Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. In this video we’re talking more about using someone who specializes in divorce to help you with your paperwork.

I want to cover maybe 2 topics here. Number 1 is in California you have to be a legal document assistant, LDA, licensed and bonded in order to work with clients without attorney supervision. You cannot just be a paralegal. However, paralegals out there either doing this on the side or never could get the licensing and registration as an LDA.

So they’re out there doing divorce paperwork and honestly they’re not suppose to. There’s just not anyone supervising or kind of policing these activities. So generally people looking for paralegals and generally they are on their own. They are not working for attorneys and you want to make sure that they’re an actual legal document assistant and you’ll see on our website at divorce661.com we clearly have our registration up there.

That’s number 1, number 2 is when using someone for your divorce make sure they specialize in the area of law that you need assistance with. We do only divorce. I should say everything family law related under that umbrella, custody, visitation, legal separation, all those but we specialize in 1 area. We are seeing people with multiple quote, unquote disciplines where they are doing a variety of different areas.

Number 1 they’re not going to do as many cases as we do in family law. We handle about 20 25 divorce cases a month and folks that are doing everything are doing that because they don’t have enough business in that area and number 2, we see people who are paralegals who are nowhere even close to being in the family law arena.

We had a client come to us for help after she had hired a paralegal who was a medical paralegal who works in the medical industry as a paralegal and tried to take this divorce case on. I’m assuming it was her 1st one because it took 2 years, imagine this, totally in agreement, husband and wife, totally in agreement, easy case, very little assets, no children and this paralegal is trying to get this divorce case through for 2 years.

Client called me for help, we took over the case and by looking at the paper work it was obvious that this person had no clue about the policies of divorce, the procedure, or the paperwork. It was terrible. We had to undo everything. I got it fixed in a day.

It was that simple when you really know the tactics and you really know the policy and what you’re doing, that’s how fast we can get things corrected, but 2 years on a simple divorce really consider who you’re choosing, please do your diligence, do your homework, call us for a free evaluation or consultation.

I’ll be happy to talk to you and talk about your case specifically and tell you exactly what we can do for you. Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Hope you’re having a great day. We’ll talk to you soon.

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com and in this video we’re talking about the stipulation and waiver of declaration of disclosure.

So in, this was a question I was posed from a client of ours last week and it was kind of funny because I’ve never been asked that, just thought it was probably obvious. So let’s me address this situation a bit more specific. The question was Tim, why are we waiving our final declaration of disclosure? And after thinking about it for about 10 seconds my response was because you can.

You can waive those final declaration of disclosures. It’s allowed. So when you go through the divorce process you will be doing your preliminary declaration of disclosure. That is mandatory. You have to do that, but there is usually 2 sets. You have your preliminary and then you have your final, but the court by mutual waiver and agreement you can waive your final declaration of disclosure which essentially is just an update of the disclosures and the purpose behind that is let’s say you have, I’ll give you 2 situations.

If you have an easy case and we’re doing your case in a couple weeks, months, what have you, you’re finances aren’t going to change that much so we’re going to do your preliminary disclosures for purposes of exchanging them and meeting the requirements for doing that, but then we’re going to draft you’re judgment shortly thereafter the agreement based off your disclosures.

Now we don’t need to do another set of disclosures exactly mirror the 1st set just to do your final disclosures you can sign off and you can waive doing that, why would you want to go through that process twice? What it’s used for is if people have long drawn out cases, they will initially do their preliminary declaration disclosure in 60 days of the case being filed.

Let’s say they go to trial 2 years later when they finally get into court, well then the courts are going to require a final declaration of disclosure to be done because so much time has gone by, and that’s the rationale.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Hope you’re having a great day. Talk to you soon.

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. In this video we’re talking more about the FL 180 and the issue we’re seeing is folks are filing that.

It says judgment at the form FL 180, it says judgment so people assume that that is their judgment and they’re final paperwork and they are filing just that 2 page FL 180 as their quote, unquote judgment.

That is not your judgment. Please look at page 2 of the FL 180 where there are several boxes for spouse support, child support, custody, visitation and etc, property division. Those are attachments you need to attach if applicable. For instance, you have children, then you’re going to have to mark the child custody, child support box.

If there’s going to be alimony that’s where you’re to say either yes or no but then you need to attach the FL 343, spousal support, or an attachment. Same goes for property. If you have property, even if you don’t have property, you still need to mark the FL 345 and then on the property order itself you just would put none for both boxes of community assets and debts and same for separate property if there’s none.

But you still need the actual order. Consider the FL 180 more of a face sheet and the orders are to follow.

Tim Blankenship, divorce 661.com. Hope you have a great day and hope to talk to you soon.

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. In this video we’re talking about the FL 150, particularly on page 3 related to your expenses.

When we do our amicable divorces I’ll say 80 percent of the time, maybe not that, maybe 70, 60 percent of the time the spouses are still living together, and when that happens the question invariably becomes Tim, do we fill out our expenses as if we’re still living together or do we do it as a proposed expenses?

You’ll see there’s a couple of options, estimated, current or proposed. So if honestly you’re going through our service and it’s amicable and you guys are still living together, I usually just tell my clients just use your current expenses because the FL 150 is more of disclosure purposes. It only gets filed if there’s minor children. So it’s kind of irrelevant in that matter as far as if you are in total agreement with your spouse.

If you’re going to trial and it’s contested and you have a child you’re going to probably want to use a proposed expenses if you’re still living together because you’re going to want to show what your needs are if you’re going for, you know, after spousal support and child support. You want to, this is what my expenses are going to be post divorce so that can be taken into consideration.

So when it’s amicable if the FL 150 income expense is not filed if no children and if there are children it’s only used to verify the incomes for purposes of the child support concerns. So it really doesn’t make a difference when it’s amicable.

Only if it’s, if you guys had a trial and of course you don’t have an attorney at that point and I’m sure there will be explaining what and why you’ll be doing what you’re doing.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Hope you’re having a great day and we will talk to you soon.

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. Today we’re talking more about the response and in this video we’re answering the question, how long do you have to respond to a divorce petition once you’ve been served?

So the general rule, let’s cover 1st being served by personal service. If you’re served divorce papers by personal service if you look at the summons, the 1st thing it’ll say is you have 30 days to respond.

I want to address this. Nothing happens with the courts automatically in 30 days. The courts don’t have a calendar where once they receive the proof of service they indicate the 30 days and then something automatically happens to you.

The petitioner has to take a particular action and that action is they have to file a request to enter default. So even when people have called me on the 30th day say Tim, today is the last day. I don’t think I can respond anymore.

The answer is yes. You can still respond. In fact you can respond at any time up until the request to enter default has been filed and entered.

So even if 6 months to a year has gone by and the other party, the petitioner has not filed a request to enter default and it hasn’t been entered yet, you can still file your response. It’s not, it’s within 30 days otherwise at that point the petitioner can file the request to enter default preventing you from filing the response, but if for some reason it’s gone on for a period of time and you decide you want to respond as long as the request to enter default has not been filed and entered, you can still respond even beyond the 30 days.

Now I want to talk about another way of being served which is by notice and acknowledgment of receipt. Many times with our clients when they’re amicable we will not have that other party served the respondents served by a processor because no 1 likes that.

So we’ll simply mail out the copies to the respondent with a nice letter explaining what’s going on and a notice of acknowledgment.

It’s known as form FL 117 and this is a form you can sign as a respondent acknowledging receipt in lieu of people personally served. And in this case you’re not considered served upon receiving that in the mail, you’re served as the date you date that, and you have up to 20 days to sign that notice and acknowledgment and it says that right there on the form.

So in that case if you are signing the notice and acknowledgment, whatever date you sign it is going to be the date that starts the clock on not only the 6 months but the 30 days and as far as filing your response in your divorce.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com, hoping you have a great day. Talk to you soon.

Hi Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. In this video we’re talking about the notice of acknowledgment and receipt. This is form FL 117. Now this is a form that you can use to serve your divorce paperwork by mail and it’s a form that we use all the time, but I’ve seen people who are doing their own divorce miss using this form.

So number 1, the same rule applies as with personal service, you cannot be the 1 to serve, therefore you cannot be the 1 to mail the divorce paperwork you’re filing, the petition to the other party. You cannot be the 1 mailing it, therefore you cannot be the 1 filling out that form FL 117.

You can fill it out, you just can’t sign it as the person who is sending. You’ll see in the middle of the page the person serving, that cannot be you. So you have to have someone else to do that. Fill that out and sign that. Then you need to have that paperwork mailed to your spouse. When your spouse receives it they will then sign the bottom of it and date, and this form needs original signatures on both the sender’s signature and the person being served. You cannot file a faxed copy or a scanned copy of that.

That’s issue number 1, issue number 2 is we’re seeing people who have this form prepared and done correctly, but then they’re filing that form by itself as a standalone proof of service which it is not. You still have to file the proof of service, the FL 115 and then marked that you served by notice of acknowledgment and receipt.

You’ll see it on the proof of service that’s there’s both personal service on page 1, there’s also service by publication and there’s some other options, but 1 on page 2 it’s on the top I believe on the 115. You’re going to want to choice service by notice of acknowledgment of receipt. You put the date that that was mailed and then you put the date, the city and state of where it was mailed from and then the server, whoever mailed that will have to fill out that 115 as well. So don’t serve, or don’t file the 117 by itself as a standalone. It has to be attached as basically page 3 to the FL 115 proof of service of summons. Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Hope you’re having a great day. Talk to you soon.

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. In this video we’re talking to the wives in deciding wither or not they should change their maiden name, or back to their maiden name rather or restore your former name as it states on the petition.

So I’ll tell you what the rationale is here and I’m going to explain to you why you may want to state that you want to restore your former name even though you may not want to do it right away. So number 1 is this is your opportunity to have your maiden name restored without going to court as name change to change it back. You’ll have a court order as part of the dissolution, the divorce to have your former name restored.

So what I tell my client is if you even 1 percent chance think you may want to go back to your maiden name then ask for it to be restored in the judgment. Just because you get court order as part of the divorce and have your former name restored doesn’t mean you have to go out and do it right away.

You’ll have a judgment that maybe 10, 15, 20 years down the road you want to have your former name restored, you can just pull out a copy of your judgment for the social security, DMV and it’s a done deal. Otherwise if you don’t ask for it then you’re going to have to go file a petition with the court for a name change and go to court and go through that entire process.

So I always recommend to our clients that unless you know absolutely you never want back you should at least put it on the judgment as part of the divorce so you have it down the road. I know there’s reasons why people don’t want to change their names back because they’re still young and want to have the same name, you don’t want to change it because you are a professional in an industry. Maybe you are a doctor or lawyer, or you, you know, some medical field, teacher perhaps and you’re known by a certain name. You don’t want to change it but maybe you want to have that ability to change it at a later date.

So I just want to give the wives out there some thought on wither or not you should put request for your former name to be restored. Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Hope you’re having a great day. I’ll talk to you soon.

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com, and in this video, we’re talking about spousal support and the amount of spousal support that you’re going to agree with your spouse. Now, what I want to talk about specifically is what amount are you going to use. When it comes to spousal support and you’re in agreement with your spouse you don’t have to use the guideline amount of spouse support.

The courts use a system call the DissoMaster and that’s what we’ll calculate spousal support and child support and when it comes to child support the child support has to be the minimum amount of child support that the calculation refers too. So, it says 1,000 dollars in child support, your child support order has to be at least 1,000 dollars or you need a non-guideline order and then that’s subject to court approval and you need to attach a copy of your DissoMaster.

I’ve talked about that in previous videos but for spousal support you do not need to have a specific amount, it does not need to meet guideline for instance, I was helping someone with a calculation for both child support and alimony, they had a specific amount total they wanted for both child and spousal support, let’s say it was 1,000 dollars and the child support came to 350 let’s say and the spousal support came to 1,000 so, the total was the total of those 2 values.

So, they didn’t want it to be that high, they wanted it to be a total of 1,000 so what we did was the child support would be the guideline amount and the spousal support can just be the difference and to total the difference. So, let’s say it was 350 dollars for the child support, you can then make the spouse support 650 dollars to have that total of 1,000 even though the calculation showed spousal was to be 1,000 you don’t have to use that amount.

The courts are not going to force the spousal support guideline amount, they’re only going to enforce the child support guideline amount. Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Hope you’re having a great day, we’ll talk to you soon.

Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com, in this video we’re talking more about the FL 180. This week I’ve had several new clients come in who had tried to do their own divorce and had trouble submitting their judgment and the issues in both cases interestingly enough, is that the FL 180 was turned in as if that was their judgment.

So, I understand the FL 180 says judgment at the bottom, it’s a 2 page form and it looks as if that’s all you need to turn in your judgment, page 2 has issues related to child support, custody, visitation, spouse support and property and I’ve seen in both these cases they just turned in the 2 pages, page 1 of the FL 180 and page 2.

That is not your judgment, that is just your face sheet or a cover sheet, all the orders and agreements follow after the FL 180. So, it’s just a cover sheet, it’s not the actual judgment, it’s just the top sheet to your judgment, all the orders, agreements, settlement arrangements, everything follows behind that and you’ll notice that you can use a form, you can use a settlement agreement there’s little boxes that’ll say property division in the settlement agreement attached or in the FL 345 property order attached. So, you can’t just turn in that FL 180 alone, you need to have all the corresponding orders or marital settlement agreement following in order to turn in your judgment with the court.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Hope you’re having a great day, talk to you soon.

Default California Divorce & Terminating Spousal Support Issues

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com, in this video we’re talking about 2 things. We’re talking about terminating spouse support in a long term marriage, in one that is over 10 years, and the difference in a true default and a default with agreement related to terminating spouse support in marriages over 10 years.

So, a true default is where the parties are not in agreement and the respondent is not participating so, that’s fact number one. When you are going to do a default and you’ve been married longer than 10 years, you cannot terminate the courts jurisdiction over the issue of spouse support on your petition.

If you mark that on your petition which many people do, when you go to submit your judgment and you mark terminate the court’s jurisdiction over the issue of spouse support, the court’s is going to reject your judgment and tell you that you cannot terminate spouse support on a marriage of longer than 10 years unless by agreement. Well you don’t have an agreement, you have a true default where the respondent is not participating at all. So, if you want to terminate spouse support on a long term marriage we recommend, and you’ll be required to submit an agreement.

So, we’ve had parties call us where they need help with their divorce, they’re in agreement, they’re trying to do a true default because they don’t want to pay the response fee which is fine, but you can still do that after a default with an agreement and the only way to terminate the court’s jurisdiction over the issue of spouse support marriage on a long term marriage is to do it by agreement.

So, the 1st question I’ll ask the clients is if the other party will participate, then we can do this as an agreement and it’s easy to terminate the spouse support by agreement but on a default with a long term marriage you cannot.

Now here’s catch number 2, once the court rejects your judgment and says well you’ve been married a lot longer than 10 years, California law states that jurisdiction will be reserved indefinitely so then you change your judgment to say reserve jurisdiction, then they reject the judgment again saying you did not request to reserve in the petition, so you cannot ask for that in your judgment It’s a total trick. So, what you have to do then is amend your petition to mark reserved jurisdiction, re-file it, re-serve it, wait the 30 days again and then file your judgment.

So, what we recommend is if you get stuck there it’s best to see if the other party will sign off, it’ll be faster, you don’t have to restart the dates but if not the only way to fix it is to amend the petition, mark the reserved jurisdiction, refile, reserve, wait 30 days and then turn in your judgment.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Hope you’re having a great day if you need any help with your divorce give us a call, 661 281 0266. Thanks for watching.