Self Help Divorce Legal Representation In Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

What does it mean to work with a self help divorce legal representation company in Santa Clarita?

Essentially it means that we provide a self help service.  As a self help divorce service, you are technically representing yourself.  We are here to assist you in preparing your divorce documents, explain the process of divorce and to keep your case moving.

We do just about everything, however we are not allowed to give you legal advice and we cannot represent you in court.  What this means is that if you do have legal questions that we cannot answer you simply need to have a consultation with an attorney, get your questions answered and then we can proceed as normal.

Many times, we will ask the divorce attorneys down the hall from our office a question here or there on your behalf if it is something that is pretty straight forward.

What started out as a divorce service where we only handled straight forward and simple divorces in Santa Clarita, we are finding that people have contested divorce cases that they are trying to get through, but just don’t have the financial resources to hire an attorney.

Sometimes this means helping them to file a motion for attorney fees so they can get a judge to order the other party pay so they can hire an attorney, and sometimes we will take them all the way through their contested divorce case.

We can get you through complicated divorce matters, but just realize the you will be the one going to court.  Surprisingly our clients are not bashful and do a great job appearing in court and representing themselves.

It works out pretty good actually and is a huge costs savings.  You work with us to prepare all your divorce documents and when you need legal advice you just need to seek out an attorney on a consultation basis only.  Then, when it is time for court, you simply show up and handle the matter on your own.

If you are looking for self help divorce legal representation in Santa Clarita please give us a call.

We Only Handle Divorce In Palmdale & Lancaster

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you are going to get divorced, shouldn’t you use a company that specializes in divorce?  I believe your should.  Like I have said in the past, if you are going to have surgery, wouldn’t you want the most experienced you could find?

That said, I was doing a routine Google search to see who is offering divorce services in Palmdale and Lancaster.  I noticed there are a handful of companies that market themselves as document preparation services.

I further noticed that these document preparation companies offer all sorts of legal services.  They are saying that they can do just about any type of legal filing you need.

Here is my question.  How can you be good at any one thing when you offer so many different services?  The answer is that you cannot.

Look, we only do divorce cases.  Day in and day out it is divorce.  Divorce is a complex and difficult process to get through and the rules are changing all the time.  You have to know much more than just which boxes to check off.

We have worked for the Los Angeles County Superior courts and understand not only how to expertly prepare the divorce forms, but we understand the why behind them.  We also know how the actual procedure of divorce works with the court.

All we are saying is that if you are going to get divorced anywhere in Palmdale or Lancaster, you should be using our service.  We don’t cost anymore than the other folks.  So it is not going to cost you any extra to work for the best divorce company in the Antelope Valley.

Our main divorce offices are in the Santa Clarita Valley and are now offering our services in the Antelope Valley.  Most of our divorce cases are handled completely online or over the phone.

Don’t Fall Victim To Cheap Online Divorce Document Providers | California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you are searching for online for divorce assistance in California you will undoubtedly find many cheap and low cost services.

I want you to understand the difference between a professional document preparation service and what these online services provide so you can make a decision on which is best suited for you.

I am looking at a Google search I just did for “cheap divorce”.  What you will find is divorce document preparation companies offering services as low as $89.95 for do-it-yourself kits.  Others are selling what is referred to as “automated document assembly” where you fill out an online questionnaire which will auto populate the divorce forms.

So let’s discuss a couple of these options.

Do It Yourself Divorce Kits 

Do it yourself kits are exactly that.  You pay for them to send you the divorce forms.  You will receive a box with a lot of  forms, many that you will never need.  By the way, all the divorce forms are available at the Court House or online completely free.  There is absolutely no reason to pay for your forms, but many do all the time.

Automated Document Assembly

Automated document assembly is where you answer questions online and your answers are automatically populated into the divorce forms.  It seems like a good idea at first glance, until you realize the limitations.

Here are the problems with this type of service.

  1. There is nobody there to tell you if you are providing the correct information.
  2. The divorce forms are usually not updated to the correct version.
  3. They don’t provide you with the local forms for your County.
  4. Nobody reviews your documents.  Once you save and print, you are on your own.
  5. There is no assistance with the “process” of filing and serving your documents.

I actually purchased the licensing rights at one point to sell an automated document assembly.  I had people use it and realized immediately the pitfalls and shortcomings of the software.  These types of systems have not place in a complex process such as divorce.

Full Service Divorce Document Preparation

This is what we provide, a full service divorce document preparation service.  We are licensed and bonded legal document preparers that specialize in divorce in Los Angeles County.  We have worked for the courts and for large law firms and are familiar with the process and how to correctly complete the paperwork.

Here is what you get with our service.

  1. We complete all your documents. No Questionnaires.
  2. We file all your documents with the court.  You won’t go to court.
  3. We inform you step by step of the procedure along the way.  Trust me, you will have lots of questions.
  4. We are available by phone and email to answer all your questions.

I provided this run down of the different services because I was getting too many people calling me for help with their divorce who had already wasted their money on purchasing their forms or the automated document assembly service only to be left with nothing more than paper for their trash.

So You Want To Learn About Divorce In Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you want to learn about divorce in Santa Clarita you have come to the right spot.  We are Santa Clarita’s authority on divorce.

If you are considering getting a divorce you will want to do your homework to learn about the process and what it is going to take to get through the process.

We have provided many tools for you to use to conduct your research about the divorce process.  We feel it is important that you understand the process of divorce so you can decide how you are going to go about it.

Are you going to hire and attorney?  Are you going to attempt to complete your divorce on your own?  Or maybe you want to use a divorce service like we provide.  Either way, you should know what your options are before you decide to do anything.

So, we have lots of tools for you to use when researching information about divorce.

First, you have our blog. You are on it right now.  We have written over 500 articles about divorce, the divorce process including self help tips and “How To” articles.

The next thing you can utilize is our YouTube channel.  We have done lots of videos about divorce.  You will find a link on our website or you can use this link. Santa Clarita Divorce Videos.

Now, if you are driving your car or don’t have access to your computer, you can always listen to our podcasts.  We try to duplicate a lot of the material we write about and do videos on and include them in our podcasts so you can listen to the information instead of reading it or watching it.  You can visit our PodCast by going to this link.  Santa Clarita Divorce Podcast.  You will also see a link on our site to our SoundCloud podcasts on divorce.

So whether you enjoy reading, watching or listening, we got you covered.  When you are ready to talk and have your questions answered please give us a call.

Join Our Santa Clarita Divorce Service Community On Google Plus

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We continue to find ways to help people going through divorce in Santa Clarita.  As we dive into the social media scene we have decided to build a community on Google Plus.  We have created the first Santa Clarita Divorce Service Community on Google+.

To check out our Santa Clarita Divorce Service G+ Community Click This Link.

Google Plus has not seen a very large audience yet.  We are definitely getting in early on this and hope that it eventually develops into something.  As it stands now, we are the only company that posts our divorce self help articles on Google+ anywhere in the Los Angeles County Area.

If you hashtag #SantaClaritaDivorce or #LosAngelesDivorce or even just #Divorce, we are one of the only companies that comes up.  We have posted videos, podcasts and our blog posts to Google Plus which can all be found by searching by hashtag or by joining our Santa Clarita Divorce Service community.

This is just one more way for us to get the word out about our affordable divorce service in Los Angeles County.  We are still the only non-attorney legal service in Santa Clarita and are the only legal service that specializes only on divorce in all of Los Angeles County.

Were not sure if the whole divorce community thing will take off or not.  I mean, will people really post their questions there so we can help them out.  Because you have to have a Google account there may be a lack of privacy.  Divorce is a private matter and I am not sure if people will post questions if their profile can be seen by others.  Only time will tell.

At the very least, we can post our own comments and link our blog articles there so people can simply visit the G+ community.

If you have questions about divorce, we would love to hear from you whether you join our Sana Clarita Divorce Service Community or simply give us a call.

 

 

How To Dismiss Your California Divorce Case | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I had two clients in the last 2 months decide they wanted to reconcile with their spouse.  This article will discuss how you go about dismissing or cancelling your California Divorce case.

The six month cooling off period in California is there for exactly this reason.  Imagine if you could divorce in one day.  How many people would have to get remarried.  People do decide to try and make their marriage work after one of the parties have filed for divorce.

Before we talk about the exact way to file for a dismissal to cancel your case, you should consider this.

If you cancel your divorce case, and later decide it is not going to work out, you will have to re-file for divorce.  This means paying the filing fee again and having to do all the paperwork again.  Essentially, you will have to start over.

One thing you may want to consider is to just let the divorce case sit with the court while you attempt to work things out.  If your spouse has been served already then it is unlikely that the courts will send you anything in the mail or request you to go to a hearing.  However, if you have not had your spouse served, you can expect that they will set a hearing to follow up on how the process is going.

If after reading this you still want to file for a dismissal of your California divorce, here is what you do.  You will need to file a form CIV-110 – Request For Dismissal.  This is a generic form that is used for many types of cases, not just divorce cases.  If you need to get a free copy of the form, simply search for “Fillable CIV-110” and you will be able to download a copy.

Here is a couple of rules to follow when filing a CIV-110 – Request For Dismissal of your family law case.

If you have filed and your spouse has not filed a response then only you (the Petitioner) need complete, sign and file the dismissal.  If your spouse has filed a Response in the family law case, they too will have to sign the consent to dismiss the case.

The reason for this is because your spouse can decide they want to continue with the divorce, even if you want to reconcile your marriage.  So you will have to get your spouses agreement to dismiss your divorce if there has been both a Petition and Response filed with the court.

Divorcing In Santa Clarita | We Take Care Of That | SCV Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you live in Santa Clarita and are planning on divorcing, you should give us a call.  We can help you take care of your divorce in Santa Clarita.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that can take care of preparing all the divorce documents from start to finish.  We file all the documents, serve all the forms.

We operate on a fixed fee schedule which means you know how much your divorce is going to cost you before you ever get started.  No retainer fees here and we don’t charge by the hour.  You know what your getting into before you ever get started and there are no hidden fees.

You will have 2 costs when getting divorced.  You will have the court filing fee. Currently this is $435.00 and you will pay that fee whether you do your divorce yourself or have us do it for you.

The other cost you will have is our cost for preparing your divorce for you.  The fee you will pay will depend on how much work there is to do on your file.  We generally will ask you just a hand full of questions and quote you a firm price right over the phone.  You can also go to our pricing page and see where you fit in.

Here are some of the questions we ask to determine the costs for preparing your divorce.

  1. How long have you been married?  This lets us know if there might be a request for spousal support.
  2. Do you have minor children? Then we will know if we need to draft a parenting plan and child support.
  3. If there are any pensions to divide.  Pensions have to be divided by a QDRO Attorney.
  4. Amount and type of property to divide?  This will let us know how much property is at stake.

The divorce process is complicated.  It is not something you should attempt on your own.  Give us a call so we can discuss your options for getting completing the divorce process.`

Divorce Judgment Gives People The Most Trouble | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you have tried to prepare your own divorce or are considering doing so, you will learn how confusing and difficult the divorce paperwork can be.  But the worst is yet to come.

Most people will have some problems with the initial divorce documents.  They will have items rejected, not file them correctly and not fill them out right.  But the final test will be when you go to prepare the divorce judgment.

The divorce judgment is the last set of divorce documents that can be up to 25 pages long or more.  These final judgment documents give everyone  a problem.

But there is a bigger issue when completing the final divorce judgment forms and doing them wrong.  When you submit the final judgment documents, they will go into a huge pile of judgments that are also waiting to be approved.  The current wait time for your divorce judgment to be reviewed is 3 months to as long as 6 months.

This means that every time you submit your final divorce judgment, you will have to wait several months before your learn if it was done correctly or not.  I know people that attempted to complete their own divorce and have submitted their judgment 3 times.  They have been trying to complete their divorce for over 3 years.  They have been trying to get their final divorce paperwork approved for over a year.

Some people figure it out really fast that they need help and others are a glutton for punishment and keep asking for more rejection.  That was an attempt at humor, but you have to hand it to these folks that keep on trying.

Whether you have not quite gotten to the final divorce judgment phase or are one of these folks that have had the judgment rejected numerous times and are ready for help, please give us a call.

We do a lot of judgment reviews where we will take a look at your entire divorce case from beginning to end and complete and correct all the documents so they can be submitted and approved by the court.

Divorce Process Starts When Spouse Is Served | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

One of the things that keeps coming up when I am helping clients with divorce is explaining when the divorce process actually starts.  There is some confusion on this as well as what document to file to let the court know your spouse has been served.

The divorce process does not start when you file your divorce case.  When you go to the court and turn in all your papers and pay your filing fee, you will receive a comformed “stamped” copy of your divorce filing.  You and everyone else in this world feels like they have filed their divorce and therefore the divorce process has started.

The divorce process actually starts when your spouse is served, not when you file.  Everything is hinged off the day your spouse is served.  Even the 30 days to file a response or when you want to file a request to enter default.  None of these things can occur until your spouse is served.

When you file a lawsuit (which filing for divorce is) you have to give the other party notice.  Notice that you have filed for divorce and what you are asking for such as your requests in the divorce Petition.

So three things I want to clear up here.

  • The six month waiting period does not start until your spouse is served.
  • You can’t file for a default unless 30 days have passed since your spouse was served.
  • The Court won’t know your spouse was served unless you complete a proof of service and file it with the court.

These are the big three things to watch out for.  And make sure to complete your proof of service correctly.  There are several boxes you need to complete and many the person who will be doing the serving needs to complete.  I see a lot of people who do this wrong or forget to put the dates and times of service, etc.

I hope this clears up the issues of when the divorce process actually starts.  When does it start?  When your spouse is served!

Divorce Can Be A Tough Business In Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Being in the business of helping people divorce can be tough sometimes.  Most of our divorce cases are amicable, but we do have a few that have clients that are upset and get angry at each other.  I think this is normal.

We definitely don’t get as many angry or upset clients as I did when I worked at a law firm here in Santa Clarita.  By its very nature, when you get n divorce attorney involved, the divorce case is going to have a much higher emotional impact.

Most of our clients are at least someone in agreement and are somewhat trying to work together to complete their divorce case.  Lets put it this way.  Our clients are not mortal enemies like you find when they hire attorneys.

So that leaves us to work between the clients to facilitate the divorce process.  Because we often help both clients we will hear the complaints on both sides.  Our job is not to mediate your divorce, but we are here to make things easier and keep the divorce process moving.

Divorce is a tough business because we don’t sell widgets that make people happy.  Most people purchase products or services that make them happy.  However, the second biggest purchasing motivations is to reduce pain.  And I think that is where our divorce service comes into play.  We reduce pain, meaning that we help you complete a process, that when finished, will hopefully relieve some pain and stress in your life.

Some of my clients are funny in that they can’t wait to celebrate completing their divorce.  Maybe it was a very short divorce or that “Vegas wedding”.  Yeah, we get some of those.

In any event, people just want to get their divorce over and done with a fast as possible and with as little problems as possible.  And that is what we do.

We are a professional divorce service that will help facilitate the completion of your divorce.  We complete all the necessary forms, file all your documents, go to court for you and complete the entire divorce process from start to finish for one affordable flat rate.