(08/19) HOTL Hour 1

Handel on the Law, Marginal Legal Advice.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM sixty ondemand. Man, we got the rains
coming in this weekend, and wehaven't had one of these in a long
time. I did you hear thestats? I mean, just the dates.
The last time we had a tropicalstorm like we're having now or it's
gonna be coming in now was nineteenthirty nine. And that's when the last

(00:23):
tropical storm made landfall. And thisthing is coming up as a hurricane.
And the last time a hurricane madelandfall in southern California it was just off
San Diego. It was eighteen fiftyeight. Yeah, wow, how about
that one? Huh? Abraham Lincolnwas doing his thing, and that's the

(00:46):
last time a hurricane made landfall.Now it's gonna be a if it does,
it's a category one, but stillit's gonna be rainy. And Randy,
all right, let me give yousome phone numbers that if you want
to call. Lines are open naturally, especially when we start the show.
Eight hundred five two zero one fivethree four. And whatever question you may

(01:06):
have, legally, of course Iwill answer to I'm not gonna say that
the best of my ability, becausethe best of my ability isn't really hard
risen really well, very very strong, but still I would go for it.
So let me give you the phonenumber eight hundred five two zero one
five three four. And I alwaysgive this admonition, is that at the

(01:29):
top of the hour when we start, particular when we start the show is
the best best time to get inbecause I'll go an hour, hour and
a half. If you notice,I will not give phone numbers when our
lines are full, and that happensquite often. So let's do it.
Eight hundred five two zero one fivethree four. That's eight hundred five two

(01:49):
zero one five three four, andyou won't be waiting and I'll get right
to you. And for those whohave called, you know, weights can
be pretty lengthy. All right,we start with one of my fun stories,
and this may be one of themost fun ones I've had. This
is handled on the law marginal legaladvice, where I tell you you have
absolutely no case. All right.I looked this one and this is truly

(02:15):
one of the most entertaining stories Ihave ever seen. This is out of
right near Detroit. Not that hasanything to do with it. Okay,
so let me set this up foryou. You've got two men who are
involved in a gay relationship. Oneof them decides to become a woman and

(02:36):
ends up having what is called anorchiectomy and just having testicles removed. By
the way, when someone goes frommale to female, you would think the
entire fruit package would be removed,wouldn't you. Just removing the nords is
a thing. I didn't know thatthey keep the swans and they remove the

(03:02):
go nats, go figure. Andas I looked into this, I'm going,
yeah, it's a thing, allright. So uh as Brianna Kingsley,
she's forty uh, you know,at that point, by the time
the nuts are removed, I thinkBrianna thinks wears in her head a woman,
and I'm assuming how the hormone dessetter has gone in there. And

(03:25):
I don't know what her name wasbefore, but I'm assuming it wasn't Brianna.
She ends up breaking up with herboyfriend William, and the Polish name
watches Hossky watch Koski, and sothey break up and everybody takes their own
property and splits up. He endsup taking her balls in a jar,

(03:50):
and she's a little bit upset aboutit, and so she sues. She
is suing him, and part ofthe complaint reads, I'm gonna quote it
now, Defendant William retains possession ofmy surgically extracted testicles preserved in a mason
jar kept in the fridge next tothe eggs. I demand immediate return of

(04:13):
my human remains, specimens and damagesa six thousand, five hundred dollars now
six five thousand, five hundred dollars. You know, it's a small claims
court case, and the small claimscourt judge I don't think has the ability
certain Latin not in here in California, to order the return of personal property,
particularly one's nuts. Now, Ido believe that once the orchaeoctomy has

(04:41):
taken place and the aforementioned bodily parts, the nuts have they become property,
at least that's an argument, andthey become part, particularly put in a
jar from aldehyde. I am assuminga mason jar from aldehyde, and we
don't know it was a mason jarcleaned. Was it used to keep strawberry

(05:01):
preserves and then they cleaned it out? I have no idea, but this
is an argument with William that heactually owns that, and what he says
in response that his ex picked upall of her possessions when we broke up,
and she took everything she wanted,therefore leaving the mason jars full of

(05:23):
her nords. And he said thatshe didn't want him. I'm taking him,
and he says, I'm not givinghim back. And when he asked,
you know, do you plan tofight to keep these, he says,
I don't owe anything. Huh.This filing took place two weeks after

(05:45):
they ended their relationship. And thenhe says, she's been harassing me ever
since we broke up. I hadto take a protective order against her.
And there is one protective order andit precludes her from purchasing a firearm and
orders her to avoid contact and nothird party contact of social media contact.
So at this point he has tobe left alone. She cannot contact him.

(06:12):
So if they come to an agreement, I guess they go to a
third they go to some place ofwell, I guess someplace, an independent
place, neutral place. I wouldguess I would go to Starbucks and I
would sit there in Starbucks each ifyou have a cup of coffee and do
the transfer of her nuts in amason jar. Pretty impressive, I have

(06:35):
to tell you. Tell me that'snot a fine case. It doesn't get
better than that. I'm looking formy mouse now and I can't see him
to find it. Oh, here, it is all right, so I
can get these phone calls. Tellme that was not a fun one.
Okay, you know what, Let'stake a break and we'll come back and
I'll start the phone calls going andmove through him. And I took a

(06:56):
long time to do this one.How can you not, you know,
with a story like this, forGod's sake, number eight hundred five two
zero one five three four eight hundredfive two zero one five three four And
oh Joe, Hello Joe, thisis gonna be interesting. Man. Can
I relate to this one? Goahead? Yeah, Bill, I've got
a kind of I've been here forthree years. I've yet my neighbor upstairs

(07:19):
is very heavy footed, and I'vecomplained. This is over three years now,
and I've complained to him face toface, not upstairs. Many times.
He walks around barefoot. He says, look in his wife. He
says, that's just the way mylifestyle is. He walks back and forth
numerous times, numerous times. It'scan be day at night, and as
I said, he's actually replaced hisfloors when we moved in. After I

(07:43):
complained it's done. No good.I told him he's done. But I
told him, why don't you wearsome of those rubber thongs or something.
He says, this is my lifestyle. I'm not going to change. So
this is a big, big problem. I know. Yeah. No,
it can be hugely interrupted of yourlife to have someone move upstairs with a

(08:03):
lot of heavy foots. Okay,let's start with your position number one.
The first thing I would say,by the way, when I said I
can relate, I owned a condothat my daughter lived in that was upstairs
to you, okay, and mydaughter and my god daughter lived there.

(08:26):
And the guy directly under us complainedfor exactly the same thing. And our
position was, they did, Colbertfoot. They did, in fact,
try to do exactly what your guyis not wanting to. And the fellow
downstairs kept on hearing all of thisquestionable about whether he did or not,

(08:48):
and would take a broom and poundthe ceiling and say that I've done it
for three years, my god,this is my story. And a couple
of times he did it when theyweren't even there, So it was kind
of bizarre. Well, here's whatI ended up happening. I'll just tell
you what ended happening with us is, uh, complaints were made to the
homeowner association. Homeowner association really loathto do this. It's the guy upstairs

(09:13):
own the property. Is he theowner? He's the owner, okay,
and you're the owner, yes,oh okay. I mean that makes it
more difficult than you could possibly do. So you want to get the homeowner
association. And if you can't andhave him, that's exactly what we had
to do. You have a recordingand you have to get a decibel matter
meter in there because it's what's loudto you maybe not loud to me,

(09:39):
and so there are limits of howloud you can be. I mean I
ended up going with lawsuits, litigation, having a sound engineer come in,
tearing up the floor and putting inuh this soundproofing as much as I could,
and I still wanted hardwood floors,and we ended up I mean,

(10:00):
it was total litigation. Thousands ofdollars, is it not? I'm sorry,
that's thousands of dollars, is it? Oh? Yeah? How about
this? Seventeen thousand dollars for thenew flooring. I had to write it.
Well, we split it with ahomeowner association and the guy because it
went crazy. We're about to goto trial on this, and so it
went completely crazy. So finally,after all of this time, my daughter

(10:26):
moves out because they couldn't take itanymore with crazy guy. And then I
now have a tenant that moved inthere, and a new guy bought the
downstairs unit and called me and saidthey're making noise upstairs. Do something about
it. So I'll tell you whatI just did. I just listed it
because I'm not going to do this. So I'm going to give you actually

(10:50):
good legal advice instead of marginally goodadvices because I went through this because because
I have to hit the wall dailyfor three years. If you can believe
it through, leave me I do. So you start with homeowners association,
then they're not good. They mightend up giving him complaint after complaint after

(11:11):
complaint and get involved and order himto stop it. He may tell him
to go pound sand because it's hislifestyle. Then you file a lawsuit a
restraining order to stop him from makingthat kind of noise. He's gonna say,
don't make that kind of noise becauseJoe, because Joe is super sensitive
to this. Then, uh,you and I did it. I got

(11:33):
a sound engineer to check out thesound level of pounding all the way up
and again, uh do you meetcode? Does the flooring meet code?
And the answer is probably yes,And you've got a mess on your hands.
I mean, there's go ahead.I don't know when he's gonna what
minute, what hour he's going tostart pounding, And that makes you,

(11:56):
you know, that's part of yourcomplaint and the law is not really good
at dealing with this. Sometimes thelaw is just sloppy. I mean,
if I owe you a thousand dollarsand I don't pay you, that's easy.
You assume me for a thousand dollars, then of course says you owe
the thousand dollars. Yes, howdo you prove it? Here's the note,
here's the check, and it's simple. Okay, too much noise.
I don't know what too much noiseis. What if the judge is deaf

(12:18):
and listening to it and says,oh, it doesn't seem like too much
noise to be there's no quick answerhere, Joe. I have to tell
you, and I gave you mystory, and it is a mess.
And the first thing is hoa,I don't think you're gonna win on that
one, because they're gonna bail outas quickly as possible. The second thing
is a straight restraining order. Ifyou can get it from the court,

(12:39):
they'll give it to you. They'llthey'll say to you're the guy upstairs saying
you're making too much noise, stopit. And if he wants to fight
it, you you've bought yourselves somelitigation with this guy, and we'll see
how much. Why would you geta restrainting? How are why no no
bill? If I ask for treatingorder? How do they do that?

(13:01):
I'm not making this stole thing upwithout it, they don't sound. They
don't. That's where the sound engineer. That's where that's when the sound engineer
comes in and you go, theseare the less I'm sorry he sounded you
with me? Well, yeah,to some extent, Yeah, to some
extent. He has to wait untilthe pounding starts. Yeah. It's gonna
cost you a fortune, Joe.It's gonna cost you a fortune when you're

(13:22):
involved in one of those. I'mtelling you this is experience. I mean,
I've been looking at this thing.I'm gonna tell you what it costs
just the flooring to replace with seventeenthousand dollars. Forget about the litigation cost
and the harassment factor. And Ihad to give my daughter and God God
daughter tasers and say, just incase you're running into this guy in the

(13:45):
elevator. Yeah, good news.I know. I know. Boy.
Yeah, isn't that fun when thathappens? WHOA, And so I've I've
listed it. If anybody wants tobuy a wonderful kind let me know.
Can you imagine, Hello, Chen, welcome, Oh hi, thank you

(14:07):
Phil. I have one house learntto somebody else. If I want to
see a let a house pay lesstax, so I have to move back
to let a house, Then howmany years I have to leave this I
can pay? Last test? Yeah, it's it's a good question. So

(14:28):
let me put you on hold andI'll call my accountant and ask him how
long you have to wait, oryou can call your accountant and find out.
Okay, with that being said,because I've been in that position,
I'll give you what I know.There there is I think according to the
IRS, there's two issues here.If you're in California, it's obviously a

(14:48):
mess. Taxation always is. Soif you have the house I think for
more than a year and you sellit, that becomes a long term capital
gains. So it's twenty eight percentas opposed to thirty six percent depending since
it's not your primary residence. Idon't know if the two hundred and fifty

(15:11):
thousand dollars exemption kicks into place.So if you have up to two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars you can makewithout tax liability California, any amount of
money you make is considered ordinary income. They don't care. So if you
make fifty thousand dollars on the house, it's not long term. It's not
short term. California is going tosay, you made the money, you'll

(15:31):
test you just pay taxes on it. So once all the protection that you
have for your primary residence disappears whenyou have what is called basically it's a
business. Is what you're doing.You're renting it, you don't live in
it. Do you have to moveback? You can move back, and
you have to stay there. Ithink a year before it's considered a long

(15:52):
term capital gain that you can take, and the exemption okay, does that
help at all? Yes? Okay. By the way, I barely understood
that, but it made sense.I think I got the law right on
that one. John, Hello John, welcome to handle on the law.
Good morning Bill. I have Iwould like to in small claims court to

(16:14):
Chase Bank. The situation is Ihave a cashier's check. The top of
the check in small writing, saysVoyd. After seven years, the check
was an issue to me, Aone page with the bottom page top top
of the page, the check underneathit says the laws specify the state will

(16:38):
consider funds to be abandoned if thecashier's check is not cash by a certain
time. When I got the checkfrom the bank, there was no verbal
language or anything. It was verballanguage is verbal, okay, So there
was no written language, is whatyou're saying. No, the written language

(17:03):
is the law specify the state willconsider Okay. I got it branded.
Okay, And so what's your ques? Okay? Your question is what at
after six years I go to turnit back into the bank and they said
the check is no good And Ispend a bunch of time, a lot
of time, you know how.It is amazing through all those sacks.
Yeah, yeah, I got it. I'm gonna answer your question. But

(17:26):
first question I have, what areyou doing though? How did you check?
How does it? John? Onethousand dollars? And it's it's the
principle of the thing, and allthe time I think it's the principle of
thing. All right, So here'swhat you get to do. First of
all, I asked, why didyou wait six years? Because it was
in a title company and the dealfell through. Okay, so you didn't

(17:49):
know, all right. So here'smy here. Okay, here's the issue
you have. Okay, there's threeissues. Issue Number one is simply the
statute of limitation. That's four years. Okay, you can't sue after four
years. Uh. Number two isif the check is good for seven years
and you bring it in within sixyears, the check is good okay.

(18:12):
Number three them saying the state willconsider this. That's their legal advice.
That's their opinion. This is nota legal firm, this is not that's
that's their legal opinion. That meansnothing, you know. They could say,
and the state will the state willinterpret this as a felony and you
will go to prison for five yearsif you present the check. I could

(18:33):
they could say that, so thatmeans nothing. So uh on the seven
year issue, you have them.On the four year statute issue, you're
screwed. Okay, yeah, there'suh yeah, and the four year statute
issue that prevails over because the lawis real simple. You got four years

(18:56):
and there it is. And theI'm shocked that it's this is good for
seven years. I mean you,I get checks and it says these are
good for six months, and thechecks are no good. And I have
found checks I got and I gotmy money back. You know, I
find him. You know, Imiss it by a week or I miss
it by fifteen months, and Iget my money back. But not on

(19:19):
that check. They have to reissuethe check. So you got a statue
the principle of the thing. Allright, Well you know you find a
check right six years later? Hyeah, good enough, Anthony, Hi
Anthony, welcome to handle on thelaw. Hey Bill, Yeah, a
little quick here. I have anautistic son, non verbal, he's but

(19:45):
fourteen. Me and he's a mother. We're not in the we're not a
couple anymore. It's been that's beenover since about ten years. But we're
still a great relationship. She's agreat mother. You know, I'm pretty
much the breadwinner and I need togive I'm in my late mid forties and

(20:06):
I need to think about I haven'tgot life insurance, and I want to
make sure if anything happens to methat uh, you know, he's taking
care of them, trying to pillagram dout that. Okay, So you
want to know how that goes.I mean, that's fairly simple, and
the law does allow you to protectyour son. First of all, you
get your life insurance. The beneficiaryof your life insurance is a trust that

(20:30):
you have set up on behalf ofyour side, and you name a trustee
who then will distribute the money pursueinto the terms of the trust. And
so what ends up happening that isthat your son is protected person you trust
trustee is in fact going to distributethe money for medical care. Whatever the

(20:55):
terms. You are no more thantwenty thousand dollars a year. And it
depend depends on how big you wantyour life insurance to be. I mean
it can be massive, it canbe in the millions of dollars. And
there it goes into the trust,which has to be established. You have
to go to a lawyer and writea trust and fund the trust and do
that with ten bucks, and it'sreally going to be funded upon your death

(21:17):
for the benefit of your autistic son. It can be done. It's something
that should be done because your sonis going to have a very difficult time
making a living, will not beable to survive, but for the money
coming out of that life insurance policy. Uh, and you should and good
for you for asking that question.So that's how that's how you do it.

(21:41):
Yeah, there could be multiple trustees. Sure, sure, they just
have to agree. And if youhave multiple trustees, if you have two,
they have to agree. If youhave three trustees, then two out
of the three have to agree asto what's going to happen. So the
other thing is, let me tellyou about my family. My family trust

(22:03):
gives my kids money. Do Itrust my kids with the whole thing?
God? No, are you kidding? That's not gonna happen. So they're
gonna get a yearly stipend from thetrust. And I have a trustee,
my partner, Karen, who Itrust one hundred percent. She will distribute

(22:25):
the money. I trust her somuch that I'm not even telling her how
I'm gonna go. You just takecare of it. By the way,
this is the one trust I've writtenthat my kids want me to stay alive
because Karen is gonna be a lotof heer on them than I am.
And then you need a successor trusteein the event Karen dies or doesn't want
to do it. Well, here'sthe person who is going to be the
successor trustee will take the place ofKaren. And then you can goes back,

(22:51):
maybe the law firm on the thirdgo or a bank. I mean,
it doesn't matter. That's why youneed a lawyer on this one.
This is not going to the internetand just writing a trust. Okay,
thank good for you, and you'regonna yeah, he's gonna protect You're gonna
protect your son, and good foryou because you know what you're dealt,
the cards you're dealt. Welcome batto handle on the law. Hello,

(23:15):
d you're up. Welcome, Yes, good morning, Bill, Thank you
for taking the call. Sure.Recently we've had a lot of death that
UH In one family, aunt passedUH six weeks later, so her daughter
died. She after the aunt.Before she passed, she had a stroke

(23:37):
and we were trying to keep herat home, and certain people were given
access to her banking to pay thenurses for the nursing care. That being
said, they didn't relinquish it,relinquish the possession of computer access or whatever
they had. They weren't reigned inproperly. It was like an open door

(24:00):
that was left open. Unfortunately,the daughter passed and three days after she
died, the bank account total moneyfor this family was cleaned out short of
two hundred thousand dollars. Okay,interesting them out left in the account?
Yeah? One dollar and nine onesince And do you know who cleaned it
out? Like the someone's role?I'm sorry, Yeah, I know someone.

(24:23):
I mean someone basically stole the money. I get that. Uh did
you okay? Do you know whodid it? I have some strong suspicions.
The bank is an investigation. Itwas all done computer. I know.
You got to find out who didit because it went into somebody's account
and that can be traced down.The first thing you do is call the

(24:45):
police. Yeah. First thing youdo is call the police. Yeah,
first thing you call the police.And the problem is okay, okay.
The problem is is that whoever stolethe money had access to the money,
So the cops are probably going tosay it's a civil matter, But you
still want to go to the DA'soffice because you're talking how old was the

(25:06):
how? Oh no, is thisfright? You got older abuse? She's
in her nineties, So elder abuseor you know that fly So there's a
whole division of elder abuse. Sogo to the DA on that one and
see if there's anything there. Letthem know at least what happened. Can
we speed up the probate process wherebywe let the state know there was no
will we're trying to at least slowtheir roles. So they don't get access

(25:27):
to the home, or they're notgoing to get asset. No, they're
not going to get access to thehome. Uh, they're on They clean
out the bank account. That's it, the rest of it. You're not
going to get access to the home. No, no, no, no,
no. They may if they havea key, change change the keys,
change the locks. Yes, we'vedone that. Okay, then how

(25:47):
are they going to get So howare they going to get access to the
home if they don't have title,if they don't have a rental agreement unless
they commit fraud and then and thenconspiracy to commit fraud. Put some in
a whole different level on top ofstealing the two hundred thousand. Maybe they're
stupid enough to do it. Idon't know. Yes, it's extremely close

(26:08):
family, and the property may begoing in their direction or there. Well,
if it's going in there, okay, if it's going in their direction,
it's going in their direction. There'sno will, all right, So
the property goes. It's an intestate. Uh, it's an intestate estate,
which means it's going to go tothe to the closest people, who's ever

(26:30):
the child of the woman's child,the one who died, wherever is the
closest relative to that person. Itgoes to those people. And if there
are any children around, if there'sany siblings around, Uh, then they're
going to get the property. Yes, we were trying to slow their role
until its investigation could be built.You can't all you can do. I'll

(26:52):
tell you how you slow their role. Uh what are they doing now that
you want to slow the role?Well, wanting access, talking up access
to the property. And I don'tknow what talking up. I don't know
what talking access is, Okay,basically, uh, just mostly talking from

(27:12):
family member to family. So youwant to so you want to slow their
You want to slow their talking down? No, no, are I was
trying to slow the access to thempilfering all the rest of the valuables from
the hall. It's you change thelocks. Yes, we've done that.
Okay, So how do they knowhow do they get in? Well,

(27:33):
they have not entered the houses thebrands exactly. They haven't entered the house.
They don't have access to the house. So you change the locks.
Now, how are they going toget titled to that house without a court
order? Can we can we doany anything short of getting probate? How

(27:55):
can we speed up the probate?Yeah, you can't. You got a
file for probate on her half.Yeah, that's it. And then and
then go in another direction and tryto get them for stealing the two hundred
thousand dollars because access because the womanwas ninety three years old. Get a
trust and a state lawyer. You'regonna need one of those day around that.

(28:18):
Yeah, there's no way around it. It's a trust and estate lawyer.
But a trust and it is aprobate. The trust and a state
lawyer is going to open up probate. Yeah, that's what you do,
Okay, I love it. Complaintto here's the complaint to the to the
court your honor. I want tostop them from talking it up. Okay,
whatever. Hey, let me tellyou about the simply Safe home security

(28:41):
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(29:07):
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(29:27):
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(29:51):
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f I A M six forty ondemand