How to Get Temporary Divorce Orders If You’re the Respondent | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Get Temporary Divorce Orders If You’re The Respondent | Santa Clarita Divorce

Hi! Tim Blankenship here, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We specialize in divorce in LA County.

Today I wanted to talk to you about question I was asked from a gal who was looking for some assistance and found us online. Her question was: “If you’re the respondent, is there a way of moving the case forward especially if you want spousal support?”

Her question basically alluded to the fact that her husband was the petitioner, had filed for divorce and was kind of dragging his feet. The reason she felt he was dragging his feet was because he didn’t want to pay child support.

She thinks that by him delaying the case, he will be effectively paying child support for however long he decides to drag this out. So her question was, how can she become the petitioner so she can then move the case forward, and that’s an interesting question.

Again, I haven’t been asked that and I wanted to clarify that.

If you’re the petitioner in your divorce case, you’re the petitioner all the way through; if you’re the respondent, you’re going to be the respondent all the way through.

Regardless of being the petitioner or the respondent, you have just as much right to move the case forward and equal access to the law as the other party does. So as the respondent, what you would need to do is simply, either, continue on with the case and do the next step that’s required; if she’s only been served, she should then file a response.

If she’s already filed a response, she should then do her preliminary declaration of disclosure. And once she’s done that, she can then later request the petitioner to do his. This is what’ll get the case moving forward. If you talk to an attorney, which I am not, they may suggest that you file for a request for trial setting.

This again, would get the court involved and get the case moving.

Now, her specific question was in regards to how to obtain child support. At any time during the divorce case, you can ask the court to give you temporary orders for just about anything. So in this case, she wants to get temporary orders for child support pending the final judgement of her divorce case.

To do this she would file a FL-300, this is a request for order form, and in it you would describe the circumstances and why you’re requesting child support. You then get a hearing, the judge would hear the hearing, and then ultimately make an order on support, whatever that may be.

So hope that clarifies it for you. It was a great question Wanda. I’m sure if you have that question, everyone else does, so hope that clarifies the situation for you.

Again, my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We do specialize in divorce. Please give us a call at 661-281-0266. You can always get more information on our website at divorce661.com. Thanks!

How To Complete Your Divorce Fast | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Complete Your Divorce Fast | Santa Clarita Divorce

Hi! This is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in divorce.

And today I want to talk to you about how to complete your divorce fast.

You may have heard that there is a 6 month waiting period to get your divorce completed. And while that is still true, there is some confusion about that.

Many folks think that they file for divorce and then they have to wait 6 months to turn in all their paperwork—that’s not true. What you want to do is get your divorce paperwork done as quickly as possible.

As a matter of policy with our firm, what we do is we like to get all of your divorce documents done in the first 30 to 60 days. The reason for this is the backlog at the courthouse in approving judgments is running anywhere from 3 to 4 months. So what that means is we can submit your divorce paperwork, your judgment, in fact all of your paperwork in completion within 2 months get submitted to the court knowing it’s going to take them 3- 4 months to approve.

The benefit of this is, in the alternative, if you wait until that 6 month to submit your divorce paperwork, it’s going to take you another 3-4 months after that. So you’re looking at more like 9 to 10 months as opposed to 6 months in getting your divorce completed.

So if you want to get your divorce completed rapidly, please give us a call. We can do that for you. We are located in Santa Clarita but we do service all of Los Angeles.

Again, my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist that’s 661-281-0266. Thanks!

How To Prepare Nullity Of Marriage | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Prepare Nullity Of Marriage | Santa Clarita Divorce

Hi! This is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We’re a licensed and bonded legal preparation service, headquarter is at Santa Clarita and serving all of California.

Today I want to talk to you about completing a nullity of your marriage.

We recently successfully helped this client and his wife complete a nullity of their marriage and this was based on having a prior existing marriage. The wife got a prior existing marriage. She got married; it was a 6 year marriage. They’ve been separated for several years and have three kids together and we’re able to help them get their divorce nullified because the spouse was married at the time she got married to this gentleman.

That’s one of the reasons that a marriage can be avoided.

This couple had actually spent over $25,000 prior to obtaining services to help them with an attorney trying to get this done and they were unable to successfully negotiate that. We were able to do that for a flat fee. Both spouses were in agreement which was obviously helpful. They were not contesting it. If it were contested you’d probably need an attorney because one party is going to argue that it shouldn’t be nullified and the other one wants it nullified. In this case, both parties were in agreement. They gave all their testimony to that effect as well as preparing declarations indicating that they were in agreement; that they have the divorce nullified and that the spouse was married prior to getting married again.

So we were able to get that done for them for a flat fee. In most cases, if you’re going through nullity of marriage, you’re probably going to, at least, need a consultation with an attorney, and if it’s going to be contested, you certainly will need an attorney.

I’d work for a law firm for several years and not once did we have a nullity come through our office. So we’re pretty happy when we’re able to successfully get this judgment of this nullity of marriage done being a non-law firm and you’re doing it for a cost that is affordable for these clients after spending so much money with an attorney.

My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We specialize in divorce and family law. If you have any questions, please give us a call, you can reach me directly at 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

What Does Personal Service Mean | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

What Does Personal Service Mean | Santa Clarita Divorce

Hi there! This is Tim Blankenship owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service and we do specialize on only divorce. We can help you anywhere in California.

Today were going to talk to you about what is personal service.

I have the court’s website here; you can read along if you like. I’m just going to go over a bit and explain exactly what personal service is.

Now, this is in regard to divorce. It could be different in other civil cases, so just keep in mind; this is only in regards to divorce. Now we’ve previously talked about who can be a process server/who can act as a process server.

And in this article, we’ll be talking about what it means to personally serve and when you might need to use personal service.

In the divorce case, there are certain things that need to be served by person and some things that can be served by mail. But in personal service, it’s pretty self-explanatory—it’s someone personally serving it.

Just make sure you’re not a party to the divorce, so you have to have some other third- party serving the paperwork, and to do it personally means to personally have them the paperwork.

Now some things to know about, if you’re going through divorce and you’re going to have a friend, a neighbor or someone like that to serve your papers instead of using, say, a processor, they’re going to have to fill out the proof of service. So just make sure if it’s a friend or relative or something, they’re going to know who this person is, what they look like and so forth. So they’re going to know who that person is, who they’re handing the paperwork to. Just make sure that when they’re done, that they mark time, the date and location and their name and they sign a proof of service indicating that your spouse was served.

That way, you can file that form with the court and that’s what actually kicks off the divorce process and start the six (6) month waiting period.

Now, it happens on occasion when one of the spouses won’t accept the paperwork.

What happened if you have your friend or relative hand your spouse’s paperwork and they refuse to receive it or they slam the door on their face or they threw it on the ground or they tear it up—it doesn’t matter. It says here that if the party being served does not want to take the paperwork, they can be left on the ground in front of him/her. If she/he takes the papers and tears them up or throws them on the ground, it is still considered to be a valid proof of service. The person being served does not have to sign anything and that’s probably the most important thing. It’s not what they have to sign and acknowledge receiving it, it’s just someone has to stand there and hand them and if they don’t receive them, just drop them on the ground and your still going to fill up the same proof of service saying that you served so and so on such date at this time and at this place.

If you have any more questions about proof of service or if you’re looking for a company to professionally prepare your divorce papers, please give us a call.

 

How To File Divorce Papers By Mail | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To File Divorce Papers By Mail | Santa Clarita Divorce

Hi! This is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal doc Assist. We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service, specializing in divorce.

Today, we’re going to talk about how to file papers by mail with the courts.

The courts are very good, believe or not, about accepting your fillings by mail. So if you’re not near your local family law branch, for instance, we’re located at Santa Clarita and the Santa Clarita Valley does not have a law court, believe it or not, as big as we are.

So our closest court would be the San Fernando branch and personally, I don’t like driving down to San Fernando if I don’t have to, I do on occasion to volunteer and so forth. But for the most part, I mail file all of my documents.

So if you’re working with us, you can expect that all of the forms that I file would be by mail. Unless I have a whole bunch of new cases to go down there and file, I will, but other than that, I like to mail my documents in.

So, in this article, I wanted to show you how you are going to go about doing that. Now it’s not going to be much different that if you were to file your papers by driving down there. But the way that gas cost these days, you can put a 44 cents stamp on it and think you’re going to be better off.

When you want to file by mail, let’s talk about filing your initial divorce paperwork.

Let’s say, you just want to start your divorce case and you haven’t filed anything, you don’t have a case number or anything. So, what you’re going to want to do is get your summon and your petition and all the forms you need to file for divorce.

You’re going to hole punch them, staple them and make copies (you want to mail down 2 copies of every form). What you’ll do is you’ll take, say your summons, hole punch it and this would be your original. You’re going to sign it and you’re going to make 2 copies. You’re going to take those, the copies of everything.

You’re going to have your summons in two copies, your petitions in 2 copies and any other form that’s required by your court. You’re going to do the original, hole punched, and then you’re going to have 2 copies. You’re going to mail that to the court.

Now, the court is going to get that. We’re talking to government officials, so let’s make sure we tell them what we want them to do. I always send a cover letter down with anything I file, even if it’s a proof of service, I send a letter;

I just write a letter and say:

To: Clerk of The Court, Please find the enclosed documents, if it’s a new case, please find a new case for a family law filing. Enclosed you’ll find the following documents: summons, petition (and anything else you’re sending them and then ask them to please send you a conformed copy of the filing in the self-addressed stamped envelope).

So what that means is yes, you’re going to need to send a self-addressed stamped envelope, if you expect to get anything else and know that you’ve sent them back in the court. They’re not going to mail it to you otherwise, you’ll have to go down and pick it up.

So make sure you send down, with your cover letter and all you originals and copies, a self-addressed stamped envelope with sufficient postage for the items you’re going to mail back.

Now remember, you’re going to have copies of up to 5 forms, you have 2 copies coming back to you, so you may want to weigh those or just throw in a bunch of stamps to make sure you’re going to get those back because it’s really important that you want to make sure you get your filing back because once you send a new case down there, a good luck having them located if you don’t get your copies back.

You can file your papers by mail and this includes, again, like we just discussed, your entire new case or if you have proof of service or anything else you serve, just make sure you send a cover letter, the original which is hole punched, copies and a self-addressed stamped envelope and I’ve never had a problem filing divorce cases or getting copies of filed documents that I’m filing with them and getting copies back from the court.

Again, this is Tim Blankenship. I’m a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service. I specialize only on divorce.

We are centrally located in Santa Clarita, California. We can help you anywhere across Los Angeles and California, please give me a call (661-281-0266) or you can find us at divorce661.com.

Who Can Serve Divorce Papers | Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Who Can Serve Divorce Papers | Santa Clarita

Hi there! This is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We’re a licensed and bonded legal preparation service and we do specialize in the divorce process.

Today, we are going to talk about who can be a process server, who can you use to serve your divorce papers essentially.

I wanted to give you the court’s version of who can be a process server and what they consider to be about process’ service when it comes to your divorce.

Now, what we’re talking about here is serving the initial divorce documents, so this would be your summons and petition in particularly. So, looking at the court’s website, we’ve identified a process server as the ‘server’ or the ‘process server’ can be a friend or relative, a coworker, a county sheriff or marshal, professional process server, or anyone over 18 who is not part of the case.

So, when it comes to divorce, this is a very important aspect right here. This essentially means, you cannot serve your own divorce paper, you cannot hand your divorce paperwork to your own spouse. It may make the most sense especially in many cases where husband and wife are still living together.

When you file for divorce it may seem silly to have to get someone else, another third party, to hand the paperwork done for them so they can then hand the paperwork to your spouse, but if you don’t do that, you’re not going to have an effective process of service. You cannot serve your own spouse—I just want to make that very clear.

Make sure that the person is not party to the case. In divorce, if it’s not you or your husband, it can pretty much be anyone else as long as they’re 18 years of age and make sure that they know how to fill out the proof of service of summons.

When you work with our service, our legal document preparation service for your divorce, we will take care of all that. In fact, we don’t even like to use the process of having a process server go out or using the proof of service.

We use what’s called a Notice and Acknowledgement of Receipt. It’s an easier way and a cost effective way because you don’t have to hire a process server to server the divorce papers.

If you’re looking for a professional, licensed and bonded legal preparation service, please give us a call. You can find us at divorce661.com, or any of our websites. We do specialize in the divorce process. We provide a 100% online divorce solution, so any in Los Angeles County or California for that matter, we would be happy to help you out. You can reach us at 661-281-0266.

What Is A No Fault Divorce | Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

What Is A No Fault Divorce | Santa Clarita

Hi there! This is Tim Blankenship owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service specialized in the divorce process.

Today, we’re answering the question ‘What is a “no fault” divorce?’ and ‘Is California a “no fault” divorce state?’.

So, because I’m not an attorney, I can’t give legal advice and whenever I feel that it’s kind of on the edge, I will always give you the information but I’ll point you to where I found it. So it’s not me giving you the advice, technically, it’s the court.

Today we are answering this question using the California court (judicial branch of California) website– Frequently Asked Questions and let’s see what they say about what is “no fault” divorce.

In California, says, a “no fault” divorce is any divorce where the spouse or domestic partner that is asking for the divorce does not have to prove that the other spouse or domestic partner did something wrong.

California is a “no fault” divorce state, which means that to get divorced in California you NEVER have to prove that the other person did something wrong. To get a no fault divorce, 1 spouse or domestic partner has to state that the couple cannot get along. Legally, this is called “irreconcilable differences”.

Now, this is interesting because I get calls and on occasion the spouses contacted me wants to tell me what they’ve done or what the spouse has done and why they’re getting divorce and they want to file first because they feel there’ll be some advantage. Well, there is no advantage to filing first. Second of all, the courts honestly don’t care what reason, even if you don’t have a reason at all to get divorced. All you have to do is mark this box saying irreconcilable differences and there’s no proof.

They’re never going to ask you on what’s going on or why can’t you get along. They don’t care. That’s why it’s called a “no fault” divorce and California is a “no fault” divorce state. So you don’t have to ever reason to get divorced.

If you’re looking for an affordable way to get through your divorce process, please give us a call or visit our website for more information.

Thank you!

What If Spouse Won’t Agree To Divorce | Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

What If Spouse Won’t Agree To Divorce | Santa Clarita

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. I’m a licensed and bonded legal document preparation assistant that specialize only in divorce.

Today we are talking about and answering the question of what happens if my wife doesn’t want to give me a divorce.

So, if your spouse doesn’t want to cooperate, there is a way to still work on the divorce process and I’m going to use the California Court’s website to answer this question because in their Frequently Asked Questions here, they have responded to this question – so instead of just me giving you what I think, I’m going to refer you to into the court’s website as they answered the question here for.

So the question here is ‘What if my spouse or domestic partner does not want to give me a divorce?’.

And the answer is: In California, it is not necessary for both spouses or domestic partners to agree to the divorce. Either spouse or domestic partner can decide and their marriage and partnership is not necessary for the other spouse to agree or give you a divorce.

The spouse or domestic partner who does not want to get divorced cannot stop the process by refusing to participate in the case. If she did not have to sign anything to agree to the divorce, if your spouse or domestic partner does not participate in the divorce case, you’ll still be able to get a default judgment and the divorce will go through.

So, sometimes when I’m preparing uncontested divorce cases, one of the parties that I may be assisting will ask: “Well Tim, she’s not going to fill it out any of the paperwork, she’s not going to respond and she honestly doesn’t care one way or the other and I said: “That’s fine, there’s nothing the spouse can do to stop you from getting divorced”. As this court says here, they can’t stop it even if they don’t participate. It’s called a default judgment.

I’ve done a video on what it takes to get a default judgment and that happens all the time. Generally, courts will approve those if there’s an unequal division of assets and debts. There might be a reason for the court to call you in and have a couple of questions for you. But if your spouse doesn’t want to respond and they don’t want to participate, you can get what’s called a default judgment.

Again, my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist, licensed and bonded legal document preparation service, specializing in the divorce process.

What Is An Uncontested Divorce Case | Santa Clarita Divorce Help

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

What Is An Uncontested Divorce Case | Santa Clarita Divorce Help

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist here in Santa Clarita. We’re licensed and bonded legal document preparation service and we specialize in the divorce process serving all of California.

Today we’re talking about what is an uncontested divorce. So, what I am going to do is take you to the court website and let you know what they’re telling us an uncontested divorce is, reference in the paperwork that has been processed.

So an uncontested case, is where you have filed for divorce and your spouse has responded by filing a response and you have or are going to enter into a written agreement..  That is really it.

Here is what the Court website says about what an uncontested divorce case is:

  • Your spouse or domestic partner filed a response to your summons and petition;
    AND

  • The two of you have a written agreement about your divorce or separation, dividing your property and debt, child custody and visitation, and support issues.

So in short, an uncontested divorce simply means you did not go before the judge and have a trial.

So anything short of having a trial means you have an uncontested divorce especially if you’re in agreement, there’s been either a summon and petition or just a petition filed not necessarily a response and the most important part is that you’ve entered into a written agreement and you did not have the trial.

We specialize in uncontested divorce cases, amicable divorce cases or any divorce where you and your spouse are going to try to work out the details of your divorce together and need someone like us for information and to process your divorce paperwork to make sure it was done correctly.

Again, my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. If you’re looking for an affordable and professional way to get through the divorce process at a flat rate, please give us a call or visit our website for more information. Thank you.

How To Prepare California Divorce Response | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Hi there! Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist, we’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in the divorce process.

We are licensed and bonded in the County of Los Angeles and serve all the courts in California, and we can help you regardless of your location.

If you’re looking for a paralegal type of service or a legal document preparation service to prepare your divorce forms professionally, please give us a call.

If you have not filed for divorce make sure to check out these articles and videos.

How To Prepare California Divorce Petition

How To Prepare California Divorce Summons

Now let’s talk about preparing the divorce response form. We are working on a series of how-to videos. You can find all the videos on how to prepare all the different divorce forms on our YouTube channel and on our website.

So, this article is going to discuss  how to prepare the response if you have been served with divorce paperwork. What you’re going to want to file, not necessarily, we’re not attorneys, and we can’t advise you on what to do. There are ways to proceed through the divorce without filing a response, so we’re not going to get into the when-you-should or if-you-should file a response, we are not able to discuss that as a legal document preparation service—speak to a lawyer about that.

We’re just going to go through how you would file the response paperwork if that’s what you chose to do. Let’s flip over to the response paperwork, FL-120. What we’re going to do is we’re just going to go through the form and show you how you would prepare it if you were going to do this on your own.

We’ll go step-by-step. So, you’re going to complete this if you’ve been served paperwork; this will be the response to a divorce.

So we are going to say we are John Smith, we are 123 Main Street, input your city, state and zip code. Then put your phone number in here. Fax number if you want, not necessary; phone number, definitely; the courts are going to contact you, possibly. E-mail address is optional. Here you are going to put “In Pro Per”, or you can simply say “Self Represented”, either one will work. County of Los Angeles and we’re going to use our local area code, one of the branches here at 900 and Third Street.

Then you’re going to put your name here as the petitioner; actually that’s incorrect. The petitioner, if you’re filing this response, you’re going to be the respondent.

This form is very similar to the summons, so we’re going to say here in response, dissolution of marriage, we also have some other options here but we’re just talking about dissolution of marriage. This is talking about residency, if the respondent has been a resident of the state for the last six months, or you can mark both boxes, it’s up to you.

Here you put the date of marriage, date of separation, years married and months married; this gives a tally here, a total length of time of your marriage.

Here you’ll either mark if there are no minor children, or if there are, you’re going to give the name, date of birth, age, and sex.

Separate property, we’ve discussed this in the other videos; you can indicate here your separate property. If you want to know more information about what is separate property, what is community property, we will be doing a video of that as well. For purposes of this, we do use some boiler point language in here, basically that suggests that we’re going to provide this information at a later date. If we’re preparing your divorce forms for you professionally; you don’t have to worry about that we will take care of that for you.

Page 2 is going to be your community property; again like the separate property on page 1, this is the property, and you can itemize it here, or you can use the boiler point language.

There are some things in here that we don’t normally see, it may or may not apply, but then again this is just to indicate that you’re responding, that this is the dissolution of marriage based on irreconcilable difference, where it’s going to be 99% of the time.

And here you have your requests for a particular order; so if you have children, who do you want the custody be to, if you want it to be you the respondent, and make sure you remember who you are, which part you are, since we are working on the response, you’re going to be the respondent, so if we’re talking about you and the things that you want, make sure that you check the box respondent box. Of course there’s the joint box if you want the legal custody be joint, physical custody be joint, and so forth.

These boxes in here are related to other forms that are attached to the response, that are for holiday schedules, and child custody visitation schedules, and so forth; again we will be doing videos for all those down the road.

You can ask the court to terminate to the court jurisdiction and ability to award spouse support to the other party if you like. You can ask the court to make orders for property rights. And you can ask for your name to be restored to your maiden name if you like.

Don’t forget to date it, type or print your name here, and you can sign it here, and this would be the form that you would file with the court. You also want to serve a copy on your spouse; but the important thing is that you file a copy, just don’t forget to put case number.

The case number will be on the original summons and petition that you received when you were served, so don’t forget to put the case number in here otherwise the court will have difficulty in filing this form and making sure that it’s registered under your case number, so don’t forget to put that there.

Again, I am Tim Blankenship, I’m the, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist, a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service. We service folks looking to get through your divorce process in an affordable way; those who are not using their attorneys, representing themselves, and are mostly in agreement with the divorce process.

We’re doing a series of videos here, to help folks find this information; they can self-prepare their forms, using the forms that we’re showing you on the video.

Or give us a call and if you’d like an affordable way to get your divorce process done professionally we’d be happy to help. Thanks so much .if you have any questions please give us a call or visit one of our websites.

If you have not filed for divorce make sure to check out these articles and videos.

How To Prepare California Divorce Petition

How To Prepare California Divorce Summons