. Let's, let's say they're married. And just to, just to throw this in there, they live in, they live in a house.

Okay. We're going to have to name them. We're going to have to give them a name. The Smiths.

The Smiths. So we're going to have, uh, John and Jane Smith. That's good. All right. And they live in a house attached to these people already, man. So, uh, John Smith, they live in a house that John bought when he was in college. Okay. So John owns it in his sole name and they did buy, yeah, let's just leave it at that. Okay. All right.

So you throw a wrinkle in there, right? So the, the, the better of these two situations, cause John's leaving Jane behind, right. And with their eight kids, they got eight kids also, just throwing that in there. Eight kids, eight and under.

Eight kids, all minors, um, good kids, but all very young. So, so, you know, the, the better, the ideal situation and there's no, the ideal situation would be for John to have a well-crafted estate plan, but in the absence of that, you would at least hope that, that as to the real property, the home that he owns, you would hope that he and his spouse own that jointly. And, and that would make it a non-probate asset in the sense that if they, if they took title together, the law creates a survivorship, which means that his spouse would automatically take that property with no need to, to administer any kind of an estate. But in this scenario, John purchased prior to their marriage, and we're going to assume John wasn't taking care of his affairs.

So John didn't do what he needed to do. He didn't have her to title at any point. So the number one big glaring issue that, that we're going to have here is his wife's not on title.

Jane's not on title. And you know, that's not the end of the world because again, even without a will, you can, there, you're going to administer this estate. The, the, the law is going to ultimately take care of things, but you're going to have to do a lot more. There's a lot more jumping through hoops.

There's a lot more legwork. And so the number one issue that I see there is, is dealing with their real property because that's where they live. And, and you're going to have to take care of that first and foremost.

Yeah. So John passes away unexpectedly. Uh, Jane's going to have to make the funeral arrangements.

Um, you know, they'll, they'll have to work on that part in a week or two. She's going to have a death certificate and she's going to find out that she has to go downtown, um, to the courthouse and probably make an appointment, depending on what county you're in. Some counties you can walk in, some counties, you have to make an appointment and, uh, she's going to have to open up an estate and she's going to have to take account of who the heirs are and, and, and what is, what needs to go through probate and right. So we're talking about the real property. In our example, John owned this house before he got married.

They never retitled it after marriage. Um, so John owned it in his sole name, so it becomes a probate asset, but not only is Jane an heir in this situation, right? Cause there is no will, you know, John has done no estate planning. And so the laws of North Carolina are going to govern how this, how this asset passes. And so the heirs are 50% Jane as the surviving spouse. And the other 50% is going to be split up between eight minor children. Which is, which is its own special type of rough situation. Because anytime you're dealing with a minor, you're, you're talking about a situation where, especially in the absence of an estate plan, you're talking about a scenario where there's going to have to be a trustee appointed because the court won't just give property to minors.

Yeah. So there's going to have to be a court appointed guardian or somebody appointed to account for the, any interest, anything that the minors would have inherited. And so it makes selling a house difficult at, you know, it makes refinancing impossible, you know? So there's, you know, that one thing could, could have been like a complete non-issue with, with any kind of, with a very low level of estate planning. That's a probate. That's a, that's an asset that had to end up going through, uh, the court system through administration, um, that, that wouldn't have had to otherwise. And then of course, that's going to be a huge headache. You know, that's something that Jane probably isn't going to solve on her own.

She's probably going to need to retain an attorney, um, to kind of get through that process and get, you know, get the title to the house squared away and things like that. Um, you know, 401k is, is different though, Joseph. So 401k, tell us, tell us about like a retirement account and investment account of 401k. Yeah.

So it will, and again, the answer as with so many other things, the answer is going to be, it depends, right? So there's any, there's, there's several classes of assets that can have designated death beneficiaries and, and, you know, that's something that can be done outside of, of any kind of estate planning. Like you don't have to go to an attorney to set up a payable on death account for a bank account. You don't have to go to an attorney for retirement accounts to designate who the, the beneficiary is going to be after your death. And so those things where there's a designated death beneficiary are all going to be what we would call non probate assets, meaning they're not subject to the court. They don't have to go through the probate process. And so ideally in this situation, there would have, there would be a designated death beneficiary being Jane in this case, and there would be no kind of estate planning related issue as to that.

Now we can't guarantee that's the case, but that would be the hope here. And so hopefully, you know, those kinds of things, there are, there are things like that, like life insurance, where you would have designated your, your beneficiary ahead of time, right? So if, you know, all, all Jane should have to do is produce a death certificate and, and show that death certificate to whoever has the investment account, whoever the life insurance, they have their own processes, and then they're going to turn that, those assets over to Jane without her ever having to go downtown, ever having to do anything. Those are, those are non probate assets. Now I will tell you if you, if you've been divorced, right? So if we change our fight pattern again, saying John and Jane got divorced and John was remarried to Jill, he's got to make sure he changes his beneficiaries on all that stuff, right?

That is, that doesn't change automatically. And so you have a lot of folks who pass away before they get a chance to do it, or maybe they didn't know. And you've got, you know, Jane, the first wife as a beneficiary on life insurance policies, things like that. And that's never pleasant when that happens.

No, it's never, there's very few pleasantries involved in a, in a divorce based situation. And, and you're, you're talking about one of the ultimate nightmare scenarios there. So that's one of the things we do when we sit down for an estate plan. We talk about, well, because we're talking about what you have and it's not because we're being nosy. We want to know what your assets are and we want to know what your plan is. Like, you know, you know, if you, we ask you if this is a second marriage, you know, well, who's the, who's the beneficiary of these?

Do you have any joint accounts with your ex spouse that you haven't taken care of? We really kind of go through that. And, and once you get it tied up, man, you feel much better. Once you, once you have it all tied up, you don't have to worry about it. It's not in the back of your mind, uh, but I'm telling you, man, we just, we're just programmed not to think about dying just to put our heads down and plow forward.

And then, uh, but it'll happen. Yeah. Until you're crawling through the sewer with the flu, like you, man, you don't come face to face with your mortality. You know, you really, you know, and the way I had to clean this one out, man, I'm pretty much like face down in the dirt, right.

To get the, to get the auger and the snake in there. Like I'm, I'm up in it. And, uh, we're doing free plumbing consultations. Yeah.

If you've got a backed up sewer line, you can give us a call. And, uh, yeah, but, um, yeah. Yeah. Just, uh, so that's, that's the important thing to know in this segment is that there's, there's, there's assets that will pass outside of an estate assets that will have to go to probate unless you do something about it. And we're using probate as a very general word, a word here for the estate administration process. Cause, um, but, uh, yeah.

Okay. Well, listen, we're going to get into probate and administration that's coming up next. Uh, you just heard a very nice segment on probate assets and non probate assets, and just the importance of making sure you have an estate plan so you can avoid probate. There are consults available and these are complimentary with Whitaker and Hamer law firm, and it is in and around estate planning 800-659-1186. The number to call to grab one of those complimentary consults. That's 800-659-1186. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will book that appointment for you.

Again, leave your contact information and briefly what the call's about. And again, that estate planning consult available 800-659-1186. Another edition of Judica County radio is going to continue on the other side. We'll get into probate and administration again. That's next on Judica County radio.

We are back on Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They've got offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Each and every week we talk legalese and this week it is about probate. We've talked about, again, probate assets and non-probate assets. We're gonna get into probate and administration next, but we want to remind you there are complimentary consults available this week and it's about estate planning.

And probate happens when you don't have an estate plan. So make sure you have one. These are complimentary consults.

You can get started on it. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about. And of course, they'll sign you up for one of those complimentary consults.

800-659-1186. Yeah. So we spent a lot of time talking about different classes of assets. And so when you die, no matter what your estate plan is, certain things are considered probate assets, meaning they have to go through the estate and some assets are non-probate.

And so I think this segment, Joseph, I want to talk more about the process. And so we're talking about not having a will, not having an estate plan. So we're talking about administration, right?

So there's kind of different terms you use depending on what's going on. And administration is what happens. When you die without a will, right? So that's the administration of your estate. Your heirs have to do it. And just in general, what does that kind of look like?

Yeah. So step one, man, step one is you're going to have to go down. And like you said, some places are going to make you make an appointment.

Some places you can walk into. There's different places handle things differently procedurally, but you're going down to the courthouse and you're going down to see the clerk and the nice folks that work in the clerk's office. You're going to need your death certificate, like you said, and you're going to go down and you're going to have to, there's going to be some forms you're going to need to fill out.

You're going to need to account, like you've said previously, for each and every heir that is entitled to take under this estate. So you're going to have to have some knowledge about that. And hopefully you're close enough to this person. You're a relative.

You've got all that information available to you. But that's really step one. Head down to the courthouse to get the ball rolling on the process.

Yeah. So remember, you're doing this so your loved one has passed and you've had whatever service you're going to have and they've been buried or cremated and you've gotten your death certificate from the county and now you're trying to make a list of assets. So that's what you're going to do when you go down to the clerk. There's a bunch of forms to fill out. They're going to want you to confirm who the heirs are, maybe have a family tree, contact information for anybody who may have inherited, and you're going to have to start listing out assets. And so in our scenario, we had a husband and a wife, John and Jane, and John had passed away. And so anything in his sole name is an asset, and we talked about how his house was titled in his name, and so that'll have to be listed. And he had some bank accounts that were in his sole name.

Those have to be listed. And so that's just the beginning of the process. You do that and then you got about six months to a year if everything works out well, of giving notice to creditors and getting everything closed down and retitled the right way. In our scenario, the underage kids were going to inherit a lot of stuff, and that was going to be a big complication.

So that was going to take some extra effort. But that's the administration process, and the administration process also has laws that dictate who inherits what, right? So the surviving spouse just doesn't take everything.

Kids inherit things even if they're eight. And so you have to kind of deal with that, too, and then kind of have to be ready for it. Giving the creditor claims, you know, if there's hospital bills that come in that weren't paid, credit cards that were in John's sole name, they're going to have to be dealt with.

If the mortgage was in his sole name, that's something that's going to have to be dealt with. And the whole point is, it is a process. And I know in my personal life, when I'm trying to take care of business, I don't mean this to sound bad, but I don't want to have to deal with the government entity anytime I don't have to, right? I don't want to have to deal with the DMV unless I absolutely have to. I don't want to have to deal with a judge unless I absolutely have to. I don't want to have to deal with a clerk unless I absolutely have to.

And I think most people kind of have that same feeling. It's just a hassle. Even if it goes as well as it could and the folks down at the courthouse do as good a job as they can do, it's still a hassle, right? And I think most people want to avoid that anytime they can, right? And so if I was telling you, hey man, if you sit down with me and plan, I've got this thing where you never have to go to the DMV again for anything, you'd be like, man, I've been like signing me up. That's a win.

Right? And I don't have that answer. I have no way to avoid that. But we're working on it.

We're in the lab every day. But you can, with relatively little effort, set up an estate plan that when you're gone, your heirs don't have to do this, can almost completely 100% avoid the courthouse, right? The clerk's office, getting bonded by an insurance agent. You can avoid all these steps and you can make it super easy. You can make it as easy as all your heirs need is a death certificate and everybody keeps moving. Accounts keep moving, real property stays in place, you know, and so that's what we're going to talk more about in our next segment is like, how do you avoid this? And I think it's important to note, man, because you don't, you got to remember, like you talk about dealing with certain people, how you don't want to do it, even on your best day, even on a day when you're not crawling through the sewer, dealing with sickness, you still don't want to go deal with certain things, man.

And it's nothing against these professions or these positions or these people. It's just sometimes you don't want to deal with certain things. And so when you get into this scenario and you're talking about, you're doing this shortly after the death of someone that in theory you love very much and you care about and you're emotionally distraught and it amplifies everything in a negative way in the sense that the more stress and uncertainty you have to deal with, the more difficult it is to deal with, the more difficult it's going to be. And you're talking about potentially one of the toughest times of your life. So I think that's the main thing, man. It's not to say that, it's not to say we can make your estate plan work to where it's as easy as humanly possible for you after death. There may still be some things that have to be done and some legwork that has to be done, but I think the number one thing is just removing the uncertainty because that's the last thing you want when you're grieving is all of the uncertainty and all of the stress of what do I even do here?

Yeah. And especially if you're in a relationship, your husband and wife's spouses, you come in and you plan it together so that you both know how to execute it when the time comes. And especially when we talk about self-employed folks a lot, we have a lot of clients who are self-employed, own their own business, own their own company. And that kind of just takes it to an even higher level because if you pass away before that's taken care of, that can be a headache as well to the 10th degree. But you can plan it so that you avoid, we say avoid probate, avoid administration. Basically you're avoiding the courthouse. And it is not hard. It is not hard to do. You know, we've seen, we do hundreds, hundreds, I mean thousands of these estate plans over, I can't remember what our total number is since we've been a law firm.

But it's more than even I thought when I looked at the number. But we've seen every kind of situation. We have solutions that we can put in place and then we have other professionals that we work with. So we have CPAs and financial planners and other people that are outside of the firm, but they're trusted resources for us that we work with often that we can connect you with too if there needs to be their involvement. But anyway, so the next segment, we're going to spend more time, I wanted to kind of just talk about trust and how trust can be used to avoid probate, avoid administration. Probate conversation will continue.

We'll talk about trust coming up in the next segment. You're listening to Judica County Radio, your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, the managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, they're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and they've placed offices convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fugave Arena, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. And we do offer up the complimentary consults on estate planning this week, call the number 800-659-1186. If you haven't started an estate plan, this is a great opportunity to get rolling on it. If you've got a question about your current estate plan, certainly jump on these consults. 800-659-1186, that's 800-659-1186, leave your contact information and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to sign you up for one of those complimentary consults, 800-659-1186. We'll talk trust coming up on the other side.

We are back on Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, they've placed offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fugave Arena, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City for your convenience. I'm Morgan Patrick, each and every week it's always legalese and we have complimentary consults available on estate planning, you can call 800-659-1186 and grab one of those right now, again there's no obligation, 800-659-1186, get an estate planning consult available and it is complimentary, 800-659-1186. Josh talking trust.

Yep, yep. All right, so our whole show, we've talked about probate versus non-probate assets, what happens when you pass away without an estate plan, the administration process, and we were just telling you in the last segment how there's an easy way to plan to avoid administration, to avoid probate, and the answer is simply a trust. There's hundreds of different types of trust for different reasons, but basically Joseph, what is a trust? So a trust is an estate planning vehicle that we use to, like you said Josh, streamline things, take the probate process out of the equation, and what a trust essentially is, it's a document that we draft for you and that you're going to sign, and it's basically going to create a completely separate entity that is going to hold title to everything that would normally be subject to this probate process, thereby taking it out of that probate process. So it's a document, it can be extremely lengthy and complicated depending on the complexity of your estate, it can be pretty streamlined and straightforward.

There's solutions for everybody, right? But in essence it is a document where you are going to be as the settler, is what we'll call you, you're going to be establishing this trust and you're going to be appointing a trustee or several, a trustee and several successors that are going to manage your assets for the benefit of your beneficiaries, whoever they may be in your trust, your heirs, yourself during your lifetime, and we're going to put everything into it, and by doing that you're not in a situation to where if you pass away, there's nothing to be probated. You don't own any assets that are subject to probate, that you need to go down to the courthouse and take a death certificate and deal with the clerks. Everything is going to be governed and dictated and take place all within that trust instrument. And again, it's something that we can be pretty straightforward and easy on in terms of we could just state, hey, this goes to this person, this goes to this person. And trust give you a great degree of flexibility because it's also a thing that you can use to retain some control after you're gone. If you've got folks that you don't really trust to steward the assets, you're leaving them correctly, you can appoint a trustee that you feel better about to manage those things for their benefit. It just gives you so much more control and it's so much easier in terms of procedurally what you're dealing with as you move forward after death.

Yeah. So trust is, we create it. So your estate planning attorney would create a trust.

You would come in and tell them what you want to do. But basically, whatever Josh Whitaker owns, I'm going to transfer to Josh Whitaker as trustee of Josh Whitaker Revocable Living Trust. And it is to benefit me during my life. And then you, just like a will, you can kind of, like Joseph said, just like a will, you can kind of set up, well, after I die, here's who I want to be the trustee and who's the beneficiary should be. But the trust itself, Josh Whitaker will die one day, but by this trust that I'm setting up with Joseph here, it doesn't die.

It can expire. It can end under its own terms, but it doesn't die. And so everything in that trust, say my wife is my backup trustee, I die.

She just keeps moving. The trust still owns everything. The trust has not died.

I'm just no longer a player in the trust. And I can dictate that my kids get certain things or get certain things when they're 21 or 25 or 30 or when they get married or make sure they get their college paid. There's all these things that I can dictate the trust do. And I can dictate what certain assets are used.

You still have a lot of control. It's really like a will. It's just a will that doesn't have to go downtown. The clerks don't have to probate it. It already owns the assets. The assets don't have to go anywhere. And so that's how you...

I mean, it's that easy and it's that difficult at the same time, right? Because these trusts can get as detailed or undetailed as you need them to be depending on what you're trying to plan for, depending on what assets you're trying to get where. And that would really only be for assets that are what we were calling non-probate, right? These are assets you want to avoid probate. You don't have to put everything you own in this trust, just the things you want to keep out of probate. And that touches on a good point, man. The best estate plan, it's a combination, right?

It's not one thing. It's a combination of intelligently dealing with the probate assets and making sure that you're going through the least amount of resistance and friction when you're disposing of those assets and getting them to who you want to get them to. And it's also making sure that you've buttoned up all of your non-probate assets. So a good well-crafted estate plan is going to consider everything. And even though a lot of those non-probate assets aren't going to be subject to probate, and so that's not something that your trust is going to touch, an intelligent estate plan is still going to consider those. And you're going to get advice and you're going to be reminded of exactly what you need to do to make sure you've designated the appropriate beneficiaries, whether it be individuals or whether it be the trust itself, so that everything kind of works together and is a cohesive whole. All right, guys, talking trust, talking probate, probate administration assets and non-probate assets on the show today. And again, if you've got questions about your own situation, man, you need an estate plan.

There are complimentary consults in and around estate planning available right now with Whitaker and Hamer. All you've got to do is call 800-659-1186, that's 800-659-1186, leave your contact information and briefly what the call's about. If you want one of the consults, obviously tell them and they'll sign you up for those.

800-659-1186, that's 800-659-1186. We're back to close up Judica County Radio this week's edition, next. We are back on Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm are your hosts.

They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and Whitaker and Hamer has placed offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City for your convenience. I'm Morgan Patrick, my pleasure to talk legalese and again, sometimes referee between the attorneys but we have fun but it's also very serious talking about today, probate, probate assets and non-probate assets, probate and administration and we just wrapped up a conversation about trusts and during the course of the show, complimentary consults are available in and around estate planning. You can call 800-659-1186 and secure one of those consults. That's 800-659-1186.

Josh? Yeah, and I hope that wasn't too, you know, when we talk about this stuff, after we finish talking about it, I always feel like, man, it has to be the most boring thing to listen to known to man and so I don't want to get too drowned out in details but I mean the big picture here is, you know, just prepare for as much as you can without dwelling on it for your demise, right, for your death and so that's what we do here at the firm. You know, you give us a call, you'll sit down with one of our estate planning attorneys, talk about an estate plan, talk about what your options are, what we recommend, what it costs, you know, no hiding the ball whatsoever. Sometimes we give you difficult questions to think about that maybe you haven't thinking about but we'll also give you some kind of, some solutions to those questions so it'll be more like a multiple choice and not like an open-ended essay test type thing. You're really selling these consults, man. I was going to say, it's not like going to the dentist and we love our dentists, it's like going to the proctologist. This is pain-free, this is dotting the I's and crossing the T's, this is, you know, just having a plan for what's coming. Yeah, it's like taking the LSAT but not really, you know. Putting your head in the sand is not a solution to these problems, man. It's not like taking the LSAT, that's a horrible comparison.

Yeah, come on, man, it's great. Do kids still take the LSAT? Do kids still have to take the LSAT when they go into law school? I don't even know.

AI does it for them now. I have my kids take it every week, just in case, none of them want to be hit. You want to sleep in the house? Take the exam.

Yeah, I love that. But anyway, yeah, give us a call, that's something that we can easily take care of, of it for you. And, you know, I was just trying to think about, I was trying to think about anything else because, you know, we'll talk about the, you know, when we do that, we'll talk about power of attorneys and healthcare power of attorneys and living wills and your actual will.

So let me ask you this, guys. If they grab one of these consults, what should they, on estate planning, what should they bring with them to help out? So once we have your information, once you've reached out and we've made contact and we have your name and your email and your cell phone, we're going to give you a list of things that we want to know, right? So we're going to ask you for names of kids, and we're going to ask you for, well, bank accounts. And, you know, we're not looking for personal information, like we're not looking for socials and we're not looking for things like that, but we want to know before we even really, before you sit down with an attorney, we're going to kind of know what you're dealing with, right? We're going to know, Hey, you're married, you've been divorced. You got three kids, a vacation house, right?

You know, your main house. And it's important for us to know that because again, we can't, it used to be back in the old days before, you know, we revamped our system. It used to be, we would sit down and we'd, we talk about all these things the first time we met, but, but having that information and having an understanding of, of what kind of assets you have, it gives us, it prepares us to be able to better jump right into recommendations and, and touching on your goals and making sure that we can address the specific concerns that you have.

Yeah. And so we'll, you know, we'll have that. So when we talk to you and I like, I like this, we, we do this kind of across practice areas. But when I talk to a, a, when I, when I'm sitting down and talking with a client in a, in a consultation, the first 20 minutes of the consultation are done because I've already gotten this information in front of me and I've looked at it ahead of time. And so when I start talking to you, I already know some of the things that I see that I'm going to ask.

Okay. I see you have underage kids. Have you thought about who a guardian would be if something happened to both of you, right? So we've been talking about what happens if John, one spouse dies, but we also start asking you some questions like, Hey, what do you want to happen if both of you are gone?

Right? So what do you, who, if you think if you have underage kids now, who's going to take care of those? Who would you like to take care of those kids? If something happens to both of you, um, some people don't, don't have children and, but we still need to ask, well, if something happens to both of you, where do you want your assets to go? You know, is there a church, is there other charities?

Do you have nieces and nephews, you know, thinking about what happens to your assets when, when both spouses are, are, are gone is always an important conversation. But, but getting that information upfront really makes our time together way more productive, uh, and, and, and way less, uh, converse of a Burt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, man. We can jump right into it. We can have a better understanding of you before you hit our office.

And um, you know, we do these, we, we're, we're doing these, offering these free consults to you. And so the only, the only cost is putting in the legwork of, of providing that information and it's going to make you think you're going to have to ask some tough questions, but again, burying your head in the sand doesn't change the equation. All of these things still exist. The longer you put it off statistically, the closer to your death every second that ticks. That's a reality. Yeah. That's a reality, man.

For the time being, it's a reality who knows where we'll go from here, but for right now, yeah, it's going to happen to you. Um, and even if you, even if you believe you're going to live forever, there's a lot of benefits to a well-crafted estate plan that are going to benefit you during your lifetime as well. So that's also something to consider. Well, we often say, you know, getting your affairs in order, that's estate planning.

That's what you're doing. Uh, the opportunity to talk about, um, you know, what happens if you don't have an estate plan. We did that today, probate assets and non-probate assets, probate and administration. And we talked about trust, but just the importance of making sure that a state plan is in place. Uh, it takes time, uh, but certainly the opportunity to get rolling on it with a complimentary consult with Whitaker and Hamer is right now, 800-659-1186.

Grab one of those consults again, it's no cost, no obligation, not agreeing to become a client, 800-659-1186, a complimentary consult on estate planning, lead your contact information and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. Again, the number 800-659-1186. Another edition of Judica County Radio in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer.

I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll see you 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 mwhlaw.lawyer.