Latest / Ask the Lawyer / 08/24/2023 Ask the Lawyer with Tom Peyton
Transcript
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- 1:07well. You could put the power of Peyton on your side this morning eventually.
- 1:11Anyway, you're listening to five ad W c H as the voice of
- 1:14Charleston. I'm del Cooper. Thank you so much for tuning in on this
- 1:15Thursday morning, as we do. Put the power of Peyton on our side.
- 1:19Tom Peyton is in the studio with us this morning. Find out more
- 1:21information online, of course, Peyton Law Firm dot com. Payton Law Firm
- 1:23dot com in Nitro, West Virginia. Tom, of course, is our
- 1:27guest this morning, and my apologies for starting the show a little late.
- 1:32I was embroidered and trying to get our next ticket winner ready upstairs and prepped
- 1:37and forgot that I was had responsibility on the show this morning. Apologize,
- 1:41apologize for that this morning, Tom, How you doing this morning? Good?
- 1:42I thought about this jumping over there and pressing some of these buttons on
- 1:46the board, But if anybody could do it, between between you and your
- 1:49dad and Larry Dawson, I'm sure that between the three of you, you
- 1:53could probably do the show yourself. At this point. You've been doing it
- 1:56for long enough. I can see where the lights are on and the levels,
- 1:57and so that helps on I should spend ten minutes and just go over
- 2:00with it. You just walk in and take care of it. I mean,
- 2:02you practice law. This is radio. I think we could probably get
- 2:06it to translate pretty well. But we appreciate your time and coming in this
- 2:08morning and have a lot of things that we can we can discuss, of
- 2:12course, but what's when? What's the one? Uh, what's on your
- 2:15mind this point? Glad to be here. First day of school, in
- 2:16Putnam, so it was still a smooth ride though from today's valley area to
- 2:21get in here. Well, some interesting things once, so you remember,
- 2:27or maybe you don't remember, but we had a couple of long time circuit
- 2:29judges local ones retire. Judge Bloom probably the one that I deal well,
- 2:38certainly the one I deal with the most. And Judge s. Facemyer who's
- 2:39been a judge in the circuit. It's Clay Gilmer May Webster. They wrote
- 2:49there four or five counties in that circuit. But Judge Spacemer has been there
- 2:52for oh gosh, as long as I can remember, probably twenty years.
- 2:54Judge Bloom has been there, probably a little over twenty as well, because
- 2:59I I don't remember another judge in Judge Bloom's place, and I got a
- 3:02law school in two thousand and one, so but the governor would have appointed
- 3:09two new circuit judges yesterday, so which is interesting. First you got from
- 3:15up in Clay Michael Asberry. I haven't seen Mike in a long time,
- 3:21but he actually clerked for Dad in law school, and I think he might
- 3:23be a little older than me. Maybe he was there when I was still
- 3:25an undergraduate school. But real nice guy. His fault. I haven't dealt
- 3:30with him really since he's been actively practicing law, I don't believe. But
- 3:35his father was a circuit clerk for a long time in Clay County, so
- 3:38he's got, you know, a lot of good knowledge base. I'm sure,
- 3:43because you see I'm sure hanging out with his dad and whatever he's been
- 3:46doing in general practice now, he's kind of been in the trenches, I
- 3:52would say, most likely doing a variety of things in Clay County, and
- 3:54there's other rural county. So I think that's a good pick, and I
- 4:00think he'll do a good job. I haven't seen him lately, so I
- 4:05don't have a whole lot of knowledge base of his recent activity, but I
- 4:09think that's a good one. Then you had I'm not sure how many candidates
- 4:12you had up there for that that one. In what they do, you
- 4:15know, there's a commission that takes applications when there's a vacancy, and then
- 4:21the commission pairs that list down and make some recommendation to the governor, and
- 4:27the governor can basically pick whoever he wants. Still, when you have obviously
- 4:31these judges that that the that you've known for a long time, that's been
- 4:35practice that's been on the bench around here forever or for a long time.
- 4:42Of course, it's a story when you know they're retiring, they're moving on
- 4:44and things like that. But when it comes to actually practicing law and what
- 4:46you do, that does sort of resee does that have to reshuffle things in
- 4:49your brain a little bit? Like as just like anything else when you get
- 4:54a cuss you know, I've been before judge bloom, oh gosh my career,
- 4:59probably hundreds and hundreds of times. Little familiarity, just room, that's
- 5:04right, And it's just like anything else you do. When you don't do
- 5:08it, we're doing something new or dealing with a new person in business,
- 5:12you've got to feel it out. And when you have a circuit judge that's
- 5:14been there for decades, then you know you're kind of accustomed to their process.
- 5:19You you know, every judge kind of has his or her own style
- 5:24in a way, and how they like to operate and they run their courtroom.
- 5:27And so when you become more accustomed to their procedures processes, how they
- 5:32might handle, for example, emotion to continue a case or a trial,
- 5:38or whether they're gonna not allow you to continue based on certain reasons and that
- 5:44kind of thing you just get used to, so that's going to change.
- 5:47You don't really know who you're getting till they get there, because unless they've
- 5:50been a judge somewhere else. But so Michael Asbury hasn't been a judge anywhere
- 5:56I'm aware of. And then locally for Judge bloom Spot, I think there
- 6:01were like thirteen candidates and and and some some good ones and and uh judge
- 6:09Governor Justice ended up appointing Stephanie Abraham, which is Brian Abraham's He's he was
- 6:15chief general counsel. Maybe he's chief of staff or something for the governor,
- 6:18but it's bron Abraham's wife. And she was slucted out of a list of
- 6:25like twelve or thirteen candidates. A couple of the family court judges in KANACKI
- 6:29I need to learned their name in there, and Sharknock, who either is
- 6:32or at one time was the municipal judge for the city of Charleston. And
- 6:38so there was some good candidates. My personal dealings with Stephanie Abraham she was
- 6:44counsel for Department Education and had some dealings on some administrative matters related to teacher
- 6:49or teacher clients that I had, and and she was good, she was
- 6:54professional, and I thought she was reasonable and and and and easy to communicate
- 6:59with. So that's the only real dealings I've had with her. I think
- 7:02she's done some government well, I actually done some government work. She's working
- 7:06for Apartment of Education, and then she's uh, I think she's doing some
- 7:12real estate here recently, I'm assault. I think I'm not sure where her
- 7:16office is located. But yeah, well, we'll see. From my experience
- 7:23with her, I think she'll be good. I don't think looking at her
- 7:27qualifications that are read in the media that she's really been in the judiciary anywhere.
- 7:31I mean, she wasn't. Maybe she was a law clerk for a
- 7:34while, but she hasn't served as a judge or a decide or anything like
- 7:39that. But it sounds like she's got a pretty well rounded wealth of experience.
- 7:43And when I doubt whether her, she's reasonable. So that'll carry over
- 7:46to her judge ship. Here. Judge Blue is still sitting on he he
- 7:49just continued, because I've got multiple cases obviously before Judge Bloom and he he.
- 7:55When you retire, you can convert to what they call senior status,
- 7:59so you're stillfied to operate as a circuit judge, and you're mostly there to
- 8:03fill gaps when other judges are absent for one reason or another. However,
- 8:07Judge Blim just stayed on and he's still hearing his same case as he just
- 8:11converted to senior status. Assume that will change when she's sworn in. And
- 8:16then, of course they're all judges are ultimately elected circuit judges, so they'll
- 8:20be up for I'll know that Stephanie Abraham will have to run next year,
- 8:24I believe, because that's when Judge Bloom's term expired anyway, So it'll be
- 8:31a non partisan primary time frame election, as I understand. So incumbents all
- 8:39you tend to have the benefit of the of the incumbency. With help and
- 8:45got us to call this one. If you have any questions for Tom Peyton,
- 8:46if you have a legal quagmire you'd like for some advice for or some
- 8:50other observation you want to talk to Tom Peyton about, you give us call
- 8:54this one thy threes or four three, four five fifty. You could text
- 8:56over questions the threes or four nine three five five zeros through eight three or
- 9:00four nine three, five, five zero zero eight for those unfamiliar as far
- 9:03as the kind of the pathology of how the court works at the different levels,
- 9:07and when we talk about a circuit court judge, well, what type
- 9:11of cases are typically in front of the circus. The circuit court is essentially
- 9:16the general jurisdiction trial court. Every county has one, and then the counties
- 9:22sometimes are grouped together in circuits. That's why like Judge Asbury or soon to
- 9:28be Judge Asberry Hill rotate between four different counties and maybe sit in Clay for
- 9:33a week and then go to Gilmour for a week and just keep rotating around.
- 9:37I think they have two judges in that circuit, but no circuit judges
- 9:41are the That's where pretty much any kind of case can be heard unless it's
- 9:46a really small claim and then it goes down to magistrate court versus circuit court.
- 9:52But they handle all felonies, all civil cases regarding ownership of real estate.
- 9:58They are the one to handle a judicial review if you lose a hearing
- 10:03and an administrative level, so you'll lose an unemployment claim or something like that,
- 10:09and then generally you go to I think that's still the case. They
- 10:11revamped some of that, but you end up in circuit court ultimately for all
- 10:16those reviews other than the workers comp workers comps than one where you don't they
- 10:20have their own hearing mechanism, and you never hit the circuit court level.
- 10:26You can appeal up to the Intermediate Court of Appeals now and then ultimately to
- 10:28the Supreme Court. And the course it used to be Circuit Court was the
- 10:35initial trial court and then you just had one more, which was our Supreme
- 10:37Court. Now, of course they've created the Intermediate Court of Appeals, so
- 10:39now we have Circuit Court and another appeal court and then the final appeal court,
- 10:45which is the Supreme Court. And actually International Court or the Intermediate Court
- 10:50of Appeals has only been operating for about a year, but they're pretty active.
- 10:52They've rendered a lot of decisions. But no Circuit judges are extremely important
- 10:58because of the breadth of what they handle. I mean, it's just about
- 11:03they have general jurisdiction. Even they can do family law if if they're if
- 11:07there's a problem with the family court judge, so they can handle divorces,
- 11:09adoptions pretty much. Fun to gamut that and so you know it's extremely important
- 11:16position. Well, the newer court that you were talking about, the Intermediary
- 11:20Court of Appeals, that's only been around for about a year, So that
- 11:24h that you mentioned. I know that you and Harvey talked about that on
- 11:28this program a lot when this was coming about how's that been working out?
- 11:31I know there was some question about its absolute need or necessity in this area.
- 11:35Hasn't been working out? Okay, Yeah, I think so that there's
- 11:37been there were fights in the legislature or debates over it for a number of
- 11:41years. Generally, I would say that the defense bar big business insurance companies
- 11:48one intermediate quart of Appeals creates an extra layer which focus on moss Houthe equation
- 11:54generally don't like, although there's certainly exceptions to all of that because we you
- 11:58know, my goal is get finality from my client and not to drag it
- 12:03out and you know, not appeal every case because some of my clients can't
- 12:07afford to do it. But it's been good, I think, you know,
- 12:13I don't know that I've noticed a whole lot of difference because we're we're
- 12:16getting decisions from the Intermediate Court of Appeals that would have just been decided by
- 12:20the Supreme Court. I haven't had a case go before the Intermediate Court of
- 12:22Appeals yet. I have a few appeals with the Westernia Supreme Court, but
- 12:26they were filed before July one or whatever the deadline was last year for Intermediate
- 12:31Court of Appeals, so I haven't had a chance to experience. But it
- 12:33seems to be working well. I mean, they have published decisions on the
- 12:37website Supreme Court, so you're I don't know, you're getting more decisions.
- 12:41The idea maybe that you're getting more thorough decisions because some of the you know,
- 12:50the docket is reduced for the actual Supreme Court, but I don't know.
- 12:56I mean, you have to the arguments against it were also costs of
- 12:58a STAB. I was seeing it, and I don't know what the budget's
- 13:01been or if they're sticking with it so far. But from the legal side,
- 13:07it really hasn't affected our our practice in any way. And you know,
- 13:11it needs to play out a little more before we can see long term
- 13:15effects from from it. I mean, is it gonna it's hardened one year
- 13:18to say, well, you know, folks that don't have as much money
- 13:22or being abused by this process because it has an extra layer of appeal,
- 13:26and making an afford an extra layer of appeal, you're not going to see
- 13:30that reflected or feel that for I don't think for a few years after it's
- 13:35in place. So one an a cute level, it seems to be running
- 13:37well. I mean, I haven't heard of any problems, and they're they're
- 13:41rendering a lot of decisions, and they've got their docket up already for the
- 13:43fall with some arguments and and so I'm kind of looking I don't have an
- 13:48appeal with them right now. Hopefully I'll get one soon because I'm looking forward
- 13:50to going before the Intermediate Court of Appeals. Tom Peyton with us this morning
- 13:56on asked the lawyer and give us the call three or four three four five
- 13:58fifty fifty eight. If you have a questions about the law that you want
- 14:01to get the Peyton Law Firm to weigh in on, you give us a
- 14:03call this morning at three zero four three four five fifty fifty eight. You
- 14:05can also text over any questions you have to three or four nine three five
- 14:09five zero zero eight. Let's go ahead and do this. Let's get our
- 14:11breakout of the way. We'll get our breakout of the way and kind of
- 14:13reset and come back we have. Then we'll have about twenty minutes left in
- 14:16the program to take your calls, your questions, your text, anything else
- 14:20that might come up. Once again, it's the Peyton Law Firm. One
- 14:22ask the lawyer this morning. Tom Payton is here in studio with us.
- 14:24You can give us a call three or A four three four five fifty eight
- 14:26fifty eight. You can text three zoro four nine three five five zero zero
- 14:30eight. We'll be backward after this. You're listening to ask the lawyer A
- 14:33five eight wc HS the voice of Charles. If you want a lawyer who
- 14:35is no nonsense, hard working and equipped with years of successful experience, you
- 14:41want the Peyton Law Firm. Let Tom and Harvey. You put the power
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- 14:48member, contact the Peyton Law Firm before it's too late. Stay ahead of
- 14:50the game by colleague Peyton Law Firm three oh four seven five five fifty five
- 14:56fifty six or online at Peyton Law Firm dot com. Again the number two
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- 16:07the power of baby on the side. We have the courtroom experiences that at
- 16:15your need. We never give up. We're prepared to fight for your rights.
- 16:22When you need action, count on us. What's the power of Paton
- 16:30on your side? The power of Pathon. You can put the power of
- 16:37Paton on your side this morning and give us call three zero four three four
- 16:40five fifty fifty eight three four five fifty eight fifty eight. You can text
- 16:42over questions at three zero four nine three five five zero zero eight. Jerry
- 16:45did the former. He called on the phone at three zero four, three
- 16:48four five fifty fifty eight to talk to Tom Paython this morning. Jerry,
- 16:51Good morning. How you doing this morning? Good morning, gentlemen, Good
- 16:53morning Jerry. I'm doing just fine. Tom. I have a question for
- 16:56you, and hopefully you can answer it. I was told by a county
- 17:02official recently that West Virginia when it comes to property, and I don't know
- 17:07the exact term for it, but we're basically a non recording states. In
- 17:15other words, you could go back generations and if the property that you own
- 17:22has never been recorded at the county level, that property is basically invisible,
- 17:33and that they don't have to pay property taxes on a property that is not
- 17:40recorded at the county courthouse. And you could pass it down generation to generation,
- 17:49and you know, nobody would really know this except the property owner,
- 17:55and you could sell it to someone and as long as they didn't record it
- 18:02at the county, they too would not have to pay property taxes on this.
- 18:08And I understand we've got hundreds of thousands of acres in West Virginia that
- 18:14are not on the tax books, are not recorded at the county courthouse.
- 18:21And I was wondering if you could explain that. I'm sure you've run across
- 18:25this before and hopefully straightened me out of than what I was told. And
- 18:30I'll hang up and listen. Thank you, Okay, thanks you called Jack.
- 18:34Yeah, so there, you know, when you have a you're talking
- 18:44about going into centuries, want to see a couple of hundred years ago.
- 18:51But when you know you have different pieces of land that are described in deeds,
- 18:56and that's where it starts, and that's the owner deeds initially, well,
- 19:00they should be recorded in the record room. That's how you establish who
- 19:03owns the property initially. So now deeds don't If you took every deed in
- 19:11the Canall County Record Room that are current and you had them all surveyed,
- 19:18there would be gaps. There would of course be overlaps as well, but
- 19:21those gaps and those areas that are not legally described could be properties. Like
- 19:26Jerry was referencing. Now, when when you say a recording state, So
- 19:33that and I've actually got an interesting case right now pending which I won't go
- 19:37into too much because it's pending. But if I want to transfer my property,
- 19:44I mean somebody's got to have something of record to show who owned it
- 19:47initially. Now beyond that, there could be no additional deeds recorded. People
- 19:52die, That's how you get airship property. So in fact, different people
- 19:56own it than the deed of record because the deed of recor could be one
- 20:00hundred and fifty years old for a piece of property, for example. And
- 20:03I'm not sure all that applies tax wise. It all just depends for property
- 20:08tax purposes whether they are still sending out a tax ticket and some person's name,
- 20:14you know, deceased one hundred hundred years ago. But there's there's definitely
- 20:18going to be gaps in property now when you talk about a record state.
- 20:22So back to what I was saying, If I if I own or my
- 20:27great great great grandparents owned property, and I think I inherited an interest in
- 20:34it, but nothing's been recorded to show that. Since the one of my
- 20:40great great grates passed away, I can still have a deed drafted describing that
- 20:45property, and I can sign it and give it to and you pay me
- 20:52two thousand dollars for whatever My interest isn't that property? And I signed the
- 20:55deed, not deliver it to you, and you pay me, you own
- 20:57that property even though you haven't recorded that deed. Now the problem is that,
- 21:03I mean that's under West Virginia law. Because you've paid, I've delivered
- 21:07the deed, signed it, you're in possession of it, assuming I owned
- 21:12it, but nobody else knows that you own it because you haven't recorded it.
- 21:18So in West Virginia, generally, when you're talking about deeds to land,
- 21:22recording legally puts the public on notice that a transaction has occurred, and
- 21:30here's the new owner. So if you if you don't bother recording that deed
- 21:37and I go out and deed it to somebody else. Later they go look
- 21:42at the title at the court alis and said, well, yeah, Tom
- 21:45still owns it because there's no other deeds recorded. Or I pass away and
- 21:52my heirs don't know that I had already delivered a deed to you and you'd
- 21:56paid for it, they could convey their interest to someone else who also I
- 22:00wouldn't know Dale Cooper has any ownership interest in it at all, because Dale
- 22:03didn't bother to record his deed to let everyone know. Now, then you
- 22:08record your deed later after I've already conveyed it to somebody else from my heirs
- 22:11have, then you got a fight about who actually owns it. So it's
- 22:19the if the people that got it after you paid for it, for example,
- 22:26and they had no reason to know that you already had an ownership interest
- 22:30in it, and I could not convey it to these new folks, they
- 22:32can actually still be the owners because you failed to record the document. But
- 22:36so it's kind of a it's a record notice state. So if you don't
- 22:41bother recording it, you still own it legally, but you could also be
- 22:48subject to future folks claims of ownership because you didn't record it and put everybody
- 22:53on notice that you're now the owner. Does that makes sense? It's kind
- 22:57of complicated. So it's a it's a I think what Jerry was referencing.
- 23:02It's not a meeting. You can own land in West Virginia having received your
- 23:07ownership via a deed from someone else, and you in fact legally own it
- 23:12even though you haven't recorded the deed. But it could put you in jeopardy.
- 23:18It doesn't if there's a dispute against it. It's there's no I've counseled
- 23:23people a few times on this in the last few months of holding there's I
- 23:29advise against ever holding deeds if you're going to need property to someone via gift
- 23:33or sell it. Usually this happens in a gift scenario. Grand Dad will
- 23:40say I want need this to grand sign, and then you do the deed,
- 23:44and you know they don't want us to record it for him, so
- 23:47they take it. Well, then he never gives it to his grands never
- 23:49hands the deed over, I never records it. Things happen like I talked
- 23:55about earlier, and then he somebody tries to record it later and it just
- 23:59becomes a men So I don't think there's any reason to have a deed drafted
- 24:04and executed unless you're ready to record it, because it's just gonna it can
- 24:08just create I've had a multitude of scenarios over my career where we get into
- 24:12litigation because folks held deeds and things like that, and it just can become
- 24:18a mass because you have who possessed that, did they pay for it,
- 24:21when was it recorded compared to when other things were recorded, What was happening
- 24:25with the property during the time period. When you know the deed was drafted
- 24:27but never delivered or recorded, it just becomes a mess. So I if
- 24:33anybody's out there that has these deeds laying around that you know you've received property
- 24:37from someone else and have not recorded the deed that you received, or you're
- 24:41thinking about deeding property to someone else as a gift, I wouldn't first of
- 24:48all, record your your documents if you have them and you're the recipient,
- 24:53and if you're thinking about giving property to someone, just don't. Don't have
- 25:00the lawyer draft the deed until you know that you're ready to take action with
- 25:04it. Because you just got him laying these deeds laying around. You know,
- 25:07it could be that grandpa changed his mind about grandson getting the property,
- 25:12but he still had the old deed laying around. He just daver tore it
- 25:15up and it's there. And then somebody finds it, and somebody records it,
- 25:18and it just becomes a mess. So I I strongly just in my
- 25:25office, if I end up learning after a daftedded that they're going to hold
- 25:29a sign deed somewhere, I want me to hold it. I generally just
- 25:33avoid that deed and say come back. You know, we'll redate it,
- 25:37reprint it, and get it ready when you're ready to move forward. But
- 25:38you don't want to have this sign deed laying around. This happened to me
- 25:44in Michigan, so I imagine, but I think that the cause and effect
- 25:45was somewhat similar to what Jerry was talking about here. Once upon a time,
- 25:49I was manager at a at a mortgage broker firm, and I got
- 25:56involved in a deal just for a minute, and I got out of it
- 25:57because it was way too complicated. But I think what happened is that the
- 26:00patriarch of the family had kind of dealt with his family for years and sort
- 26:06of maybe not buying them off, but rewarding them with land that he owned.
- 26:11But he would do it in like deeds that you know, they just
- 26:14kept in like a drawer or trunk or whatever else. And it ended up
- 26:17upon his death. He also had this land otherwise allocated in some way,
- 26:21shape or form, probably in his will. Yeah, exactly, yeah,
- 26:23in his will, and it didn't match with the deeds that he had been
- 26:26given. So it seemed like from the outside looking in, it looked like
- 26:30Grandpaul was sitting there, Oh, Johnny, you're such a good boy.
- 26:33Here's a piece of land that you can take and you can do whatever you
- 26:34want with. But then he would also give it to somebody else in the
- 26:38family. I mean he gave it to somebody else actually legally in the deed.
- 26:41It was a complete mess I had to step away from the from my
- 26:45end of it, because it was just it was way too messy. But
- 26:47I imagine that's the type of thing that could come over either maybe he was
- 26:49even a little see now or something, and he had no idea that he
- 26:52was even doing it. But you should always protect yourself. On the VACA
- 26:55gets those things recorded, could be record him or I mean, you never
- 26:59know because even in a scenarire like that, for example, I mean,
- 27:02people come when they when folks come to our office for state planning, it's
- 27:06confidential. You know, if they want one chat, one child to sit
- 27:10in. Sometimes I'll let them during the conversation part, but not usually.
- 27:15Usually it's it depends on each situation, but it's a it's a it's a
- 27:18confidential meeting, and what you know will is not published until you pass away,
- 27:25generally, and so it's really not anybody's business what you're doing with your
- 27:29property when you pass away, unless you want to make it someone else's business,
- 27:33which happens a lot with families of course. But you get into situations
- 27:37where sometimes you'll have and this is probably you know, bouncing off your scenario,
- 27:45but Papaul will tell grandson A, Yeah, yeah, you're going to
- 27:49get this property, because you know, that's what Grandpaul know his grandson A
- 27:56wants to hear. And then he might tell Grandpa and son BE something that's
- 28:00a little different, because that's who grandson beat, what Grandson B wants to
- 28:06hear, and Grandpa knows it. Now when he comes to my office in
- 28:07private decides to do as a state plan, he might do something completely different
- 28:11and they can't enforce any of these gift promises, so that I see that
- 28:17sometimes too, it's like, well, no, you know, Grandpa said
- 28:19I was going to get this I said, well, yeah, that's what
- 28:22he told you, but I mean that might not be what he actually did,
- 28:25and it may not be anything you know where they he meant to lie.
- 28:27It's just people like to please other people and especially family members, and
- 28:30so you know, you tend to get conversations like that. But yes,
- 28:34your scenario is a good one. People find those deeds laying around. One
- 28:38of them is one of the grandkids that's a recipient or thought he or she
- 28:41was a recipient of the property. They go and record it. Then you
- 28:45got these being recorded. Sometimes will will maybe being probated that says something different,
- 28:51and it just becomes a mess. And to me, you know,
- 28:53if you're going to pass down your property, one of the things you want
- 28:56to do is keep your family out of litigation so that they actually get a
- 29:00gifts and not just get it in a lawsuit where everybody's paying lawyers a lot
- 29:03of money to try and get it resolved. So that's what we do with
- 29:06the state planning, make sure eBay's clear and try and make things smooth when
- 29:08they pass away so things are get where they wanted to go. Looks like,
- 29:15looks like we had a caller offline, I didn't want to go in
- 29:17the air, but it was a follow up on this, and I think
- 29:18Jerry kind of mentioned this, and you may have even covered this already in
- 29:22passing, but I want to make sure to answer the question directly. A
- 29:23caller wants to know if a property has never been recorded, do you also
- 29:26never have to pay taxes on it? And that's kind of what Jerry was
- 29:29alluding. Yeah, but I mean I don't know how that would ever have.
- 29:34Yes, No, there can be I think call it like non entered
- 29:37land. I mean there are lands that aren't taxed, for sure, But
- 29:41who owns it? I mean that's the if if nobody now, somebody owns
- 29:45it, it's just a matter of figuring it out. So it would have
- 29:48to be a piece of property that nobody ever knew existed, if we're there
- 29:51to be no taxes on it, right. There might be exceptions to that,
- 29:56but generally, yeah, I mean there are certainly areas like I talked
- 30:00about before, where there's going to be gaps and the deeds and then it
- 30:06won't be taxed. They try to not have those gaps, and so yes,
- 30:11you certainly have some. But when you say the property owner doesn't pay
- 30:15the tax. But I mean you got to go back to who really owns
- 30:18the property. I mean, if if there's this area there that's a gap
- 30:23between the deed descriptions and Dale's been farming it for forty years, well you
- 30:30own it probably by the doctrine of adverse possession because you just used it like
- 30:33you owned it for so long and nobody's kept you from using it. But
- 30:37that doesn't that's not on record anywhere that you're the owner. So it's you
- 30:42know, the question is who doesn't have to pay the tax. Nobody's getting
- 30:45tax because nobody really owns it on record. Does that mean if you did
- 30:51go on record then like you were going to sell the property officially finally or
- 30:55something along those lines, that you could actually discover you had back taxes,
- 30:59like if you had a piece of probably that never got recorded, and then
- 31:00I don't think so. Not necessarily, Okay, I don't think so.
- 31:03And you would have to know that scenario where you're trying to argue you ended
- 31:06a piece by use or you're gonna have to join any other interested parties and
- 31:10follow lawsuit to get the title quiet, I can say you got it by
- 31:15adverse possession but that's a factual scenario that can only be You can only get
- 31:21title via adverse possession by court order basically from a circuit court, unless you,
- 31:26I mean, you can get agreements with adjoining owners that you are the
- 31:30owner because you have adverse possession, but they've got us sign deeds to confirm
- 31:33that. Otherwise you got to follow wall sitting courts. So it's yes you
- 31:37it's complicated, but yes you would. You can quiet title and get ownership
- 31:41of it, and then I don't think they're going to go back and love
- 31:44you a big back tax on at that point. Give us a call today
- 31:48if you have any questions for Tom Payton before we leave the airways. We
- 31:52have about five minutes left. You give us call three or four, three
- 31:53four five fifty fifty eight, three four, five fifty fifty eight. You
- 31:56can text over any questions you have to three or four nine, three five
- 31:59five zeros or eight. We opened up the show where we're talking about some
- 32:01of the moves among the judiciary on the benches and h and folks that were
- 32:08or retiring or or achieving a different state. One of the things that one
- 32:13of the things that I've noticed over over the years and and this this kind
- 32:17of I guess ties back into politics a little bit. You don't see it
- 32:21as much around here. We've had a couple of people that's tried to turn
- 32:23judges into the story or part of the story or something like that. But
- 32:27one thing I've noticed in the last couple of years is it seems like,
- 32:30and I don't know if it's because of social media or if it's because people
- 32:31get more belly heard over over over legal decisions or something like that, it
- 32:37seems like that there's in some cases it's media or it's some people who they
- 32:42outscored the media that that try to basically make judges famous like it. And
- 32:49it's not just you know, the Supreme Court at some level you have some
- 32:51understanding of that because of the positions that they hold, but it seems like
- 32:54it at state level cases and local cases and stuff like that, Suddenly judges
- 32:59being threatened and getting their address published. It's it's not that that never happened
- 33:02in the past, but it seems like that's almost becoming commonplace. Another thing
- 33:07that judges have to consider when you're going into judiciary and you're making I mean,
- 33:10intimidation is part of the point right. I mean, I feel like
- 33:14that that's something obviously, I mean, I obviously, but you know,
- 33:17I'm just trying to think about it just became so prevalent with the Trump side
- 33:25of the equation. That's what I saw, man. Just now, it's
- 33:29just kind of you get a tolerance to it, right to move the what
- 33:31they call the overdon window. Right now, it's kind of normal to threaten,
- 33:35which is completely inappropriate, and judges are have their hands tied in a
- 33:39way because they can only say so much being judicial officers. And their chief
- 33:44Justice Roberts put something out about it a couple maybe a couple of years ago,
- 33:47but that that criticism of the judiciary is just permated from there down to
- 33:54down to our local level here where you get a decision you don't like on
- 33:58a quote political issue you and then instead of addressing the merits of the decision,
- 34:02you personally attack the judicial officer, which has happened here on multiple occasion,
- 34:07which seems like every way he thinks they have a route to the Supreme
- 34:08Court too, Yeah, all the time, you know, and the US
- 34:13Supreme Court. Yeah, there's there's some people have a route there. Apparently.
- 34:15It seems like that that kind of with some gifting. Hey, we're
- 34:20running out of town a little bit, but I wanted to do Dad's gonna
- 34:22come on, I think, uh and do his uh Mountaineer football prediction.
- 34:27You've got your own. I've got my own, and we kind of tracked
- 34:30this through the season, see you. So I'll run through it here real
- 34:32quick. Now this this was a painstaking analysis. Uh, crunch the numbers,
- 34:37ten minutes working on the okay, but that's what football deserves. It's
- 34:43not that serious. It's just all right. So I'll run through him here
- 34:46for the mine are usually I think the trim between Dad and I'm a little
- 34:51more optimistic than he is. He goes in with the pessimistic. You don't
- 34:54keep your records of it, so we don't have like forty years of a
- 34:58no. Okay, we have to go find the Usually I want to forget
- 35:02my prediction out of the season because it's way off. But hey, we'll
- 35:07run through it. So we of course we start off in Happy Valley.
- 35:08I think it's a night game. I'm not going. I kind of would
- 35:12like to go, but not this year. That's gonna be an l I
- 35:15think we might play Okay, it's first game of season. Surprise them.
- 35:17Penn State's got a lot more depth and talent, but we got that underdog
- 35:22mentality coming to this season. So I think we lose, but we're losing
- 35:25a close one, maybe ten points, maybe thirteen. And then we play
- 35:30Dukeane at home. That's got to be a win. Pitt at home night
- 35:32game seven thirty Saturday night in September. I'm gonna go with a win for
- 35:37WU. Okay. Then we stay Texas Tech at home. I'm gonna go
- 35:40win there too. It's an hour three on one. Although one of them's
- 35:45lower division team, that's okay, you gotta win those right. Then we
- 35:47go. We'll just run through this real quick. At TCU at Houston loss
- 35:52loss. I hate to lose to Houston because they got Holgerson there. But
- 35:57hitting the road two weeks in a row, use highly ranked. There's two
- 36:01els. Then we got Oklahoma State at home loss. I think that Gundy
- 36:07has our number, the coach from home when another new conference member, and
- 36:13then we got to go at Oklahoma. Love to say we'd win out one,
- 36:15but I got to put an ell there. And then Cincinnati home win
- 36:20at better loss, So that leaves us at six and six. So I
- 36:22think that's pretty optimistic. I think a lot of I think a lot of
- 36:24fans would take that. Now, the question is with Neil Brown keep his
- 36:28job at six? That's the debate borderline. I think I would depends on
- 36:31the combination of the wins. Oh, that's true. I think if if
- 36:35they do what I've got down here, I'll bet he keeps his job.
- 36:38If you beat Pitt, if you beat one of the two between Pitt and
- 36:40Penn State cheeses, are you might be able to think that. Yeah,
- 36:45I mean he's beaten on mine. He's mostly be They're beating a lot of
- 36:47the newcomers. But you know, since he's been good, boy, he's
- 36:51good. So six and six Neil Brown keeps his job. Peyton Law Firm.
- 36:53You can find out more information online Peyton Law from dot com. Peyton
- 36:57Law from dot com located in Nitro, West Virginia. Of course, seven
- 36:59five fifty five fifty six. Seven five five fifty five fifty six is the
- 37:02number. Tom. Thank you so much for a coming one today. We
- 37:05appreciate it and do it see you next time. We'll see you guys next
- 37:07week. On the on I asked the law your next third day on five
- 37:09AD w c HS, the Voice of Charleston. W c HS A W
- 37:17two four three d r F M Charleston and W two eight three hqu Cross
- 37:21Lanes, w VRC Media Station. We are proud to live here too,