Are You legally Ready for "The What if?"

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 the great state of North Carolina, going to talk about, well, the what if.

Life happens. What would happen in your life that might require a visit to the attorney's office? That's coming up next on Judica County Radio. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.

They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, and they have offices convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Barina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure each and every week to jump on with the attorneys and talk legalese. And again, today we're going to get into some interesting aspects of what's going on. We're going to get into some interesting aspects of legal life. So if life happens, and it always does, what would happen in your life, think about that, that might require a visit to an attorney's office. We'll get into that shortly, but let's start off like we do every show and find out how the attorneys have been for the week.

Josh, let's start with you. I was going to ask you guys, you know, we're coming off of, my boys were real excited to sit around and watch the NCAA selection show, and I'm not sure why, because NC State was not going to, their name was not going to pop up there. They didn't even show them, man. I thought they'd have them waiting. I thought they'd show them sitting around waiting to see if they made it in, man. They had a pretty, pretty good season. I don't know if it was because last year was so exciting, but this year they were just pumped for the NCAA selection show.

And so we watched that and I didn't think Carolina had a prayer there and they squeaked in there. What do you mean? Just because Bubba Cunningham is leading the committee and walked out of the room to recuse himself from the selection process and the Tar Heels find their way into the tournament?

What do you mean? Well, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a jaded NC State fan. So I feel like, I feel like the committee always, Is there any other kind of NC State fan? I feel like the, I feel like the committee finds any reason not to, not to include NC State. Now this year, of course, we're not in, NC State was not in the conversation, nor should they have been. And there's been many years like that, but usually we've been on the cusp a couple of times and, and, and, and they found a reason to leave us out, but I feel like they always find a reason to keep Carolina, Carolina in, you know? And I guess that's what I was reading news this morning. So I was reading West Virginia's attorney general, West Virginia got left out. Yeah.

He's gonna, he's going to do something about it. NC State got left out, Indiana got left out and arguably all three of those teams had much better resumes than I think West Virginia, the university of North Carolina argument. But, uh, but, but what do you do? What do you do if the NCAA leaves you out? You know, it seems kind of trite to have the West Virginia governor and attorney general, you know, launch an investigation.

But that almost sounds better than just like the years NC State got left out when we were on the bubble and not doing anything about it. But what do you do really? You're an attorney, man.

You didn't, you didn't sue on those years. You should have just, uh, you should have stepped up to the plate and done something about it, man. Your AD needs to volunteer to be on the committee. And then if there's a, if there's a year where you are in that gray area and Carolina was clearly in the gray area, uh, obviously it might help, uh, if you have your athletic director on that committee. And they step out of the room and they peek through the window and they put their face up against the glass and they glare at everybody while they're discussing.

I'm just going to walk outside. I'm pretty sure we've had an AD on the committee before and, and, and still didn't, still didn't make it. So I'm not accusing Bubba Cunningham of any wrongdoing, but. I feel like most people named Bubba are very honest folks, man.

Honestly, like it's built into their DNA. He's everybody's pal Bubba. Yeah.

It's Bubba. You were, you were just in UNC not too long ago. Yeah, man. Um, I, uh, I've, this is the first Duke UNC game I've gone to in person, uh, went down to Chapel Hill. I was a little, didn't know how it was going to go. Such a hospitable group of people, man, such friendly folks, very accommodating to a Duke fan. What were you wearing Joe? What were you wearing to the event? I was wearing Duke fan clothes. You know, I had great company and, uh, everyone, I only, I only got a couple of, a couple of heckles, man.

For the most part, everybody was, was pretty, pretty, pretty decent to me. And again, there was a, I think I told myself, you know, I get irrationally emotional about this game. I don't, I'm not proud of it. Uh, objectively, I can tell myself it's not important.

It's just a stupid game, but there's something in my DNA that doesn't really jive with that. And so this is a, I don't even usually go watch the game in public period. Like I won't go to a bar and watch it.

I won't watch it with anybody. And so to actually go, I had to tell myself, like, if there's ever a year to do it, this is the year to do it. This was the year to be able to go and have some level of confidence. And, uh, it looked a little tricky for a little while there, man. And, uh, it was looking a little rough, but, uh, fine, man. It was a great experience.

I recommend it to everybody. Well, I think if you're a Duke fan, I'll just jump in and say this, and this will be my two cents. If you're a Duke fan, this is going to be a good year. And you may not have the full roster, but if you get Cooper flag back after, say the first round, you're not going to need him for the first round.

I think he'll play spot minutes first round, but we'll see, man, just to see, you know, test the ankle, but I was kind of shocked. And this is just me. I'm old school. I'd wear high tops. He wears low tops. Yeah, that's, that's nuts, man. I wear high tops, but I'm fat. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I guess you're going to roll, you're going to roll your ankle regardless if you step on the side of somebody's foot.

Yeah. But if I roll my ankle, my whole foot's coming off, man. I got too much.

I'm too top heavy brother. So just got to try to, you know, what I try to do is just go straight, straight line. I got a very straight line approach to basketball.

I just straight turn back around straight the other way. Well, the older we get, the more gravity can really break bones. So, uh, yeah, for sure. They should invent some kind of elective surgery where you get like metal braces on your ankles. I like that.

I like that for sure. Yeah. Robot ankles. I've broken both of my ankles before when I was a younger man. And that's, that's what you need.

Just like. What haven't you broken? I feel like you've had, what haven't you broken, man? I think just the ankles. It was just the ankles. So was it, was it a, I thought, I was going to say, was it an agile point guard in front of you that broke your ankles and went right to the basket?

So the time I broke mine and I did break mine, it was me. I was, I was crossing over and I'm so lightning fast, man. Um, it was, I crossed over and I, it was done.

I knew it was done for immediately, immediately. I was going up for a rebound as a younger man and I should have seen how high he was. You should have seen.

He was up in the rafters. It felt that way. You were worried about hitting your head on the backboard.

And, uh, so you lost your concentration. But the ankles, man, that, that always, I can't watch that when somebody hurts their ankles and they show like the replay, like the Cooper re I can't watch that, man. I can't watch anybody's ankle roll. It's too much pain. It brings back too much pain. You feel it by association for sure. But, uh, March Madness, man, what a great time of year.

That is the rumor though. If he followed the conference realignment, if you follow that kind of stuff, and this is kind of like the sports and the law, right? We talk about the sports, but the sports, the sports has its own legal structure. And, um, you know, with the, with the Bill Belichick hiring and his, uh, his relationships to ESPN, you kind of see, uh, you know, there's all this background noise about, you know, ESPN protecting the Carolina brand because it brings them money. And, you know, they're, they're getting so well connected, which is great if you're, if you're a Carolina fan, you know, but if you're outside looking in this all kind of looks, it looks bad more in favoritism. What are we saying? What gives me, it looks, it looks bad. Pretty, pretty universal too, man. I haven't seen many people making the counter argument of like, Hey, they definitely deserve to be there, but look, man, I'll make that argument right now.

I'll make it for you. One quad one win. Not great. Well, they won in 13 and quad one games, but if you look at the other metrics, the other metrics were pretty favorable to them. And I'll say this, man, I hate them.

They played an incredibly tough schedule and they lost. I hate them. I hate them. I'm sorry. I hate them. I like you, Morgan. I hate them.

Can't help it. But the eye test, if you look at them, especially recently, like I hate them and I don't want them to win. And it makes me nervous because I think they'll win a few games and I hate that too. So, so in that sense, maybe they deserve to be there, Josh, I don't know. I think Josh is onto something and I think the eye test comment is perfect because going away from basketball and looking at football and mentioning Belichick. I think the reason they're getting more coverage is the 24 year old girlfriend, because every time they show a picture of the 73 year old Belichick with the 24 year old girlfriend, the amount of clicks. I mean, they're breaking the Internet. So that's and they've got Carolina logos on.

So it's a win win for UNC. Oh, a big time. Big time it is. My wife's not very happy about that relationship.

Really? That makes her very angry. I don't know, man.

I think if I was a 24 year old woman, that's exactly what I would go for. Love's love, man. You've got to celebrate love. That's what I tell her. He's just got so true. Love is love.

He's got the body type I'm into, you know, and that's what it is for me. No, but it'll be interesting. NCAA is a, you know, a private organization. You can't. There's nothing West Virginia can do. What legally are you going to do for the NCAA, a private organization, not including a team? It's just political grandstanding, man. He's just showing out for his constituents, letting them know he cares. And I commend him for that. You know, I'm going to give him bonus points for that.

Maybe that'll that'll land him a 26 year old girlfriend. You know, I think back to when NC State got coveted during the there in the worlds, the college baseball World Series. Nobody did anything for us, man. It's just you remember that? You remember how that went down? I remember that, man.

But who you got it? You got to be mad at the governor at the time for that. That's what else. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's yeah, I agree with you.

Yeah, I agree with you. I still hold that grudge. I'll never be able to vote for I'll never be able to vote for our past governor for anything because of that. Stick up for NC State.

Forget about real. Forget about real issues, man. This is what matters to me.

Like you stand up for my team when they get coveted or else. Just crudges, man. That's all.

That's all we got. But I think that's healthy holding grudges. That's what I read. I read that in a book.

I think that's what most doctors will tell you. Yeah. Make sure you hold grudges because it'll help you live longer.

The more grudges you have, the longer you'll live to see these people get their crumpets. Yeah, you got to live to see. That's life advice.

The. All right. Well, speaking of life advice today, today we're going to talk about changes in your life that warrant or may result in a trip to your neighborhood lawyer's office. Things that happened to you where you should probably check in with an attorney. And that's kind of our that's kind of our theme today, Morgan. All right.

Life happens. What would happen in your life that might require a visit to an attorney's office? We'll talk about that coming up next on Judica County radio with Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whittaker and Hamer law firm and their practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. We do have complimentary consults. Again, if you've got a legal situation you're facing, you've got some questions.

You can do this with no obligation. Call the number. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about and they'll set up that complimentary consult with Whittaker and Hamer. They've got offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City for your convenience. We'll be back with more Judica County radio right after this. We are back on Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whittaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and they placed offices convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City trying to cover the state for you. If you've got a situation you're facing, you've got questions, you can have a complimentary consult. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Call that number at any time. Leave your contact information briefly what the call's about. An attorney with Whittaker and Hamer will be in touch. So life has happened.

Something is going on with you. And what would require a visit to an attorney's office? Josh. So me and Joe, we chatted about a couple of life events that are going to require a visit to the attorney's office. And I guess if we go in order, I guess if we go in order of the way things normally go in the average life, I guess we've got to start with birth. Yeah, birth. Yeah, it's not your birth birth.

And that you're you don't roll into the attorney's office as a baby. But but you could come you could come. We've had babies in here, you know. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

But yes. Start with birth, man. That's a good one. That's a good initial life event. And let's say you have a kid. And the first thing that's going to pop into my head when you have a kid in terms of, you know, what do I need to look at? Where I may need legal assistance is it's the age old estate planning concept, buddy. And that's any time you have a kid, your situation is changing and you've got a descendant and you need to consider several things, man.

You need to consider your what you own, your assets, your wealth, who you're passing that down to, how you're passing it down. You need to look at the situation of, you know, what if something happens to you, who's going to take care of your kid? There's just a lot of legal questions that pop up that a lot of people don't consider. But but the birth of a child is a great reason to come and sit down with an attorney here at the firm. I'm the I guess I'm the oldest, for better or worse, I'm the oldest attorney here at the firm.

And so I've seen I've seen the most stuff. And so I usually sit down with people to consult about a wide range of legal topics. I sit down with a lot of folks to do estate planning, but I also sit down with people when folks have passed away or, you know, you're selling the business or you're having other problems. But when I'm doing estate planning, you know, that's the biggest thing for folks who we see a lot of people who come in with their two, three month old baby because they're all out of work taking care of the baby.

And they come in and that's that's kind of what they've been focusing on. And like, but guardianship is the big thing, right? If something happens to we'll assume, you know, you and your spouse have had this child, but it doesn't matter. It could be a single parent or what have you. But, you know, a lot of people kind of consumed with I think your hormones are flowing when you when you just had a kid and you're thinking about what happens to this.

What happens to this baby? If something happens to me and me and my spouse at the same time, who's going to who's going to take care of this? One thing you do in your estate planning docs is you you name who your preferred guardian would be if something happens to you or, you know, you and your spouse at the same time. And that's usually a struggle for people, you know. It is a struggle, man, but it's one of those things.

And this is what I tell folks. It's your whether it's a tough thing to think about. And, you know, nobody wants to think about what if I die or no one wants to think about what if I'm in a coma and I can't make decisions or I lose mental capacity. But the reality is, is if that happens, someone has to do something right like there, someone's going to have to step up.

There's things that have to happen to allow life to go on. And it's always better for you to put in the forethought and for you to make those decisions yourself and to know that it's somebody that you're comfortable with. It's who you would want to be stepping up to do those things versus the alternative, which, you know, it could work out where that person is who steps up and who's appointed as your guardian or the guardian of your kids. But you always want to retain that control and don't let don't let the fear of thinking about these difficult questions shut you down from from doing what's necessary. Because, again, you're going to you're going to put everybody in a worse situation. You're going to exponentially increase the stress that everyone's going through in an already stressful time. When simply put, you can come in, take some time to think about it and make sure everything's done exactly as it needs to be done. Me and my wife had our first child and we had to think about that.

That was the biggest. I think that's the biggest holdup for a lot of young families is they want to get their estate plan done, but they don't know who they want to name as the guardian of their children. If something would happen to both of them, that was that was me and my wife's delay. And, you know, I would just always tell people the chances that something happened to you and your spouse at the same time, a car accident, you know, a plane accident.

It's something major that would take you and your spouse. It doesn't happen very often. So the people that get really hung up on trying to decide what would happen to my kids if me and my spouse die at or about the same time, I tell them to not worry about it too bad, too much, because the chances of it happening are just low, low, but not zero. So do you think I've seen it happen? I've seen it happen twice since I've been practicing and and they weren't my clients, but we had to deal with I had some clients who had to deal with some of the fallout. But I've seen two couples where that happened and they were both car accidents.

And so it does 100 percent happen, but the chances is going to happen is really low and people will delay their estate plans for years and years and years because they can't decide whose parents would step in or whose brother or whose sister or what friends. So I would just tell people not to let that hold you up. Just, you know, just kind of move on. You do want to name a guardian. And then people struggle with the guardian and they struggle with, OK, something's happened to me and my spouse. I'm going to name. I don't know.

I'm just I'm just throwing this out here. I'm just naming my mom as guardian of the kids. But we're going to have a lot of assets and a trust. The trust is going to be for the benefit of the kids. I don't want my mom to be trustee of the trust.

Who do I want to be trustee of the trust? And people just get caught up in these important decisions. But but you probably see that, too, Joseph. Yeah, you don't.

We we see it. And I've seen folks who let that one little sticking point kind of push them into a state of procrastination where they deal with nothing. And so my advice to those folks is, again, I tell everybody this is it's a tough thing to think about. I can tell you're struggling with this decision, but. It's better for you to have the control and to make that tough decision, because the reality is, if this happens and it can happen, it's a low probability chance.

But but like you said, you've seen it. It's still better for you to give the insight now and to make an informed decision rather than leaving, you know, leaving it to chance or not having any input. And then, you know, the cards kind of fall and where they'll fall. So it's always better for you with with what you know now to be able to make those decisions and to think about who you want to fill these spots and to talk to those people ahead of time to go ahead and handle a lot of these things and let your wishes be known versus the alternative where you and your spouse pass away.

None of this has been decided. And then everybody else is scrambling to pick up the pieces. It just makes everything more difficult on the back end for everybody. And it's already difficult because you're dead and they're sad. Hopefully they're sad.

I'm sure they're sad. Hopefully, man. You never know. But that's so that's that's that's birth. So birth, you know, and with birth, I would put I would kind of put, you know, there's there's a couple of things. Well, there's a couple other things.

But you know what? I'm going to I know we're up against a break. So our next our next life event that may warrant a trip to the attorney's office will handle after the break. Tell you, it's so important to be ready for the what if scenarios. And we're talking about, you know, if life happens, what would happen in your life that might require a visit to the attorney's office? So you you know, you're raising a family that you have that first kid, things you need to be considering as you as you move through life. And again, a visit to the attorney's office and talking about wills and trusts and legacy. Again, that's one thing we've got a lot of things to talk about today on Judica County radio. Your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They are offering up a complementary console. Let's say you don't have an estate plan. It's a great way to get started. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

These are complementary. Again, leave your contact information briefly what the call's about and they will set you up with one of those consults. Again, estate planning.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. We've got more Judica County coming up on the other side. Judica County radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm right here in North Carolina. That's where they practice. It's all about getting you ready for life.

And we're talking about what if life happens? Why would you need to go see an attorney? And they made it very convenient for you. They placed offices in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. And again, if you're facing a legal situation, you've got some questions.

Maybe you haven't started estate planning. We've got complementary consults here during the course of this show. We give out the number eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. You can call at any time and grab one of those complementary consults. Just leave your contact information briefly what the call's about and they'll set that up for you.

Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. So life has happened. Things that you need to be aware of that you might need some legal advice, need to go see an attorney possibly. We've talked about some family issues. Where are we going next, Josh? Well, I think the next life event that we'll talk about that may require a trip to the attorney's office. You know, we talked about birth in the last segment. Some of the things you think through when you have a new child. And we talked a lot about guardianship and things like that. But I think marriage.

Right. I think if you're if you're if you're pondering marriage, especially if you're older and you and you have assets. When I got married, I didn't have anything. There was nothing there was nothing to ponder. I had a car. You had your you had your really handsome, good looks, man. I did. I did.

Yeah, I had that. And I had I had a good dog. And that's all I had. So I didn't I didn't.

What else do you need? I was enough to find you a nice a nice lady, though, man. You did all right for yourself. But but that's that's marriage, right? Marriage. You're getting married. And you have to take a step back and think about what that is, because that is a that is a legal we'll call it a legal contract full of legal obligations. A lot of things change the day you get married. And, you know, one of the biggest things that changes is your spouse will have a marital interest in all of your real property. Right.

That's how it works in North Carolina. And all of your and all of your and all of your property potentially and everything in the sense of and it's it's kind of confusing for folks. Right. Because, say, you own a house individually, you get married. It's not it's not that your spouse immediately is entitled to half of that asset.

Right. It's it's a little bit more complex than that. And the way that the law looks at it is your spouse is entitled to one half of any appreciation and value from the time that you guys get married. So that you get into kind of complex questions about value. But the reality is, again, practically, you're not going to be able to do anything with that property without the joinder of your spouse, without your spouse signing. And so that's where it's something you've got to consider. And that's in the absence of any agreement to the contrary.

So that's where we get into why you need to come and talk to an attorney potentially. And the example I use a lot to try to drive home, because there are there are multiple things going on once you once you get married. And the minute you're married, you know, I take the example of the guy who had who had bought his bought his house and paid it off before he got married. It's in his sole name.

It's been titled his sole name for, let's say, 10 years. He gets married and he decides he wants to sell that house the day after he gets married. And he can't do it without his wife, his spouse joining and signing the deed to sell it. And she's not on the deed. She's never owned the property.

She doesn't. And let's say this spouse doesn't even want any part of that property. You know, she she says, that's your property.

The law doesn't care to sell it. The spouse is going to have to join in. Now, the spouse, to go back to what Joe said, despite the spouse in that situation is probably not entitled if they were to officially anything. Yeah.

Yeah. If they were to get divorced the very next day, your spouse may not be entitled to any of the proceeds from the sale. But I see spouses figure out there there arises situations where the spouse figures out that you can't sell it without their signature. And even though they may not be entitled to any money, sometimes they don't want to sign unless they get money. And so that's very important to know.

And, you know, a lot of times I just sat down. I just sat down with someone who's getting married and she has a ton of assets and she's getting married to somebody who has a ton of assets. And they don't want to and they don't want any share of each other's assets. They're fine. They're living on their own.

They don't. And so, you know, they're doing they're doing a prenup, a prenuptial agreement. Right. So they're sitting down before they get married saying, look, anything in her name's hers. Anything in my name is is is is mine. And if we want to make something joint, we'll take up an overt act to do it. We'll deed it together jointly. We'll put it in a joint bank account, like we'll do something to make property joint.

And you can you can operate that way. The situation you're talking about, Josh, usually that's a situation where you've got individuals who potentially have already gone through divorce at one point in their life. As much as we all believe in the concept of true, eternal love, it doesn't always work out that way. And all it takes is going through the situation one time in life, seeing how nasty a divorce can get, seeing how people change. And the amount of stress and strife and heartache that you can go through trying to do this division of these assets that you guys have acquired together to teach you some real tough lessons. And so it's like you said, man, having a prenup, it doesn't preclude you from being able to go and acquire property jointly. But it's going to preserve anything that you come into the relationship with.

It's going to give you the option to continue to own property separately. And it's going to take a lot of the guesswork and the struggle out of the situation. If you guys decide you don't want to be together, it's going to make it a lot more clean and easy to separate and take a lot of that struggle out of the back end, which, again, nobody wants that. Nobody anticipates that when you enter into a relationship. But a lot of times stepping back, making a rational choice, understanding that things happen can save you a lot of trouble down the line.

And so, you know, that's one. The prenup is one option. There's also postnuptial agreements, and that's something we deal with from time to time as well, where it's kind of the same situation. It's just you, you're entering into this agreement after the fact, after you've gotten married, and it's got the same validity, the same binding effect.

But it's just a little bit different mechanism of action to get you that. You know, in my 20-plus years doing this, we definitely see more, I definitely see more prenup agreements of some shape, of some form now than I did 20 years ago. I don't know if people are getting married later in life more or it's just becoming something to think about. Because, you know, my wife gets mad at me when I say this. I'm a happily married man. I feel like I have to say that ahead of time.

This is no reflection on my spouse. But if you go, if you... Why are you, why are you crossing your fingers right now into the camera? I don't understand. What do you feel?

What is that? You know, the bad thing about being a lawyer is you see a lot of things go bad. You see a lot of things, the worst case scenario of a lot of different situations. And if it goes, if it goes worst case, marriage is a contract and it is a very bad contract for the supporting spouse, whether that's a male, whether that's a female. It's a bad contract for a supporting spouse if things go wrong, like real wrong and things do go, I mean... Yeah.

And again, let's clarify that, right? Because that's not to say, we're not talking it's bad for, you know, we're talking if you're looking at it from a strictly objective legal standpoint where we represent the supporting spouse. It's like a bad, it would be a bad, like I would tell someone in the absence of like love and affection, you know, I'd say this is, this is stupid. Like you're an idiot.

This is a dumb deal. Don't make... There's a standup comedian that does that. Like, you know, he takes love out the window and he just describes the agreement that you're... That's what we have to do. That's what we got to do.

We owe you that obligation. You know, you're a supporting spouse and it's because there's protections in the law for the non-supporting spouse, which make... Which we're not saying there shouldn't be. No, I'm just saying if you look at marriage, if you take love and all that out the window and you just look at it as an agreement between two people, the supporting spouse is getting the raw end of that deal.

If it were to go bad, if it were to be breached, right? But anyway, you got to think about that now. And I think more people think about that. I think people, again, are getting married a little bit later in life where they already have, you know, they've bought a house or, you know, they've already got their 401k set up and their beneficiaries name.

And so I think just in general, marriage probably, you know, it wouldn't be a bad idea if you have assets before you get married. You know, and you don't want to, man, you don't, you want to be positive when you're getting married. You don't want to think about that.

Yeah, you don't want to do it. And it's a weird place to put people in. And I've seen it. I've dealt with folks where you sit down and you've got this really good relationship. They're in love. They've got all the feel good chemicals because it's this new thing and they can never see it going wrong. And it can call, and a lot of times, man, what I've seen it where I've seen this situation is with younger folks, you know, whose families have money and they're a little worried about, you know, they may not love the spouse in the situation or the future spouse.

And they encourage the kid to come in and it can cause some weird conversations to happen. But again, it doesn't hurt to have the conversations, even if you decide against it, and it's not something you want to do, being informed about the practical implications of marriage, what that does, what that could look like if it goes wrong. It's always better to be informed. That's my position. And I'll say that now. I know. I know that most people won't get a prenup. Right. Most most people don't don't have a prenup.

And, you know, my boys will. Right. Because I won't I won't allow them to get married without one. But it's something to think about marriage. Marriage can bring up other things like we won't get into it here. But, you know, if it's blending a family, like if you're getting married, you have kids. The other spouse has kids from another marriage and you're blending a family. That's another reason to kind of sit down and again, look at your state plan.

Look at what you got set up because you don't want to accidentally disinherit, you know, a child. And we've talked about that before on the show. But if you're going to become a blended family, underage kids with each spouse, that's that's something that would you probably need to revisit your estate plan pretty, pretty soon. And that's something we need to touch on more to me. And I know we're coming up against the break. But but we didn't even touch on the idea of a blended family where you're bringing kids in.

You're potentially talking about where where your assets going to go after you pass. So I think that's another thing we can touch on. All right.

I like it. We'll talk blended family. If you are you're out there and you are getting ready to, you know, jump over the broom and again get hitched and you both have kids coming into that situation at a certain age.

Blended family, you know, what legal steps do you need to take or should you take or possibly take as you are getting into this new phase of life? Judica County Radio, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They are your hosts. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They have placed offices convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. They do have complimentary consults. All you've got to do is call eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Maybe you've got a question about your estate plan or maybe you haven't even started the estate planning process.

This is a great opportunity to kick the tires with Whitaker and Hamer. Call right now for a complimentary consult. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to set up that consultation.

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, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, and they have offices convenient for you.

Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to go back and forth with the attorneys and they go at each other to this one today. We're having some fun talking about what if life happens and it's going to happen to all of us. And something happens in your life that would require a visit to an attorney's office going over some of those. Maybe it's a family issue, birth of kids, maybe a divorce, maybe there's a death. Again, prenup with the marriage. Now we are going to get into the blended family. Joe, you brought this up.

This happens so often. People get divorced. They have younger kids. They meet someone. They also have kids.

They date and they decide to get married. And now, bingo, they've got a blended family. Brady Bunch.

Yes, the Brady Bunch. Yeah. You ever heard about that? Yeah. Yeah, that's a, that's a thing. That's a lot of kids, man.

God, it gives me heartburn thinking about that. Honestly, I think that might be too much, but, uh, yeah. So we talked about the fact, you know, we talked about these, these contractual agreements in terms of prenups, post nups, uh, free trader would fall into that same category. But there's also a potential estate planning element that, that comes into play as well. So in this situation, and maybe we touched on it a little bit. I don't really pay attention when we're talking.

So, you know, my apologies if we're repeating this information. But, uh, there's also an estate planning aspect to if you get married and especially the situation where if you get married and you've already, you're coming in with your own assets, you're coming in with your own kids and they've got kids. And you know, that prenup or that postnup is going to handle a lot of those questions and it could potentially handle all of the things that would be accounted for in a state plan, but always good practice to come in and sit down and just look at your assets.

Look at the situation with the kids and kind of get, get an informed opinion on what you need to account for to make sure that again, everything's handled the way that you want it to, to be after you pass. Yeah. And when we're talking about blended families, you know, the one thing I would keep in mind is you've got two people coming together who, like Joe said, have young children and they, they've been in, in past relationships, right. They might've been married and divorced. They might've been married and their spouse died. Right. They might be a widow and, and maybe you were never married, but you were, you were in a relationship where you had joint property and, and, and, and when you, you, you have to think about that. So when you come together and start a new family, like, you know, who's on, who's on the deed to the house that you're going to live in.

Right. Do we have the ex-spouse off the deed? You know, if an estate needed to be open for a past spouse who was deceased, did that get handled? You know, have your 401ks been updated?

Have your, has your life insurance been updated? You know, you need, you need to sit down and talk with an attorney. You need more than like what I call sweetheart wills. You know, if you're a blended family, you really don't want those wills where you leave everything to your spouse if you die. And your spouse leaves everything to you if you die, because that spouse, if, if they end up inheriting your estate when you die, they're, they're under no obligation to, to take care of your, your adult children. Right.

Let's say all your children become adults. Right. So. And in that same sense, man, if you're coming, if you're coming out of a marriage and you've got sweetheart wills that you had put in place prior, then, you know, you're looking at a situation where you've got your ex named and that's something you need to get checked out as well.

Right. Because maybe you do want your, your ex to take and, and, and use whatever you have for the benefit of your kids, but maybe you don't, maybe you want to provide for your new, even cooler spouse that you found. And so again, it's, it's just questions that need to be asked that you may not think about in the heat of the moment. And another thing to touch on with, with blended families, right? Especially if you have younger, younger kids and say your partner that you're marrying is bringing their own younger kids into the equation and you love these kids and you want to take care of them. You want to provide for them, but you haven't adopted them. They're not your kids.

That's something you would have to affirmatively look at accounting for in your estate plan, because if you pass and that hasn't been dealt with, you know, they're not going to, they're not going to get any benefit from your estate in the absence of you doing something about it and affirmatively, including them in your will or in your trust. And what I touched on earlier is, is a scenario that I've seen play out where, you know, you have, let's say a husband has three kids. Wife has three kids.

They're all over 18. Husband dies and he hasn't created a trust. He hasn't named his children as beneficiaries on anything. And so the wife inherits the house. The wife inherits the bank accounts. The wife is named on the 401ks and basically the kids, even if he provided for him in a will, there's no probate assets. Everything has gone to the surviving spouse.

And sometimes that works out right. The surviving spouse needs those assets too. And, uh, and maybe the adult children don't need anything. Um, but I think, I think a lot of people don't really understand how that, how that would work. And no one expects, you know, we know we're all going to die, but we don't think we're going to die when we're 50, right? We don't think we're going to die when we're 40 or when we're 60, that's too young.

But, but of course people die that age all the time and their assets don't really end up getting distributed like they thought they would in, in their, in their mind. Well, we've seen a lot of adult children in blended families, just there's nothing left to, to, to get to them. And so when we sit down with blended families, that's what we talk about. We talk about, all right, you need to make sure, you know, your spouse needs the house, maybe right. Your spouse needs your bank accounts, but maybe you buy life insurance policies for your, for your children to make sure something goes straight to them.

Or maybe they get some of the 401k or, you know, it depends on what assets you have. And, um, but that's something to be very, very, very careful about. You know, we've, we've also seen where, you know, you know, I've also seen where, uh, one half of a blended family, let's say the spot one spouse is coming from a relationship where someone died and, and an estate should have been open for that spouse that got widowed.

And it never was. And then we find out all these assets, you know, maybe the spouse doesn't own them free and clear. So there's usually just a lot of loose ends to tie up and things to kind of, kind of look at in, in a, in a blended family. And, and Joe, we've been talking about marriage, you know, this whole, our whole theme today has been life events that may require a trip to your attorney's office. And so we talked about birth and we've talked about marriage, but we also need to talk about, uh, you know, a death, not necessarily your death. You're not coming to the attorney's after office, after you, after you die. But, Hey, you can just roll you in, you know, you, your, your spouse check you out, passes away. You know, that's, you're probably going to want to at least sit down with an attorney and talk about what the ramifications of that are. Or anybody passes away.

Right. You know, your parent passes away. God forbid your child passes away.

You could have a sibling that passes away. Um, any death is a, is a triggering event in a lot of ways, because again, it's something that has to be dealt with, you know, your, your assets, your estate has to be dealt with. And so that is absolutely a situation where you're going to, you know, there's, it's not like you can't do these things on your own. I tell people all the time when they come in for their, their estate planning console, you know, our goal. And sitting down with us as attorneys is to make this process as stress-free and as easy on you as possible.

And that's what we do. We want to make the creation of your estate plan as streamlined and efficient and as easy as possible. And, but we also want to make it as easy as possible for whoever is coming behind and taking care of your estate. And we just want to take a lot of the, a lot of the stress and the guesswork out of the equation and just, and just make it easy because again, it's going to be a stressful situation. And the more we can do to reduce that stress, the better. Um, so, you know, there's a lot of things to consider in that situation where someone dies, whether it be your spouse, whether it be a parent and you are going to be the person that's taking care of their estate. Uh, but, but step one, again, come in and talk to us and, and, and let's get the ball rolling on, on how we can attack that situation and help you out. Judica County Radio. We are going to take our final break of the program.

We have been talking about what if life happens to you? What reasons would you need, uh, going on in your life to go into an attorney's office and make sure that you are covered? Judica County Radio, your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Offices located, Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. We do have complimentary consults available. Uh, if you are facing a legal situation, you've got some questions, grab one of the complimentary consults.

If you haven't started estate planning, or maybe you need, uh, that plan needs a tweak, grab a consult. It's complimentary 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information and briefly what that call is about. And they'll set up that consult for you.

800-659-1186. We've got more Judica County Radio. Final segment coming up next. Judica County Radio, we are back. Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They are your hosts.

They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina, and they have placed offices convenient for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure to jump on each and every week and talk legalese with the attorneys. And today we focused in on what if something happens?

What if life happens to you? And what would you need to be doing as far as a legal aspect to go see an attorney? And again, we've talked about family issues. We've talked about the birth of a child. We've talked about divorce. We've talked about maybe there's a death in the family, prenups.

I mean, there's there's a lot that you need to consider and obviously go see an attorney for. So gentlemen, we're down to our final segment. Yeah. And we you know, we were talking about death, you know, death being one of those things, a death in the family. And this is where I always just chime in.

And, you know, I see this. I see this come up in a lot of different ways when someone dies. Check in with an attorney. You may not need to open up a formal estate downtown. Maybe you've done your estate plan and everything is in a trust.

But but you need to sit down with an attorney. We run into people all the time who are trying to sell real property. They I'm doing air quotes, quote unquote, inherited, you know, from their grandfather. And they try to sell it and they figure out that, you know, as far as public record goes, it's hard to tell who owns it. They did not, quote unquote, inherit, inherit it from your grandfather. Your grandfather needed to have an estate opened that that's, you know, a will was probated. An estate was administered. There's a there's a filing that showed, yes, my grandfather passed away. He passed away owning these things.

And these were his these were his heirs. And if you don't do that, then it's not clear on the public record who owns the property. Like you may know I was my grandfather's sole heir, but Josh Whitaker, if I'm going to buy that property, I don't know. Because nothing was done at the courthouse. These estates operate the same way a deed operates.

Right. So if if you're if someone dies owning real property and they're the last ones on the deed, they they need an estate open. We need to figure out how that property got got to you. And a lot of people won't do that. And we'll come in and people are like, oh, well, my mom inherited it from her mom and her mom inherited it from her mom.

And we're back into the nineteen forties and no one's had state opened. And no, no, no attorney or title company can certify title that property because we're unclear how you became the owner of the property. And so when someone dies, even if you die and you're not an asset heavy estate, there's things that need to be cleared up.

Right. You need to you need to talk to Social Security if they were receiving Social Security. You need to make sure that any creditor claims are tidied up and taken care of. Most people at least have a car and you can't get that retitled without a trip down to the clerk's office or some some estate planning. So you're usually going to need some guidance and you definitely don't want to do more than you have to. Right.

So if you have a good estate plan and the you know, the attorney knows there's an estate plan there, you can take care of things easily. But we deal with we deal with things all the time where someone passed away, their estate was not handled properly for 10 years down the road. And now we got problems.

And so we have to kind of go back in time and fix everything. And, you know. A lot of times when someone you love, someone close to you passes away, you're not in the best frame of mind. You've got to grieve. There's things you you've got to take. You're not super pumped up.

You're not you're not fired up to go make an appointment at the attorney's office or to go downtown. But the longer you let that stuff go, the harder it is, the more expensive it is, the more time consuming it is to to handle. Yeah.

Yeah. And and so I think we've covered a lot of the big ones, man. I think that to wrap up, I think covering a few miscellaneous situations we didn't touch on just briefly. Starting a business would be another good one. And we've done shows on that. If you go back and look at our robust catalog of incredible shows, we've talked about business planning and how if you're starting a business endeavor, it's it's great to come in, sit down and talk with us.

I would include buying a house. Obviously, that's right in our wheelhouse. And that's another thing where you're you don't have a choice but to go to an attorney here in North Carolina. We're an attorney state.

Some states run that all through title companies. But here in North Carolina, you're going to come. You're going to sit down with an attorney. So that's another good one. But there's a lot of reasons, man, to come see us. There's a ton of reasons to come see us. And and we encourage that heavily, strongly. Come see us for any reason. Come see us. Talk to us. We like you guys.

We want to spend time getting to know you. Now, business planning is a good one. Yeah. If you're starting a business and you're investing in your business, a lot of people, when they're starting in a business, they don't it's not income producing right away. You don't really want to spend more money on it than you have to. But it's a lot easier to start the right way or at least have an idea of what needs to be done rather than getting too far down the road and not being able to figure it out. But yeah, those are all those are all those are all good reasons to stop by and talk to us. You know, as part of this, you know, don't put off anything.

You can you can get done today. Right. I've been following this.

I mean, I wish I could figure out what it's called. But this is an ex-account and it's they basically they go to rest homes and they have the people in the rest home there. The residents will hold up like a little board where they've kind of written a question on it that they want all these people to answer. And one of the questions was the biggest mistake you ever made. All right. So it's the biggest mistake you ever made.

And they're visiting all these residents and the residents right there answer and they hold the board up. And this one guy said that his biggest mistake was thinking there would always be a tomorrow. Right. There would always be a tomorrow. Meaning you would have time to make decisions that you probably do to make, do the things you wanted to do, take care of the things that you wanted to do. He said that was his biggest mistake is always thinking there would be more time. There'd be another day. And it made me a little sad. But it's a good thing to think about. Yeah.

Yeah. Judica County Radio, another edition in the books. And as Joe said, we're everywhere. Anywhere you download your podcast, just type in Judica County and you can get our latest.

You can also go through the catalog and check out the subject line and listen to your heart's content. Judica County Radio. We have offices for Whitaker and Hamer located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and in Moorhead City for your convenience. And just a reminder, Josh and Joe are the managing partners. They're also practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina to grab a complimentary consult. Call this number 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information briefly what that call's about. An attorney will be in touch to set up one of those complimentary consults.

That's 800-659-1186. Another edition of Judica County is in the books for Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll see on the radio next week. Judica County is hosted by attorneys licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on this podcast may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion on this podcast is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live has the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on this podcast are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of this show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at JMW at mwhlaw.lawyer.