Hi Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. This is episode 2 of what we’re calling judgment reviews.
This is what I do for a living, for those folks who don’t choose to hire our service from the get go, those folks of you who try to do their divorce on your own, I want to create these videos for you. Let me get this into frame here. And show you what I deal with when folks do their own divorce and then turn in their judgment and they will get a reject sheet, 9 times out of 10 and you’ll get this multiple times.
I just wanted to go over this reject sheet with you and I don’t know what’s going on here. There we go, alright just a little bit here okay there we go. So, what we’re looking at here is a reject sheet from someone who tried to do their own divorce, and this is pretty typical you’ll get between a 1 and 3 page list of rejections.
Sometimes they will populate these so all appears on one page and you’ll see another type of videos it’s a 3 page form and they just mark the appropriate box, this is more of a condense one. So, let’s talk about why this particular case was rejected and what was needed to happen in order to correct it. So, start here right at the top, so number 1, so it says submit judicial form counsel FL 130 appearance, stipulation and waivers signed by both parties.
So, this is what’s considered an uncontested case, they both parties were participating and I believe a response was filed, I’ll have to see as we go down here. Yeah, a respond and appeared, so there was a response filed in this case, so this is going to be more along the lines of an uncontested case, there’s only certain forms are needed if it’s a hybrid, judgment or a default or an uncontested case there’s going to be slightly different forms.
So, when it’s uncontested you will need to prepare an FL 130 it’s an appearance stipulation and waivers and it’s signed by both parties. Basically, because you’re not going to trial and you’re in agreement you’re basically waiving your final declaration of disclosures essentially.
Alright, judicial counsel form FL 141, in any case where the parties are both participating whether it be uncontested or whether it be a hybrid, a default with agreement, you both need to complete this FL 141, it’s your declaration recurring service of declaration of disclosure and income and expense declaration.
You can see here it says must be submitted by the petitioner as to the preliminary declaration of disclosure. And same with respondent, has to be completed by the respondent as well. See it says here must be submitted by the practitioner and the respondent as to the final declaration of disclosure, okay this is the waiver the 144 here, the judicial council form 144.
So, what they’re saying is in regards to the FL 141 the preliminary disclosures are mandatory but you can waive the final declaration disclosure which is form FL 144, you don’t need to do the disclosure twice if you guys are in agreement and your case was handled relatively quickly.
Okay FL 170, excuse me, must be submitted by the petitioner, this is a form, they don’t care what type of case you have whether it be default with agreement, default without agreement or uncontested case you need an FL 170 it’s a three page form. It’s submitted by petitioner and only signed by the petitioner. Judicial counsel form FL 180, so this is the over sheet to your judgment or your settlement agreement.
You’re always going to have an FL 180. This says submit with all original signatures and three complete copies, so the FL 180 cover sheet is the top form that will be part of your settlement agreement, whether you’re using a narrative MSA or you’re using the forms that we recommend.
Okay enter the correct jurisdiction date, so when you file, when you prepare your judgment and you prepare your FL 180, there’s a form on there that says court required jurisdiction over the respondent on and you have two options either the date they were served, as you can see here the court notified them that hey this is the date of service for or the date that they file their response which also means appeared. You can use the earlier of the dates, it just depends on you if your trying to get your divorce done quickly.
And with our cases we don’t have the respondent respond purposely just to save on court fees. So generally speaking we’re always using the service date, which will generally be the sooner of the two dates.
All right, says this judgment contains provisions for child support, so whenever there is child support you need to have the copy of the FL 192, notice of rights and responsibilities. There’s nothing to fill out on there, it’s an already completed form but it’s just a noticeability of rights and responsibilities regarding minor children and this will actually be the second form, 2 page form behind the FL 180 in your stacking order.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about just Google stacking order for California divorce papers, I’ve done a video on what order your papers go in. But you’ll have your FL 180 and if you have minor children, you’re going to have your FL 192 directly behind it. Next thing we have here, is child custody,
visitation or relax to findings means attached to every copy [UNKNOWN] from 341. Okay so, when there’s children you have to have a child custody order and a child support order. Even if you’re not going to have child support or going to request child support you still have to have the order in there.
You have to have all the appropriate court orders in there so they can make, they can establish what it is your trying to accomplish as far as your child support orders. Plus, the forms have all the necessary language that you’re going to need in getting your judgment submitted.
The judgment fails to acknowledge the courts jurisdiction of child support, again this takes care of when you use the forms FL 341, that’s going to handle the courts jurisdiction because there’s literally a box that you just check. And lastly, FL 190, this is notice of entered judgment, this form is required. There’s no signature on it, but it basically it just says that the judgment has been entered with the court.
When your divorce is all done, you’re going to get 2 things back, you’re going to get your FL 180 with the MSA settlement agreement, or judgment forms behind it. And you’re going to get the FL 190, and this form lets you know yes, your judgment is final cause here’s your FL 180 and it’s been entered with the court and these are the two forms you’ll get back when your divorce is finalized.
Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com, hope you enjoyed this second episode of judgment reviews and maybe you learned something from this and correcting your own judgments.
If you have any questions we do provide a full service divorce solution to anywhere in California again you can go to divorce661.com or schedule a consultation with us at 6612810266. And take care, it’s a
