Summary Divorce More Expensive Than Regular Divorce | Santa Clarita

It seems that everyone raves about the ease of filing a summary divorce for those who qualify.  But did you know that the cost for filing a summary divorce is more expensive than filing a regular divorce?

Here’s why.  When you file divorce papers, you have to pay a filing fee.  The cost is different County to County but in most areas that fee is north of $400.  Los Angeles County, for instance, is currently $435.00.   The court refers to what is called “First Papers”.  First Papers filed in a family law case have to pay the filing fee.

A summary dissolution is a Joint Petition.  This means that both parties are considered the petitioner and they are identified as Petitioner 1 and Petitioner 2.  When this joint summary divorce petition is filed, both parties will have to pay the filing fee, unless you qualify for a fee waiver.

This is no problem if you qualify for a fee waiver.  But what if one of the parties is incarcerated and unable to submit a fee waiver, which is the case here, or if neither party qualifies for a fee waiver?

In this case, it might be a smarter move, and definitely less expensive, to prepare a regular divorce and go by way of default.  In a regular divorce, the other party does not have to respond if they don’t want to.  Because they are not filing a response, they would not have to pay the filing fee.

If you were going to prepare a summary divorce, this meant that both parties were in total agreement ( which is one of the requirements) so there would be no harm in preparing a default divorce and lay out the agreement in the default judgment.

Preparing a regular divorce has quite a bit more paperwork than does the summary divorce.  But the important thing for us is that our clients save money in the divorce process.

We will leave it up to the client to decide which way they want to go in this case.

How To Prepare Settlement Agreement In Summary Divorce | Santa Clarita

I have been working with a client lately who we are preparing a summary divorce for.  If you are unfamiliar with a Summary divorce, it basically is a process that is simpler and has less paperwork.  Unfortunately, there are many restrictions for using the summary divorce, thus not many people can use it.

When you prepare a settlement agreement for a summary divorce, you are essentially telling the court who is getting what community property and who is getting what community debts.  That is generally not an issue as this is pretty easy to understand.  In fact, the court even has a template of how the settlement agreement should read when prepared for a summary divorce.

One area where I did see where people will run into trouble is in regards to the spousal support section on the summary divorce settlement agreement.

When you file a summary divorce, one of the restrictions is that neither party can request spousal support and you have to waive spousal support forever.

The property settlement agreement the court says is okay to use, does not have the required language to waive spousal support.  The court’s version only says, “Each of us waives any claim for spousal support now and for all time”.  The problem with this language is that it does not address the courts jurisdiction over spousal support.

I had a client have their divorce judgment rejected because the spousal support section did not contain the following words. “The court terminates jurisdiction over the issue of spousal support”.  So I don’t know if the court is aware of this issue or not, but I made sure to also include this language.

The courts instructions on completing the summary divorce settlement agreement is a little unclear and can set people up for failure.  If you think you qualify for a summary divorce, please give us a call and we would be happy to prepare it for you.

Santa Clarita Divorce Services Here To Stay

We take great pride in our divorce service which includes our logo where we use a sign post as our featured image.  Just like our allegiance to the Santa Clarita area, the image of a divorce 661 sign post is equally suited.

If you live in the Santa Clarita valley and are in the position where you need to file for divorce or have questions about divorce, we are the folks who can help you.  We are down to earth people who care more about providing a great service and helping people than our bottom line.

While we are not a non-profit, we do make sure to help as many people as we can, whether that results in money in our pocket or not.  We routinely help folks who do not have the means to hire our services, get the answers they need so they can represent themselves in their divorce proceeding.

We realize that the self represented divorce client is severely unrepresented.  It is our goal to fill that gap of un-represented divorce clients and while we do not provide legal advice, we can help them through the divorce process from start to finish.

We find that the vast majority of folks don’t want to spend the money it takes to hire a divorce attorney to represent them in their Santa Clarita divorce.  In Fact, most don’t need an attorney at all for their uncontested and mostly amicable divorce.

Even those folks who can afford it are starting to come to terms with the actual cost of hiring a divorce attorney are are opting for our affordable divorce service instead.

We get it that it is very expensive to go thorough divorce.  We want to help you avoid the high costs of divorce and show you how to get through divorce in an amicable way so that the funds that you would normally spend on attorneys can be later used to go to the necessities of life.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in divorce in Santa Clarita.

Dangers Of Working With Unlicensed Divorce Paralegals | Santa Clarita

I have written about it before, but I can’t emphasize enough the dangers of working with a divorce paralegal who is not licensed and who is not authorized to prepare divorce documents in Santa Clarita.

As many of you don’t know, a Paralegal cannot prepare divorce documents for folks unless they work for a divorce attorney.  What this means is, even if someone is employed as a Paralegal at a family law firm, they cannot moonlight at night and solicit business directly with a client.  This is an unauthorized practice.

We had to go to great lengths to operate our legal document preparation service within the confins of the legal requirements.  We had to meet specific and stringent guidlines from an educational and experience standpoint.

You see, the County of Los Angeles wants to make sure that you are receiving professional service by a company who has passed the rigorous tests and have met or exceeded the educational and experience guidlines.

We have spent several years honing our skills, working for major area law firms and volunteering with the Los Angeles Superior Court.

What we want to impress upon you is to be careful using a low cost, inexperienced and unlicensed paralegal who is not authorized to work directly with the publice.  I don’t mean to come down so hard on these folks, but they are giving the legal document assistant profession a bad name.

The general public does not know the difference between a paralegal and a legal document preparation service, and thus they take advantage of this fact and and promote their services on free ad boards such as Craigslist, etc.

It is dangerouse to work with and unskilled, unlicensed paralegal that says they can help you with your divorce.

You may think you are saving money, but in the end you will deal with much frustration and anxiety from doing so.

Give us a call

What Boxes Do I Check On Divorce Judgment Forms | Santa Clarita Divorce

One of the biggest challenges when representing yourself during divorce is regarding how to complete the divorce judgment forms and what boxes should you check.

Up to this point, you have filed the summons and petition, the Respondent either filed a response or they didn’t and you may have completed your financial disclosures.  What forms that were required depend upon what type of divorce judgment you are filing.

On the judgment forms there are a series of boxes to check.  In fact, if you use the judgment forms and all the attachments to the judgment, you are looking at about 25 pages of check boxes and fill in the blanks to figure out.

If you were self preparing your divorce forms up to this point and thought it was difficult, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

I get lots of calls from people who are really struggling on the divorce judgment forms.  Whether it is their first time through them or just trying to figure what forms they need.

Other people have spent several months having their divorce judgment forms rejected time and time again and still are having trouble.

If you are having trouble with any portion of your divorce paperwork, please feel free to give us a call. We help people that have not started their divorce to those who have completed everything but the judgment.

We even have a judgment review process where we will go over your entire case from beginning to end to make sure all the documents you filed up to this point were done correctly.  Some of the times, the reason the judgment was rejected was due to some error months ago with the previous forms you filed, forgot to file or in instances where you did not follow proper court procedure.

We specialize in only divorce and can help you get your divorce completed quickly.

Confused About The Divorce Process | Santa Clarita Divorce

You are not alone if you are confused about the divorce process in California.  I speak to folks day in and day out about the divorce process, forms and procedure.

The courts do a good job of having so many forms and processes that it makes it almost impossible for someone not in the legal industry to understand.  It is not so confusing that you can’t eventually figure it out, but you will certainly have doubts and spend a vast amount of time in the process.

Folks call us all the time confused about some aspect of the the divorce process.  It could be because they were just trying to file for divorce and were not sure which box to check.  Sometimes they made it all the way through (so they thought) only to have their entire divorce package rejected after spending months thinking they had done everything correctly.

I have spoke to people who have spent more than a year trying to get divorced and were ready to give up before calling us.  Some had given up and only sought help because they were in a new relationship and the new mate was pushing for them to finish their divorce.

Don’t let the confusion over the divorce process stop you.  That is what we are here for.  We can simply pick up where you left off or help to get your divorce started if you have not yet begun.

We have been helping folks through the divorce process in California for several years now.  We make it simple and remove all the confusion by explaining every step of the divorce process, tell you why each form is necessary and how to use the courts free services when you need additional assistance.

Give us a call for a free consultation over the phone.  We know once you speak to us you will have a good understanding of how we can get you through your divorce.

 

California Divorce Forms | Santa Clarita Divorce

Did you know that the California divorce forms are completely free?  If you do any search for free California divorce forms, you can eventually find the Superior Court website which has all the down-loadable divorce forms.

The problem is that the California Superior Courts sites are buried under 100’s of companies trying to sell you California divorce forms.  I suppose folks are just unfamiliar with how to do a proper search to find what they are looking for.

Because we are the Santa Clarita affordable divorce service that we are, we like to give away free things when we can.  We pay for a divorce document assembly service that allow someone to answer questions and the forms fill themselves out.  It makes it much simpler to complete the California divorce forms.

Most companies sell this service anywhere from $99 to $299 and up.  We have decided to give it away for free.

Simply go to this link https://www.clientspace.org/register.asp?firm=A2924098&purchase=437 which will take you to the page which will allow you to create a user name and password and have instant access to the divorce form assembly service.

We are doing this as a community service and to help folks in Santa Clarita.  Besides, we are paying for this service anyways, so we might as well make it available  for people to use.

Of course, we know that this is a good business decision and hopefully if folks decide to hire a divorce document preparation service down the road that they come to us for help.

The California divorce forms will help you prepare all the forms.  You will still have to comply with all the technical aspects of the divorce procedure and make sure you file and serve the forms appropriately.  This is what gives most people the most trouble.  The forms are only half the battle.

Please pass this article along to anyone who may be looking for an easy way to complete their California divorce forms.

 

Divorce Forms Can Be Difficult | Santa Clarita Divorce

If you are considering getting a divorce or have already started the process on your own, you should know that the divorce forms can be difficult.  They don’t outright appear difficult at first, but you have to watch out for the hidden areas where you can make a mistake.  And you won’t even know that you did.

The divorce forms are difficult because many of them are used for more than one purpose and have numerous check boxes for questions that leave you wondering if you should only check off one or if more than one apply.  This is why it important to use a professional divorce document preparation service such as ours.

We have been ripe with calls from frustrated couples who have attempted to complete their divorce paperwork themselves, only to learn later on that they did them completely wrong.

The difficulty with the divorce forms is that nobody tells you if you are doing them correct or not.  Sure you filled out the forms and sent them to the court and they filed them.  “Great”, you think, “I must have done it right”.  Wrong!  The court does not look at the forms you file during your divorce.  You can fill out your divorce paperwork completely wrong and file it with the court and they will stamp it and not say a word.  This is because it is not the court clerks job to review your divorce paperwork.

So you go through the entire divorce process thinking you did everything right.  Then you prepare and submit your final divorce judgment paperwork and three months later you get everything back in the mail with a rejection letter explaining everything that you did wrong.  Don’t feel bad, this happens to just about everyone and most people multiple times.

What you are left doing is trying to fix all the things you did wrong on the divorce paperwork from the time you started up and including the final judgment paperwork.  Sometimes it is a problem with the final judgment paperwork itself and other times it is something you did wrong with the previously filed divorce forms.

We recommend you use our professional divorce document preparation service from the very beginning.  It will save you much time and frustration.  But, if you have already started or nearly done and hitting roadblocks, we can pick up where you left off and figure out what needs to be done to complete your divorce.

December A Busy Month For Divorces In Santa Clarita

I hate to admit it, but December is always a very busy month for divorces not only in Santa Clarita, but all of Los Angeles County.

The interesting thing is that while the phones are literally ringing off the hook, most people are just calling to get information and holding off until after the new year.

This makes sense to me.  Why make more difficult what is probably already a difficult time in your life by filing for divorce during the holidays.  Let’s get past Christmas and New Years and then it can be back to business as far as getting through the divorce process.

So while the phones continue to ring, we are simply advising our soon to be clients that they should expect the courts to be busy come January and February as all these folks who are filing for divorce then will certainly have an impact on the court services.

One thing you might want to consider is to get your initial divorce documents prepared and filed in December and then just hold onto them until you are ready to serve your spouse in January.  Nobody will no you filed for divorce but you.  Oh, and me!

By doing this you will have already completed the initial divorce paperwork and be ready to move forward come January and be that much ahead of the game.

Don’t forget that the divorce does not actually start until you spouse is served, so if you were concerned about timing, there is nothing to worry about.

So whether you just need the information about our services or are ready to get started, please feel free to give us a call.  We would be happy to discuss your options in filing for divorce and about your specific circumstances.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in the divorce process.  We look forward to hearing from you.

We Can Finish Your Santa Clarita Divorce

Well, the calls keep coming in with folks who need help finalizing their divorce.  Trying to do your own divorce is a daunting task with all there is to know and learn about the divorce process.

But as I have mentioned in previous articles, the courts have one little dirty secret.  Want to know what it is?

The court is not reviewing any of your forms you complete and file with the court.  Everything you have done up to this point has not been reviewed by the court.

The first time anyone will look over your divorce documents is when you go to file your final judgment paperwork. Only then does someone go over your forms, and with a fine tooth comb.

That said, folks are left with a false sense of security in thinking they have done everything right along the way.  As hard as you have worked to get the forms right, you come to learn that you did it all wrong and have to start over, re-file forms or worse, not even know what you did wrong.

I had another call today from someone who just got tired of going to the court to try to figure it out.  They made me laugh, when they said they were tired of having to go wait in long lines to get into court, go through the metal detectors and then wait in line again at the self help center.  Nobody said it would be fun.

You are not alone if you share these frustrations in trying to get through your divorce.  Especially after you have submitted your judgment, thought everything was just fine, then 3 months later have your divorce judgment rejected.

Well, there is help.  We can do a complete review of your divorce paperwork if you have had it rejected.  We can even do the review before you submit it to make sure that everything is done right.

We will go through every form you have filed, check to make sure everything is filled out correctly, make any necessary changes and then complete the final judgment paperwork.

For more information about our judgment review process, please give us a call.