California Divorce Default Setting & Prove Up Hearing
Today we’re going to talk about a default setting or what’s also known as prove up hearing.
This is when you go through a divorce and you submit a default judgment, a default judgment is where you file and serve the other party and they did absolutely nothing.
There are some cases where the courts just straight away approve the default and that’s usually in cases where there’s limited property or the property has been evenly divided or you’re not asking for anything out of the norm for a default judgment.
In some instances, the court will require you to attend a hearing even though the other party didn’t respond or isn’t participating, in that sense a default judgment.
We’ve had several cases recently where the court asked us, upon submitting the default judgment to resubmit the default judgment but with what’s called a default setting.
Basically what the court is saying is we’re not necessarily rejecting the judgment, we just have some questions about the judgment that we like to talk to the petitioner about, maybe get some testimony on record, ask them some questions procedurally to make sure they did things correctly.
Maybe ask some questions about the default and about the property and the kids and make sure they really want to get divorced.
We had two clients in court this past week. They both had prove up hearings or a default setting hearings. It lasted less than 15 minutes, they just want to ask you a couple of questions about the judgment.
One of the questions from the judge, for one of our clients, they reported to us, was asked “are you sure this divorce is irremediable?” meaning you’re not going to reconcile then get that back to us. That was one of the important questions apparently from the judge aside from some of the property and procedural type of questions.
If you’re asking anything out of norm in a default judgment or perhaps something like not dividing the property evenly which the courts require, you may want to set your judgment, you may want to submit the default setting paperwork along with the judgment so in case they want to talk to you, they can set the hearing. They’ll send you a notice to appear and they can ask you questions.
If you don’t and you’re judgment is outside the norm, outside the parameters for them to approve. Their only option is to reject it and send it back to you.
So if you have any questions about your default judgment or you think it might be incorrect. Submit it with the default prove up form. It’s a default setting. I think it’s FAM-031. Submit that with your judgment and if there’s something they want to talk to you about they’ll set a hearing.
And the nice thing about that is you’ll go to the hearing and in this two party’s cases, they went to the hearing, after the judge asked them the questions, the judgment was entered and they were divorced effectively, immediately at the hearing.
Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.
We specialize in divorce in California so make sure to give us a call if you need help with anything. 661-281-0266. Talk to you soon.
