Listener Questions!!

A monologue you're going to be digging in and answering some listener questions will talk about employment wills and trusts, real estate and privacy laws on the screen has said is wrong on this and this is what you think about him and you will and now know all of your Josh Whitaker welcomed this week. The outlaw your I am Josh Whitaker I am one of your 20's. The other host with me is Mr. Joseph T. Hamer, Joe are you doing I'm doing great.

Josh that I want to thank you for that original sin sounded nothing like any of your other introductions at all. One. One of these days in many creative and be prepared and really really really throw people off really really switch up our interim how are you doing today Josh, I'm doing fine. I would tell our listeners. This is our first this is, first remote broadcast. So today Joseph you're joining us from the beach. I am, there's palm trees all around me right now my toes are in the sand and the sun is beaming on my very tan skin and that's actually true. I had to hide in a bedroom to get away from my kids and all the noise so I could be here with you Josh. And it was all worth it. What we both we both have we will have a lot of kids and so going to the beach with young children. That's really a vacation for the for the parents must know it's not it's not a very relaxing vacation done a whole lot of making sure they don't drown that's been one of the first things I chasing chasing my youngest one and 1/2-year-old child.

She's been introducing yourself to a lot of random people on the beach and going up to families that are Nyers trying to just give people hugs. We been doing that a lot and just a fantastic time all around when the our youngest is a our youngest is six now, but yeah, I remember going to pools and you're going to vacation in and for the kids. They no fear of drowning at that age at all non-man this one this the place were saying it's got a particular deathtrap of the pool was fantastic.

It's kinda it's got a shallow and a deep and right.

So you're the deep end. It's like probably 6 feet more than enough space to drown a young child who can't swim and there's a like a tannin ledge for the kids like a shallow end where the kids play the shallow end at the deep end and you know a lot of times you have the tannin ledge and you have some some form of coping that separates it from the rest of the pool is not like that. This is just tanning ledge drop off into the deep end. So literally you don't even see it, you just drop fall right off the edge.

So that's that's been great as well set Us on our toes man very excited.

Well, just a reminder just the first time you've ever dialed us and hear the outlaw law, you are our goal is to be a legal resource for listeners so we like to take tidbits out of the news look at Supreme Court cases that just got handed down, put a in a political attorney's perspective on on on things like that and that's going with me and Joe to focus our time on your on the show, but today were not really do something a little bit different with the ship. That's right, Josh, you said we we do like to look at various topics from that apolitical legal lands, but we also like to interact with our listeners. You guys and we like to take your questions and answer those questions and we we put it off for a while we been doing a lot of apolitical discussion.

So we had a buildup of some listener questions and we thought to be a good idea to dig into the bag of those questions and just answer as many of them as time will allow today. I should tell you I should say Joseph and you describe yourself. You're at the beach your vacation. I'm not I'm I'm hard at work here at the law firm of Whitaker name or someone.

The third floor of our Garner office and my desk and I took a small break from working hard for our clients to sit down and converse with you while you're at each. That's great – and you know in a way I'm also working hard for our clients. I'm I'm working on my I'm working on my my mental health and recharging that so that I can can give our clients the best legal care possible.

When I return to the harsh reality that you're currently living. I wanted thousand years that if ice means the world's it's all of us when you come back. A lot of times when you come back from the one week to week beach trip with the family with young kids that first day back at work is almost kind of a little vacation every day at work for me as a vacation because I love I love my job. I love the people I love the setting. My office is like this beach.

It's not a sunny and it's not as relaxing in its it's basically nothing like the beach, but other than that is fantastic.

The couple listener questions we come to handpick these because we, you and me and Joe take a minute.

I know sometimes will go over fact patterns that we throw out sometimes will go over kinda calls that we get every day at the firm, but these questions we come to handpick them as are questions that we get a lot in our day-to-day practice and we thought it might be useful.

You know, if you give year, a severe drought in today.

These may be some issues that you're doing well.

That's right. These some people like to to taste wine and curate that taste and and we like to do that with our listener questions. Have a fine refined sense of the best listener questions and highs will encourage you guys as listeners. Please do keep reaching out to us literally right now we would we would encourage you to to reach out to us again.

You can you can reach us any time you can call us by phone at 1-800-659-1186. You can also text that number and again I encourage you all literally pull your phones out Texas right now. Texas question just Texas how you're doing. You can also reach us via email at questions that's questions plural at the outlaw law. Your.com. You can check out our fan drastic website at www.theoutlawallyour.com and then we are on virtually every form of Facebook social media which means Facebook and twitter for us and that is the outlaw your I remind everybody to Joseph in our day job. We are the managing partners of the law firm of Whitaker name or and so the law firm maintains offices right now anyway in Raleigh, Garner Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuquay Marina size, where we live from 9 to 5 and we have a I'm a say in Armada of attorneys and paralegals, and we deal with a lot of different issues every day, which kinda gives us the background. I've been at this sense for what are our firm is between all of us has many, many, many years of experience is not a whole lot we we haven't seen at this point in the firm's life so we we think were in a pretty good position again to be a legal resource to you and to help you any way we can estimate contact information Joseph gave the you can reach me and Joe here at the outlaw law your but you can also reach the firm so if again you do any questions you think you need to sit down and turn your you need legal representation. I encourage it to reach out to that 1-800-659-1186 or email us at questions at the outlaw law. Your.com and if we get something in and you say, Josh, Joe, we need some legal representation. Yes, legal questions will make sure the right attorney paralegal reaches out to you to get you scheduled schedule a time to talk to us. That is the purpose of the show. That's why we do it, that's right. And you said Josh we seen we've seen virtually everything at this point and so I think that makes us perfectly suited to answer these fantastic questions that we have received from you guys the listeners so among those questions what one of those questions is about why you may need to trust as part of your estate plan. We get that you we do a lot of estate planning your firm and trust can do a lot of things trust are a useful tool in an estate plan. Even a simple you know you don't have to have you not to be sit on OPR, but you have to be sit on $20 million to get the benefit trust and estate plan can give you.

So I think trust kind of is that something a lot of people deal with every day so mean jargon segment, talk about the trust and as a tool how it can fit into even you know your average you note to spouses. Some kids, your average estate plan. That's right were also to be answer some questions about the unfortunately time discovery of liens or judgments on your property after you purchase that and talk about in addition to that, what it means that North Carolina is an at will employment state yet so will will take will take a question will take a situation that comes up on the real estate transactional side of things that we see a lot that can be confusing or bewildering. If you never dealt with it before and then yeah Joe, that at will employment that confuses some folks to and then finally again. Time permitting, we are also going to answer another question regarding the right to privacy online and what happens with your data that is compiled as you search online and that's that's actually a pretty deep topic that we can go on about because that's one thing that affects all of us is that strange compilation of data it seems like our devices are listening to is always and and and will just talk about that sound and what that means. Ari Joe were coming up on a break, so will go ahead and break for some some commercials will be right back, coming up next.

We will answer our first listener question regarding what it means to have a trust and what the benefits of that trust on phone number. Outlaw lawyers when 100 659-1186 is 1-800-659-1186 so you can call us. You can leave a message that that lot is set up for you to leave us a message. Please leave us and contact information.

If you want us to reach back out to you can also now text that that number so feel free to do that text us a message if that's easier in a course we got the email set up. So that's questions at the outlaw law. Your.com all of our archived vintage episodes, as we call them live@theoutlawyour.com that's our website and on Facebook and Twitter. The only social media outlets that we live on.

We lived there as the outlaw lawyer Joe I don't. I we still have any Instagram tick-tock plans. I don't think know those are in flux. We got our we got our scientists working on those bit torrent to go back to you talk about the website some of our vintage episodes and it truly some classic award-winning episodes live on our website. Some of our greatest hits episode one episode three all the way through episode. What is this just 14. I think this is our 14th anniversary episode. Yes, fantastic episodes and all all living squarely on our expertly designed state-of-the-art website so I did mention his Josh but it is my birthday today and how well that is no way there's no other thing out of the be doing on my birthday then then sitting in a room between two twin beds on my vacation hiding for my family and talking to you through these headphones I tell you what I I am the worst birthdays I cannot remember. He is, stereotypical male problem, but anniversaries, birthdays adjusting their man I I can't remit guys with Bailey. Remember how right that's the sole reason is the only reason that you have Facebook is to help you remember help you remember birthdays. I can barely remember how old I am I what I do have a birthday I can have to do the math and Leanne my 40 lower limit acted like work backwards and and figure it out.

So I'm just yeah just around numbers and I stopped, I stopped counting so I know I'm over 30 and now it will pick it back up when I get. As I approached 40.

But it's my birthday, Josh was expecting you to sing to me. Didn't and so I was just to remind you just to make sure that you you notice but yet so get into our first listener question so this question is one that we had that we get a lot actually in and we talk about a lot and it again involves that estate that wills and estates and trusts piece were talking about the trust peace and so this listener asks her estates first hear a lot about having a living trust and I'm not sure I understand what it is. Can you talk about the benefits of having a trust so we so you I have estate planning councils with folks or people come in today at some point in their life have gone to an attorney. Maybe in another state.

Sometimes your North Carolina energy redoing what they have, like their fancy binder right they went a big money for an estate of estate plan. I got up a binders that there will the power of attorney's and their healthcare power of attorney's and it'll have and I would very verbose. A well drafted, you know, living trust, and no plop it in front of us right now say this is what I've got. This is a unique trust to get a revocable living trust in him and your wills a pour over will always legal terms that we use and will yeah I don't know what it is I've never used it. There's nothing yet we never put anything in there about so I know there's people out there even have living trust drafted and available to them. But don't really know what therefore know how to use yes and we we don't want to be those people we want you guys to be well-informed when you go into that attorney's office and you plop down your your trust in front of them will she be able to explain to them what it is and so I think the first piece of this question in the first way that we can kinda dive into the answer is really defining what a trust is at its essence, so I trust basically creates a legal entity that stands separate from you and your estate. So I trust differs from a will, in the sense that a trust doesn't require any verification by the court after you pass away.

There's none of that probate process. There's no involvement of the clerk and it basically operates as its own legal entity that will survive you in the event that you pass away you don't I'm talking to folks. I can always tell me know a trust is kinda like a will on steroids. You know it's it's your kind taking care of you taken everything out of out of probate. So just everybody knows when an attorney uses the word probate there talking about the process of you have a will you take it out of the clerk's office. They probate it make you executor or executrix of the estate and you go about doing the business of the estate collecting assets things like that in the clerk reviews what you're doing to make sure you're doing everything the way the will commands that you do it.

Make sure all the heirs are getting what they're supposed to, and depending on what kind of probate assets.

There are that process can be.

And depending on what clerk you're working with and what County would that can be a very intimidating process in a bit of very time-consuming and very costly process so you know anytime you've got the involvement of 1/3 party. And even if this third-party has the best intentions there to have that they got statutes there abiding by.

There's just there's other hurdles and there's just more stress to it than there potentially would be without that involvement, so the trust will actually rather than relying on the court, or a statute or your executor to distribute athletes assets it's going to allow the trustee to pass on money and property directly to your heirs without that court intervention which is which is good for peace of mind. It's going to ease stress and it's going to let you more directly control and dictate how your assets are distributed yet, so it interest you still have a you know and him and you stop a trustee right so if a lot of revocable living trust, you will be the initial trustee and then when you pass away you have named a successor trustee which a lot of times is a daughter or us on doesn't have to be can be a trusted and it can be an attorney trusted professional can be your CPA your investment advisor, but you'll you'll manage the trust while you're alive, and so a lot of people will find it's beneficial to put everything in that trust you they created this entity that's can outlive you anything in that trust. In theory is is going to be outside of the scope of probate so we don't were not worried about a clerk were not worried about you know of that kind of oversight you know you you'll you'll still have a trustees and kinda run things and there is oversight and that trustee has a fiduciary duty to the beneficiary so no one's get away with anything but your out of probate. That's good, that's a good thing.

It's always a good thing to have less court involvement so you talked about you testing to briefly Josh but you know you can you can appoint your trustee and you can have an individual trustee, but there like you said, there's also professional trustee so there are no companies or entities. Like he said, a CPA, potentially an attorney professionals that are again have that fiduciary duty and can protect that interest and you can you can take it completely out of the hands of an individual and you can take a lot of that burden off of someone that you know you would otherwise not be able to do so if you had an executor. Again, executors generally are going to be a close love one that's can be dealing with a pretty long and protracted probate process and again it's just another way that you can kind of ease the burden on those around you after you pass and then like Josh said there's a lot of benefits to a trust while you're still alive.

There's a lot of things that that trust can do for you.

One of the best benefits and one of the things you see a lot of people looking to distrust for in their lifetime is the fact that they've got what we call spendthrift present provisions where your basically to be getting protection from creditors during your lifetime for any of the property that you put in that trust. One thing joint double back were talking about professional trustees, your attorney or your CPA your investment advisor they have to agree to be you can just make people your trustees all willy-nilly, they have to agree to serve as your trustee so just always throw that out there a way that people come in before so you investment advisors in the be my trustee unit is a heavy heavy asked and knowing when they go asking a lot of a lot of folks may or may not do that for you missed a word of warning, even if you name your trustee even if is not a professional trustee. Whoever you want to serve in that capacity is a good idea to talk to him at a time.

Sam put together the state a plan.

I really like you to be trustee if you're willing to do it and and even consult them by your assets, you know that's that's a good thing to just let him know like a in this trust. I'm planning to put in a bank accounts united at the beach house you know just yet. I think it's really hard, especially today, as we get more reliant on logging in on on the Internet not getting mailed in statements when someone passes away. If you really don't know home or know what's going on with her assets. It's kinda hard to figure out what they have. If you're not intimately involved. That's right, Josh, and I think just not even from a legal standpoint but from a practical standpoint, it is very important that you always reach out and check with the person that you're going to entrust with distributing your estate and make sure they're okay with that.

I think that's very sound advice and you want you don't want to do this, not something you want to again we talk about you know Internet lawyers and the people who don't want to pay for for legal advice or financial advice, and you know and that's all well and good. Using a trust putting real property in the trust putting your bank accounts into a trust that is not some that I feel comfortable doing with a form I downloaded off the Internet I would want to consult with a professional get some good advice man some tax advice which me and Joseph are not licensed to give you any tax advice, but there's a lot that goes into this decision to use a trust when to use it.

What goes in it. What tax year taking depending on your assets.

Second, it couldn't, it can be complicated, but it's it's not the hardest thing in the world yeah and and that's funny, said Josh because we've actually got to professionals currently sitting right here on the radio talking to you, so we encourage you guys if you need any help with your estate if you want to talk about a trust. If you want to talk about us talk to us about drafting your trust to reviewing your trust. Again, you can always reach out to us by phone at 1-800-659-1186. You can text that number you can send us the email that questions plural questions@theelbowlawyer.com Oregon check out that website or Facebook and twitter. Debbie Debbie W.V outlaw all your.com Josh we talked a good bit about trust.

I think we can talk about trust all day if you want to because it's it's a deep topic but I think it be best.

We take a break right now and go ahead and jump in some of our other questions. What do you do when you get a call from the closing attorney you got an old lien on your real property will say with and now it is time for number two of our listener questions which I will kick us off with listener rights in and says I am selling my house.

The closing attorney's offices contacted me and they told me there is a lien on my property that I did not know about and that is not my lien. What do I do now before we get into the meter that Joseph I want to remind our listeners a percent a little bit different. It's because I am were doing this remotely today so I am locked in the third floor of the Garner Whitaker and Hamer building at my desk while her friend Joseph is off. I take it easy. Having a good time at the beach. I'm not having much fun Josh. I'm currently wedged into the smallest room in this this very humble beach house a few inches from the wall squeeze between two very small twin beds here knocking on the door to my children there wondering where I met and they want to spend time with me today.

But I'm here spend time with you Josh, and our listeners and there's no place I would rather be in the world will goodwill. This is so this question that we get we get this question are our firm is a lot of what we call it your heroes call real estate transactional, but basically closing or buying a house or selling a house, get a refinance North Carolina. There no attorneys are a critical piece of that if you moved here from New York or California or some other states that are we call title states you may have closed the closing attorney may have closed the title company here in North Carolina.

The title companies and the attorneys work together.

That's how it is that is different everywhere so a lot of times what were you know were doing United being Joe. We are like to say a sentence of this in a couple episodes that we are seasoned grizzled, hardened, and we could to get even further.

That's that's my three that's my three adjectives. I like the most seasoned grizzled, hardened, gray wrinkled, weathered real in a real estate attorney that's kinda what we we do a lot of that and we own the real estate side. The real estate while leasing everything I I am never surprised by anything real estate that comes in our office.

I challenge you are listeners to call us and try to surprise us with a real estate scenario think I think that's a idling as a challenge, you can wink is like you said we are were grizzled were hardened. Picture me as an old man callused face when blasted, staring at the law books pouring over the public record and is really being hard into the world of real estate when we need it when you think of us during the show. That's a good you know graybeards and we do have the old. I like to collect, antique vintage legal volumes right that aren't really useful anymore is how the law was in the 30s and 40s, the 50s or late 1890s, but in your mind when you're thinking about me and just think of us were in the office. We got we got one of these vintage books in her handiwork's flipping through we got the little glasses all maybe a pipe pipe sounds like it would be fitting and where were researching were digging to answer your questions. Definitely a pipe definitely put in the oldest books.

Some of the oldest books you've ever seen your life barely even books there so old but again we seen it all, we seen it all. At this point and one of the most unfortunate situations that we unfortunately see all too frequently is the situation that the listener who wrote in with this question is dealing with the fact that you purchased a house and are you going to sell that house and you trusted when you bought the house that there were to be no issues and that the title had been searched and that there was no counter problem there, but you are unfortunately finding out for whatever reason. That was in the case and there is a lien on your property that you had no idea existed and that that very likely predates your ownership of the property potentially by several owners. Yes, so these come up and, for a lot of reasons.

You know your real estate attorney did your closing in. And part of that is that there afterwards. You know they were paying off any mortgage liens or contractor liens or judgments is all that paid off at closing and then whoever's been paid off. They cannot have a duty to make sure whatever that was, was satisfied right so if your seller had a mortgage with Wells Fargo and we paid it off at closing or your closing attorney paid off the closing. The Wells Fargo once I receive that money. They can come up and they they satisfy that mortgage lien so that Abilene goes away, and most the time. 95% of time.

That's what happens, but sometimes we find out that you refinanced or did something along the way that you ever get paid off didn't cancel the liens of the lien still shows up on the public record as an active lien which at which then has to be dealt with. Even if it's been paid off it out that the third parties us earlier by rivers examining title. We don't have any evidence on the public records paid off.

The lien is still there comes up a lot.

It doesn't you mention Josh, you said you know you be purchasing the house and you go to attorney and you trust that they're going to search title properly and a lot of times that does happen, and by no fault of anybody that sometimes these situations can occur so you can you can have situations where no one is necessarily done anything wrong. There's just been that someone didn't.Anaya someone didn't do something that needed to be done in the post closing process and through really no one's fault you have in the situation come up and and like you said yes most most commonly at say what we see are those on canceled deeds of trust were you had a mortgage that's been paid off, but for whatever reason, even though it's been paid off and there's no no record of any money owed at the bank there still that mortgage that exist on record and like you said we can't tell that that money is been paid and we can't rely on the fact that you're telling us that the monies been paid. Even if you're presenting as evidence of that money's been paid. Because what we as attorneys have to go on is that public record and the person that you're selling to is to be dealing with the exact same issue is you down the line and they may not have that evidence. Anything's been paid off. So we have to rely on the public record and that's where this issue has to be corrected. So is a good time to remind our listers that mean Joseph R, North Carolina licensed attorneys were not licensed to practice in any other state. If you're listening to this and you're not North Carolina were telling you probably is incorrect for your statement here North Carolina unities mortgage liens are usually most people get a 30 year mortgage, at least initially, writes he got mortgage you get a lien on the property is good for 30 years. If you're just looking at it right. If you're 1/3 party in your coming years, looking at some public record. This is a 30 year lien and will say you pay it off in year five, but it never gets canceled. It's going to be a problem for not only the 30 years. But even on the 31st year is not automatically canceled in their statute, North Carolina says, I think it's I don't have in front of me, but it's 15 years after the 30 year. Right. So that lien is a problem in North Carolina for 45 years before it's automatically considered, you can safely say I that's been paid off or not worry about it, even it was never canceled. These problems just you know compound and go on forever and then in the course that time people pass away is of the original borrower.

Maybe dad that company made that Linder may have gone out of business and they can be all kinds of things that snowball and make these lien issues just Terry to deal with. That's right – we could spend possibly an entire episode talking about how miserable that that what were describing what were describing are basically these title issues in order to correct these things. They require what we call curative title work where Juergen have to affirmatively take some action to cure these defects in title and Josh, you called it Harry I would just say these these situations just flat out that they they're terrible to deal with and for several reasons.

A lot of times you're dealing with link liens that are from the one or two links back in the chain so you got to owners back that you got on canceled the trust from and the person to the company that that gave in this mortgage that should've cancel the sling they may not exist anywhere. They could've that been dissolved. They could've merge several times with another bank, so tracking down who you need to deal with often is terrible, terrible, horribly annoying situation. In addition to that, you've got privacy laws, yet still with so mortgage companies are going to be very, very particular about who they release information to and who they talk to about particular liens. So if you got a couple links back in the chain you got an owner who has a lien on the end and it still exist without some kind of authorization from that person. Juergen have a very difficult time even communicating with the bank about so these situations are needless to say, the unfortunate and the bad thing about them is that they're generally not can be discovered until you go to sell your property which means you're going to be under contract on this property and it's going to have already been sent to an attorney to complete that title work and that's generally when it pops up so you're looking at a small window of time to correct these issues so what can you do to even correct these things Josh will North Carolina that I was an ad Joe North Carolina.

The closing attorney technically were not technically the closing attorney represents the buyer and so you offered your home for sale. The buyers made an offer even accepted it that buyers can go to their trusted attorney, which is hopefully with the current Hamer working to do a title search and we find defects and asked, where are where the buyers attorney stops. They we call the sellers a look find in this. This is an issue and it is in your court. It's a even though you may have met never known about it had no reason to know about it had no reason to be concerned, the ball goes in your court, and most sellers usually end up hiring an attorney like Sager to do this curative title work there is there some some legal work that needs to be done to cure the title defect now. Tell you what that's that's a phone call that sellers love to get man. They love the call from us telling him that they've got this title issue that isn't even something that they've created an instant to torpedo their closing and we cannot help them with it and it literally blows people's minds and makes them extremely angry and is not fun news to to give to people and obviously, we would love to help everyone and we are unfortunately due to you know bar rules and conflict rules. We represent the buyer that's not something that were really good to be able to assist the seller with so we have to often times refer the sellers out to the different attorneys to help with that and man.

It makes people angry as it probably would anyone yet.

It's it's a you got a problem that you really didn't have any.

A lot of these problems really didn't do anything to create. The necessarily it's just just one of those things people don't review people perform a title search on the property every year to make sure it's clear liens got paid off and so it comes up from time most the time the system works and things get canceled when they're supposed to be, but there's always problems and and we focused on home mortgage liens. But you know if you had some folks doing work on the house you may have a contractor lien pops up our that's right, you might see several letter types of liens. Yeah.

So then you have it you know a lot of people get solar panels you get your pool and there's a ECC fixture filing that's recorded and that's a lien on the property.

A lot of people don't. Don't anticipate and I've seen a lot of people get new HVAC units. If you finance it ECC fixture filing it's filed and that's going to be taken care of close so sound like Josh. There are several several potential timebomb type of liens out here that that could be potentially out there and that may not be discovered until you know it's close to the time for you to close so I think practically to wrap up this discussion.

We love this kind of thought we could talk about it all day long on assessing a great idea. You mentioned you don't do a title search on your property. Just thing we do have a so we just in painstaking mindnumbing detail. We just teach people how to do a title search over like an hour just complete monotone.

We just lay it out for man.

I remember our first year law school were they kindhearted. They teach you how to start search and title who it's rough to get Israel to get to that first introductory how to session you don't want to go through that again but so I think what we take from this incident. To summarize and answer this listeners question. I think once that liens discovered the best thing that you can do is going to be to reach out to an attorney reach out to an attorney try to find someone who specifically handles this type of curative title work which there's not a ton of people who do just that. It's good to be difficult to find someone who specializes in that, but you want someone who's familiar with real estate practice and you want to get on that sooner rather than later because often times the eight timely things that are going to take a decent amount of time to correct and fix so you are going to want to jump on that as soon as you possibly can. The sooner the better and go ahead and try to get it taken care of so that you can go ahead and take care of your closing come up next. Josh and I talk about your privacy online.

Can someone publicly share things that you have sent them privately next I feel great about it and so these questions are so good and it feels so good to talk about amount of the will gets all the questions today and will just that we don't get to it will just put it in the bag will save it for our next episode where we will talk about. Hopefully more listener questions keep sinister questions because we love the talk about the things you guys are interested in and so Joseph I you you been at the beach for the first couple segments.

I think you're still at the beach. Josh, I'm still at the beach for this segment we had. We took about an 18 second break have not had very much time to get anywhere sitting still at this little in table with my face against the wall between the two twin beds in the small bedroom with a crack of light coming in.

I can hear the children beating each other outside screaming. It sounds like a war zone out there and someone to stay here with you for as long as I can for you to set up a tennis like a four hour I'd like to get the radio all day don't bother.

For those who may not have heard. I know we mentioned it here there but Joseph has a lot of kids that's kinda what is known for is an attorney with a lot of kids have that many kids man to be out like yet gets and get several children, but there's people out there would sit way more kids than mine.

I want people to get the wrong impression. I'm not John and Kate Plus 8.

I don't know of any other shows another's people for children is not the most children. That's not a Guinness book of records, level children, but it does feel like a lot, it does as I hear them beating on the door behind me feel like a lot of kids not enough to beat the door down to his bedroom and interrupt my radio show enough to rumble the room a little. You have slightly more than me said, and in my mind it's it's just a time but you know just I was gonna mention earlier in the show. I think we mentioned last week, but talk about COBIT reaction will have a covert segment this week but you know we are a we were pumped about one Stapleton end and so that that show happen.

So we're pretty excited to get out with 25,000 of our closest friends and and all enjoyed outdoor concerts.

That was nice.

Maybe maybe maybe we will add I'm sure we will have no shortage of covert things to talk about as early as next week will probably bring the weekly covert segment back because COBIT as you know is the gift that keeps on giving.

Why would I say that because you would have known that as we are Facebook friends and I shared some pictures of that concert on the Facebook by God. Your professional Josh, what a fantastic segue into our next listener question. This listener writes and asks, can someone publicly share an email a text or a Facebook message that I sent them privately. So is pretty good question and I want to talk about it some but also just generally this raises the topic of your data and you know we all spent a lot of time online. We spent a lot of time surfing the web. We spent a lot of time on Facebook, Google, Amazon and all of the things you do online creates data that is tracked and that is monitored and Anna and I think it's just a very robust talking point we can talk about kind of everyone's rights to their personal data. But first first we'll talk about the listeners question. So generally speaking it's not illegal to share or poster screenshot a private message because the law doesn't really consider these things private. In that sense of anyone who sends an email or text or a Facebook message or Instagram put anything of that nature. You basically lose the expectation of privacy. Once that is delivered. But there's always exceptions Joe, you know that's the that's the principle of law at play there, but there's always exceptions wanted one as exceptions is if the parties had previous previously agreed that the messages would remain private and confidential and if you have that meeting of the minds. If you have that agreement then in theory sharing would be a breach of that agreement yeah you know that's a good point. There's several things that messages are sent people and it is those things that were sent out without context I'm inaccurate.

I could see that as being pretty confusing to people or upsetting to the untrained eye, so obviously none of us want our private messages put out there. And in that way and I think this really raises an interesting related discussion like we talked about in that. That being what are my rights to my own personal data so you know most of America doesn't have rights to their data in the same way that Europe does.

Europe has the GP PDR which is the general data protection regulation in California has passed a new law that gives consumers a right to be forgotten, which basically means you got a right to see and delete the data that a company has on you, but generally in America we we don't necessarily have the same strong protections that they do in Europe yet and it's interesting to Jets that something you know you always hear the us older people joke about that you know that at Facebook we were kids there be allies to maybe there be a lot of stuff out there.

We wouldn't want to survive, and so these kids today, they're so used to the technology, but they have to be so careful because the stuff if policy it's it's you know as the way the law stands right now, at least in the US doing this stuff isn't going away. It's going to be there someone going to have it is hard to get. It's hard to get rid of that stuff you can't get the right to be forgotten. That's an interesting yeah I want that right back. I was very fortunate to come up literally was in college. As soon as Facebook was released and started coming to prominence and I think no one really we don't do a lot of thinking in your early college years and the further you know, you're thinking about different things and then the long the long term and long, long picture but I came I came to to college as soon as Facebook became the thing and universally everyone I knew everyone. It was the coolest thing we all love that we thought was great and you it wasn't like it is now where everybody could see everything you know is very much more private you. You had a lot of control over who can see I think that's the way it is now as well but just it's more consumed by the public. It's more widespread. It wasn't like that.

So we would put literally everything on there, and pictures and when you're in college you're obviously having a good time. Generally there's a lot of photographs of that so I had a lot of things that that made it on to Facebook that I would love to be forgotten. Josh absolutely love to be forgotten.

So you do, you do have some protections though, so if if someone steals information and will collect personally identifiable information, or of course financial data you credit card information or logins or passwords. Yeah the theft of that information is is is most the time technically illegal, but that is hard to track as arbitrators people.

Now if that happens to yeah really I don't really catch those people dress. We talked about cyber criminals and I think we just assume they're better than us at those things and were never to catch them.

So you set it at you know if someone stealing your personal identifiable information if someone stealing your financial financial information. You know this is there's there's laws and their statutes that protect against that and that are going to criminalize those things. But outside of that criminalize identity theft type of activity your rights to your personal data that's collected by various companies on the Internet are generally going to be determined by those companies. Relevant privacy policies so your were talking about the big disclaimers that you get before you access a programmer enter a website that you know basically ask you to click on or acknowledge that you read the acknowledgment read the privacy policy and by doing that, and by accessing that website you basically creating a contract with that company and saying that you are going to agree to abide and be bound by the terms of their user agreement or privacy policy. I was, I can't member it was was was in a state of communion is watching a set and he admits even date a girl for a little while and they were sitting around one day and issues read some on the computer and he was like a will you know what you doing you been doing it for a while so she was reading the privacy licensing agreement or whatever on some of those Apple music or what it was but he said he got up he left he never talked to her yet is a good policy of someone reading the fine print, you just write this, people often you get a matter your life, the sooner the better your your lawyer – one of the finest lawyers I know bright legal mind.

How often do you read the fine print on websites and things of that nature never uniting and maybe I assume this was normal in the point that that was the point stand up comic. There was anybody who does that is is abnormal or are almost to detail oriented as yeah I've never click on anything good or bad pops up. If I'm trying to get as the worst national and what is that was the worst that can happen you clicking on accessing this likely you know everything is already out there in and I don't do that on the work computer that's on the that's on the phone and you network computers. You can click on anything but the home are the phone did you do but yet knowing and not having anyone to clarify, we did an entire episode will not clicking on things regarding ransom. Where were talking strictly on agreeing to companies, privacy policies, talking about here were taught as a route that that it's right. You know the tracking of your data and things of that nature because again, if you access the site. If you will use an app you're agreeing to that or you just not use the thing that that is asking you to agree to.

It's it like we said it's a contractor contractually agreeing to this so read it even if you find the worst thing you've ever seen in their it's not like you to be able to write in an ad.

Please sir, can you scratch this off of your privacy policy so I can use your app thank you is not a thing that happens you know we we talked about it before, but you know Facebook is a scary amount about about me you know it. Facebook is figured out that if you put Dolly Parton on anything and advertise it to me. I will think my wife wants it and probably buy it as a gift so the coffee mug sure collected book. You know my wife's a big Dolly Parton fan and it's got me figured out and and T-shirts. It's got me figured out it does not like 80s cartoons and you know much out of the 80s. It's it's really dialed me in and I really click on so many Facebook ads yeah man, it's scary. They it's like they I can't tell you how many times that I'll just be having a conversation with someone about something about a product literally just a conversation and you pull your phone up and immediately you're being advertise something that's an offshoot of that is just whether it be some kind of crazy vocal monitoring that you've agreed to, whether it be there – algorithms just that good and can deduce from what you're searching that you like these things.

It's amazing man. It's a little bit scary and it's scary to think of where it's going to go to and and did as they develop these technologies and they can essentially either predict thought or by the data that you give them can learn things about you. They really got us figured out man.

They do you have certain get a lot of ads for which College of medicine that tries to bring your hair back. I'm getting hit hard on this.

I just turned a certain age, only a search for anything but I'm getting hit hard with the illusion some hair try this best tough man. If your phone literally just saw your head and just like well this guy were working to go ahead and send him some information on this, but given it scary.

And the scariest is to think about how it's going to develop. It is an ever present part of our lives and as we increasingly become an online society and to become more more reliant on on being online on apps on technology. It's only something that's going to grow and continue to to evolve to Joseph there's there's no going back now you know there's not, so hopefully we at least kind of answer that question before we devolved into a random discussion of Facebook ads, but I again we always encourage you guys reach out to us. We would love to hear from you. We told you to pull your phone out and text us or call us early do it again. There's no limit there's no charge for these questions. There is no amount of times you can reach out to us where it will be too much.

We encourage you to do it constantly and with your every waking moment and again our phone number here is 1-800-659-1186. You can call that number you can text that number you can email us at questions@theoutlawlaw.com you can visit our website at www.the outlaw law. Your.com and then we are on both Facebook and Twitter, the outlaw law. Your go there may be a company will start trying to sell you products related to the outlaw locker potentially coming up on the outlaw law. Your Josh and I will wrap up this fantastic episode Road and bring everything home when I was welcome back to the outlaw law here Josh and Joe here with you again.

We've gone through solicitor questions and man we had so much fun and we got so in answer some these questions that we have unfortunately run out of time to answer additional questions which were just to put them back in the bag. Josh for another day you want to do this again.

I really am encouraged by a lot of the questions that were getting. And the good thing about the law firm as we get a lot of attorneys get a good general base of knowledge. So you surprises too often, but we I enjoy getting some feedback on what I do know people are listening. I'm glad to know we got some folks out there who are going to use us use our firm as a legal resource that is our goal. That's right and you and I can surprises but we still like to know what you guys want to hear us talk about and we want to be a resource to you guys as well, so we'd like to talk about the popular news topics. The Supreme Court cases that the things that are happening day-to-day. But we also want to be informational you guys and touch on things that you want to hear us discuss and arm you guys with the knowledge to go forth and have a robust life away from the radio. I will I will tell you Joe DE you know that the one 800 numbers. The easiest way to get us what you have a question that you want us to tackle in outlaw lawyer or if you want to Whitaker name or if you want to reach the law firm with a legal question is more personal. Either way, you can call us at 1-800-659-1186, and so we we we mentioned it before, but that phone number set take a message from you so let us know what we can do for you. We need to reach out to you and schedule a consult. So one of our attorneys can advise you in and be a resource to you.

Let us know. You can also text that number so you can always text a question, text message, to 1-800-659-1186. The metal end up getting to to me and Joe always email emails. One of the easiest things to do so. Our email is questions.

That's plural questions@theoutlawlaworyour.com. And of course our website is Debbie WW, the outlaw law of your.com where all of our archived episodes live and then on Facebook and Twitter. We are the outlaw lawyer and will will continue to work towards the Instagram and in the tick-tock one day.

Not really. One day, I think we can get that we need to we need to get young people focused on the social media for us. That's true that's true, but I enjoyed being here with you today Josh and I hope you've enjoyed working, you continue to enjoy work and I appreciate your dedication to our will wrap it up this week hopefully will will is attorney licensed to practice law in North Carolina just appearing on the show.

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