Many of our clients want us to get their divorce process as quickly as possible.  And I know a lot of people that listen to my podcasts and videos are trying to do their own divorce.

So we often are giving quick tips on how you can do that.  So while there is an information sheet from the courts, on how to process your paperwork is filed, as far as filing the petition serving your spouse doing the disclosures and filing your judgment.

This is a quick tip to help your divorce  get processed by the court faster.  Once you File your petition and have it served and you start the clock on the six-month process all you have to do is wait 30 days after the divorce has been served and then you can turn in all the final paperwork all at the same time, the proof of service the judgment and everything that goes along with the marital settlement agreement and a single shot.

Instead of filing each form separately, if you do it all at once, all after the thirty days have passed the court clerk can process your divorce judgment, that much faster.

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with Divorce661.com. And I what I want to talk about today is the two different ways you can serve your spouse If they live out of state.

If you notice on the FL-115,this is the proof of service of summons. So we’re talking about serving the initial documents once you establish a case for the court in California. One of the options is what’s called a mail and acknowledgement service and specifically doing a registered or certified mail with return receipt requested.

This is on page 2 of the 115.So if you and your spouse are amicable and you do have a spouse out of state, you can, when they say you, someone else has to do it. Someone has always has someone else always has to serve the summons and petition and you can do that by mail. You can do that by mail within California using a notice of acknowledgement form 117.

But when you are serving a document out of state and you’ll still use the 117,you need to do it by certified mail and you need to do it with return receipt so you have evidence that it was delivered and signed for by your spouse or just slightly different when the other party lives out of state.

Now, let’s assume that your spouse is not amicable. Now with our clients that’s not the case because we only work with amicable clients, so this is never an issue. But that said if they refuse to sign or maybe they’ve moved and they no longer are at that address that you don’t know where they live. The next option is simply going to be doing it by personal service which is the standard normally.

If you don’t know where they live, my recommendation is you contact a process server company in that state and find one that is also a private detective of sorts that can do some type of background search and they can do a search and maybe find where they are listing their credit cards, or maybe they did a lease application or something like that because they do have to be served for the 6 months to start.

So if you filed for divorce, you know, two months ago, but you still haven’t been able to get them served your six months has not started yet. That six-month cooling-off period. So get a private detective service who’s also a process server. There are many of them out there. You can use a service like napps.org, it’s basically a site where you can enter a zip code or an area of where the other party lives and locate a Iicensed process server anywhere in the country.

Tim Blankenship Divorce661.com. I hope you’re having a great day. We’ll talk to you soon.

YOU are the only reason we can’t finalize your divorce case.

What do I mean by this statement? I mean that we can handle any amount of complexity of cases related to assets and debts, children, child support and spousal support. There is nothing that can stop us from finalizing your divorce case, except you or your spouse.

We’ve helped clients with 8 children. We’ve helped clients with 10 homes. We’ve helped clients with millions in assets.

That is not an issue for us.

What is an issue for us is when clients hire us and then fall out of agreement or no longer are amicable and stop cooperating with the process.

That is the only thing that can stop us from being able to finalize your divorce.

And here is why.

We only work with 100% amicable spouses who will ultimately come up with an agreement. We will put you through the divorce process, complete and file all the paperwork with the courts. We will do it all.

However, if you and your spouse at some point fall out of agreement or decide no longer to cooperate, that stops us from being able to finalize your divorce case.

Why?

Because in order for us to finalize your divorce case you both have to sign the Marital Settlement Agreement that outlines all the terms and agreement related to your divorce.

So even if we prepare everything as you provided and agreed to, even if one party simply decides they are not going to sign it at the very end, this stops us from being able to submit it to court. This is because even though we’ve drafted the agreement, it is not an agreement if not signed by both spouses.

On May 15th, 2020 the Los Angeles Superior Court extended their March 17th order to extend the court closure due to COVID-19 until May 12, 2020. The court is closed to all non-essential business.

Keep in mind that the court is still operational. The courts are still allowing for new divorce cases to be filed and are processing existing cases. The closure only affects the ability to enter the courthouse and to attend hearings which have all been continued to future dates.

Our team continues to work here at Divorce661 and are processing new cases daily.

The judgment you submit in your divorce, whether through an agreement or through trial, will supersede any requests you make in either your filed petition or response.

For this reason, what you “request” in your petition or response is just that, requests. They are not requests that will be granted per se, rather they are just an indication to the other party what is on your mind as far as what you are thinking at the time of filing.

For this reason, the filing of the petition and response is mostly boilerplate, statistical information only.

In this episode, we’re talking more about the difference between a default case. A true default meaning no agreement, and a default with an agreement which means with an agreement obviously. I had a client contact me a few weeks ago that was trying to go through the Self Help Center.

I think I did a video on this. Just the frustration and time he put into going down there and all the issues he ran into anyways. He called us, retained us, so we could wrap everything up which we have. The interesting thing is he called me today saying that court called him, which I’ve never heard of that happening in all my years and thousands of cases the court calling someone.

Not sure if that was really the court or not, but they were telling him that because he had put TBD, to be determined, on a property declaration. We’re talking about the FL 160s that he attached to his petition.

He needed to come back in and re file his petition and amend his property declaration, so he called me with some concerns saying that the court was saying there are some issues. The problem was that the court is confused over the difference between a default and a default with agreement.

In the conversation I just had with him, I advised him that yes, it would have been correct where he would have had to amend the petition and update his property declarations from the TBD, to be determined, to an actual value amount with a proposed division of the asset if it was a default without an agreement.

Because he said he would be able to get signatures from his wife we were able to simply have a default with an agreement which will supersede any requests in the petition. That’s why I’m always harping on what a default with an agreement, why it’s so much better than default without an agreement.

You have so much more latitude in what you can do so if you completely screw up the petition and your property declarations are screwed up, and in fact, in our videos, we tell you do not attach a property declaration to your judgment unless you know it’s going to be a true default.

The agreement we put together for you in your judgment that both of you will sign will supersede any requests in the petition that was filed to start the case. Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. I hope you’re having a great day. We’ll talk to you soon.

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. In this episode, we’re talking about what to use as the date of separation for your divorce. Very commonly I’ll have people get started with us in the divorce process here in California, and I will ask them what the date of separation is, and they kind of have a blank look on their face and.

They’ll say something to the effect of well, we’re not legally separated, or we’re not separated we’re still living together. That’s a very common answer, and you may find yourself in that situation as well. The issue is you need to have a date of separation when you file for divorce. When you list it on the petition, you need to have a date of separation. You cannot leave it blank.

I see that many times when people are starting their divorce paperwork on their own. You need to have a date of separation on there if no date in the past makes sense like you started living on the couch a month ago or one spouse moved out 6 weeks ago, something like that. Then just use the date filing for the date of your divorce.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. I hope you’re having a great day. We’ll talk to you soon.