Yes, we are live. A little bit. Show before the show. One minute. YouTube is our good old reliable, always there, never fails.
Oh, okay. It shows that we are live. Such a fun picture. The last weekend in April. It really is. The older you get, the quicker the year goes. And find out how you can save on your next legal dispute.
Happy Friday, Facebook and YouTube. Welcome to Disclosure Live with Brandy Austin Law. I’m Brandy Austin with… Veronica Montaner. It is April 27th. It is the very last weekend in April and we’re just talking about how the year has gone by so fast and it feels like the older you get, the faster it goes. Yes.
So on today’s episode, we wanted to dive into how you can save money and resolve legal issues. Everybody will have a dispute or something that comes up that they felt like they were wronged, and there are ways that you can get around having to go to court. So we’re going to talk about that today. I know that we get consults almost daily for stuff like this, and the biggest issue is money. Yes. Right? Because sometimes the dispute isn’t worth as much. So we’re going to talk about that today.
So anyway, let’s go ahead and cover the fun things. You know, we do the day of and the local news, so let’s start with the first one. Okay, today we’re starting off with National Arbor Day. National Arbor Day is observed each year on the last Friday in April. It is a holiday in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant and care for trees. The trees provide vital protection for the earth’s topsoil from erosion, oxygen, and
Homes for Wildlife. We love trees. We do. There are also renewable resources that provide a variety of materials for building, for fuel, and office supplies. So next up, it’s National Tell a Story Day. So what does this mean? Do we tell a story about anything or something specific? Well, this is a day to encourage people to tell all kinds of stories. So it’s from reading a book, from your own imagination, telling a story from your childhood.
It’s just a day to get together with friends and family and share stories. I have a year and a half year old and a five year old, and we tell a lot of stories in our house. We read a lot of books about where is baby’s belly button, where are baby’s eyes, so I’m very familiar with telling stories. Okay, so I wanted to talk about what this weekend is about.
It’s sales tax holiday weekend. Yes. Okay. So most people know that we get a sales tax relief for back to school items and that happens in the end of July, first part of August, like right before school starts. But this weekend is emergency preparation supplies tax free weekend. So that means on your emergency supplies,
And there’s no limit on the number of items that you buy and you don’t need any sort of exemption certificate or anything like that beginning Saturday, April or like 12, 1 a.m. tonight all the way to midnight on Monday. You can get tax-free emergency supplies. So what types of items qualify for this weekend?
,000 –> ,000
So it’s everything from generators, I think, under 3,000 to smoke detectors, all sorts of things. If you could use it for emergency preparation, then it will be included. There’s no limit on the amount that you get, but it does not include things like chainsaws. So I guess if you’re trying to plan to…
for the zombie apocalypse, or cutting yourself out of your house if something happens. That’s not included, but if you need batteries for your smoke detector, that might be included. I’m not sure about the batteries, but the smoke detector is definitely included. So, let’s talk about some local things going on. We have the International Folk Art Market. It will return to Arlington for the second year. This is where more than 40 master folk artists from 30 different countries will exhibit and sell
their handmade artworks. It’s a three-day market and it’s going to be set from June 14th to the 16th and held at the College Park at the University of Texas in Arlington. Bringing art to Arlington is really something that I’m advocating for with certain people on a regular basis, but I enjoy art festivals. I enjoyed the one last weekend in Fort Worth.
I am looking forward to folk art. It’s very specialized. There’s some really great folk art painters and sculptors and handmade items and things like that. Okay, so something bad to talk about, but it’s important that we know. Two firefighters and a water utility worker were injured and hospitalized because of a natural gas leak in central Arlington. Okay, so if any of you guys follow the local news or watch TV that has commercials in it,
A lot of people don’t. You know about the recent gas leaks and deaths. There was an explosion, and a little girl died, and there have been multiple homes exploding. There was one, I believe, even a week and a half ago, a little clip came around. So anyway, what’s going on? So Atmos may be in a little bit of hot water for maybe, allegedly…
not maintaining their lines, the gas lines properly. So they have a commercial on TV now that if you smell gas, like then you call 911. So we want to make sure that everybody in the area who knows or maybe doesn’t follow the local news and maybe doesn’t watch TV with commercials. Please, please, please. If you smell gas in your house, call 911.
or leave and call 911 and don’t return until somebody official clears it. And also call Atmos and call and call and call and call because it’s their fault. I think, I don’t know. It’s alleged. Yeah. And if you do need to work on the home, call a professional to do it. That’s my recommendation. Yeah. A lot of them are DIY. That’s okay. But just have somebody on backup. Yes. Okay. So let’s talk about the main,
topic for the day and this is resolving disputes. Regular disputes between regular people or small businesses and let’s just go with the quickest and easiest thing that we know. What’s one easy way to let someone know you’re serious about a specific issue or a way that you’ve been wronged? Submitting a demand letter. Alright, so what exactly is a demand letter? So a demand letter is a simple way to clearly state what it is that you’re wanting from another party. So it could be
money, as she had mentioned earlier, an item, or just something to resolve an issue without having to go to court. Okay. There are so many different types of demand letters. This is not for one single issue. It can often be a demand for payment. Did you loan someone money and they didn’t pay you back? Did you do a service for someone and they didn’t pay you for that service? A cease and desist letter was like if…
If someone is putting pictures of you on the internet that you don’t want them to put on the internet, you can send them a letter. It can be pretty much anything. Anything. It’s a wide range of areas. So what exactly can a demand letter do for you? Well, a lot. One, you let someone know that you’re absolutely serious about this issue, that it’s important to you, so important that you have taken the time to either write a demand letter and send it to someone else, or you’ve hired an attorney
to crop a demand letter for you. And generally, if you’ve hired an attorney to do it, an attorney will have looked at it and said, well, at least there’s something there. So what happens after you do send? Is there a time frame for response? Or what’s the average then? So it varies per item. So for contracts, there will generally be a clause in the contract.
So if it says you demand payment and then 30 days they have to cure, which means to fix the problem or respond. But there are other things like DCPA claims that even before you can file a lawsuit, you’re required to send a letter stating the claims, what you believe happened, what you want, and they get 60 days to respond. So in a cease and desist letter can be you have three days to immediately stop.
stop or respond or whatever. So the demand letter has a varying timeframe depending on the issue that’s presented and what the law is. And it’s not just in Texas. I believe there’s something, I mean, I know there’s something similar in all states. So each state will have a different kind of requirement. It’s basically giving someone an opportunity to resolve an issue prior to court intervention
which saves tax dollars, right? So an attorney is required to present a demand letter? So an attorney doesn’t have to be the one that sends it. Any person can write a demand letter. It’s a letter that formalizes your complaints and requests something in return of some sort. But, so some demand letters have to be specific, like DTPA claim letters. There’s very specific wording that you have to put in them
for them to be effective. Otherwise, you have to do it again. So you have to start the 60-day clock over again if you’re not complete in your letter. So also, I’ve found that it doesn’t really have as much of a bite. If it comes from a regular person, then it’s still a demand letter. But if it comes from an attorney, somebody’s like, oh my god, I got this letter. It was in the certified mail.
It’s like fancy paper with a logo. And you’re serious. You are serious. Somebody’s looked at it, and we get calls on it when people receive those letters, too, for assistance with responding, which we do. A lot of attorneys can help with that as well. Do you know any other reasons why you think it might be beneficial? I think it’s beneficial to have an attorney just because it gives you an opportunity to kind of lay out your situation clearly.
I think a lot of people get maybe emotional, frustrated, angry about the situation, and this gives them an opportunity to kind of have a third person look at it on a more legal basis to make sure you do have proper claims to move forward. An attorney will just be honest. Yes. And they’re required to be honest. If your attorney’s not honest, then that’s not so much the best thing.
person, but an attorney is required to be honest and fairly and accurately to the best of their ability and the best of the, with the information that you’ve provided. Not everybody provides all information all the time up front. Yes. And they’re required to give you kind of what, if somebody else broke the law or contract or whatever and what your remedies could be. Correct.
and so the demand letters kind of formalization of that yes um there are other ways to resolve disputes attorneys can they can assist with negotiation like if you’ve entered into something or if you have received a contract um and you’re not really sure if that contract is right or if there’s a clause in there that you don’t want um attorneys can negotiate on your behalf just for that service um they can also mediate a dispute between two parties so
I have taken all of the required mediation courses and I’m all CLE’d up on mediation. And so a good idea sometimes is if you’re having a dispute with, say, a neighbor about a tree or something, if we’ve actually had a case about a tree, then it might be a good idea to find a mediator to just kind of resolve the issue.
it’s a good way to get two people in a room, or not in the same room, in a building, to sit down and kind of resolve things. And I know that you handle a lot of small claims cases as well.
People come in and they want to resolve the disputes, and it’s much cheaper to go through small claims court, right? Correct, it is. And it kind of gets to the point, too. So the demand letter is kind of a good starting point for a lot of people. I think it’s good to recommend that at first. And if that’s not resolved, then, yeah, small claims court would be our next. There is a limit of what the damages can be in small claims court, right? Yes, it needs to be less than $10,000 for that.
And a lot, most people, general civil issues, unless something else is involved, are going to be under $10,000. Yeah. Sometimes you get some vehicle issues like repairs and things like that. Maybe house or foundation is going to be a little bit more. Real estate issues are more of a specialized area law. You know, foundation or builders issues, construction defects. That’s just, that’s its own thing. Correct, yeah. A little bit more complicated on that side, yeah.
So on small claims cases, it still costs money to hire an attorney. We all receive a paycheck. It is a business at the end of the day. But we do offer affordable ways for people. And I know a lot of attorneys in the state of Texas offer affordable ways for people to hire attorneys. So you can have a flat fee basis if you want an attorney to handle the majority of the case. But there’s also coaching and limited scope agreements. So that’s essentially where…
You represent yourself, but an attorney assists you in maybe preparing the documents or preparing your argument or writing out your questions or something like that. So you don’t have to pay quite as much, but there is somebody there to assist you. That’s a good option to have as well. Yes. So, okay. So don’t forget, on May 2nd, we are inviting every one of you to our Cinco de Mayo party. It’s the fifth anniversary of the firm. 2013, I started the firm with, you know,
Not much, and here we are. There are going to be a ton of people here, more than 100 people. Don’t worry, the police department is aware. We are going to have the back patio open. There’s a margarita machine and beer tasting for those of you over 21. Under 21 is still invited because we have a taco bar and all sorts of fun things. And we really just want to show our appreciation to the community, the local community, our clients.
And pretty much everyone that’s been involved with us or helped us in any way over the past five years. So what is, let’s see, I guess that’s it. Is there anything else that we can join us for the fiesta? We’ve got decor. We’re ready. Amazon, right? Oh, Amazon is raising their prices.
The Amazon Prime is going from $99 to $119. Oh, thank you. I didn’t know that. Yes, it just happened. It will go up in June. So it will renew in June. It’s going to be harder for them to take over the world if they keep raising their prices. But, you know, it’s up to them. Maybe they wanted to bring one of their second headquarters here to North Texas. I think we’re still on the list. Anyway, have a safe weekend. Don’t drink and drive. We will see you next week. And happy Friday. Happy Friday. Bye.
And bye YouTube. Staying strong. Hanging out. See you next week.
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