Divorce Hotel : Have You Heard Of Divorce Hotel Mediation?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

When it comes to divorce and divorce mediation there are more and more creative ways companies are coming up with to attract people to mediating their divorce versus hiring a divorce attorney.

And I am for divorce mediation and dedicated an entire chapter to divorce mediation in my book, Why You Don’t Need A Divorce Attorney.

There is a new divorce mediation company who is rumored to be coming to Los Angeles called Divorce Hotel.  Honestly when I first heard about it recently the name kind of sounded scary and reminded be of a horror movie like Bates Motel.

But as I am always curious of new business’s related to divorce and divorce mediation, I thought I would do a little research on Divorce Hotel.

Divorce Hotel is a company in the Netherlands that connects you with mediators with a concept of completing your divorce mediation over a period of 2 days which occurs over the weekend. You stay at one of Divorce Hotel’s Hotels.

I would imagine that Divorce Hotel does not own the Hotel’s they hold their mediations in, rather set up the divorce mediation in a hotel near you.

From my research it appears it is more of a concept, meaning that their concept allows mediators to establish relationships with Divorce Hotel as independent contractors who can then use their name. Seems more of a franchise type relationship where mediators would use the Divorce Hotel concept for their divorce mediations.

There are many types of “concepts” for divorce and divorce mediation out there. I have even seen divorce mediation companies advertising “divorce vacations” where the divorce mediation takes place at some resort style location and is meant to have people enjoy their stay and relax during the mediation.

Do You Really Need Divorce Mediation?

The reason I wanted to write this article is to talk more about divorce mediation.  While there are all types of divorce mediation services with their own little twist, my question is, “do you really need divorce mediation to begin with?”

My definition of divorce mediation is to have a neutral third party who specializes in divorce mediation sitting in a room with you and your spouse helping you to communicate and work through your issues and decisions as it pertains to your divorce settlement or agreements.

I have found over the years that most people do not need divorce mediation. They usually either have a misunderstanding of what divorce mediation is or felt that it was required to finalize their divorce. I don’t know about other States, but in California you do not need to mediate to finalize your divorce.

Options To Start Your Divorce

As a divorce paralegal business, also known as Legal Document Preparers who specialize in the divorce process, I have found that most people don’t need a divorce mediator. If you and your spouse have decided to work through your divorce amicably, you have some options. I have recommended that people start their divorce at the lowest level (and cost) which is through our paralegal divorce service.

While going through the process of divorce with us, it will become apparent if you require divorce mediation during the process. When using or divorce service, we will walk you through the process and assist you. When you start to have problems coming to an agreement in certain areas, you can then decide to get professional mediation at that point.

I explain to people that you don’t know if you need to hire a mediator until start the process and start talking.

I personally feel that it does not make sense to start with divorce mediation unless you absolutely know that you will not get through your divorce without one. I have many clients who have called us and wanted to know if we did divorce mediation then after speaking with them they state that they are mostly in agreement and just need to work out few details.

When you work with us, we will help you through your divorce and only if you cannot come to an agreement will we refer you out to mediation.

The worst thing you can do is walk into a divorce mediators office without any idea of where you are at as far as your agreements or disagreements are concerned.

We work with several divorce mediators and they say the worst things about divorce mediation is when clients come in and have no idea what they agree or disagree to or what they even want. This results in a very costly process as most divorce mediators charge per the hour.

This is why I recommend you start with our service and if issues come up, you can go have those one or two issues mediated and once you have that wrapped up we can continue to complete your divorce case.

Clients of ours who thought they needed divorce mediation initially are very happy with going through our service. As we are going through the process, certain things will come up. When I see they are not resolving certain issues, I can then send them to a divorce mediator that specializes in the area they are having trouble.

For instance, many of the issues people going through divorce get stuck on is related to custody issues and / or anything to do with money, such as how they are going to divide up their assets and debts.

Say, for instance, that the issues are related to division of assets and debts. In these cases I would refer you to a divorce mediator who specialize in finances. I have a divorce mediator I refer to that does just that and holds a certificate as a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA) and who has helped many of my clients with just those issues.

So what I wanted you to take away from this is that divorce mediation is not required in California and most people either don’t need divorce mediation or don’t know what they don’t agree to and therefore divorce mediation would not be very helpful or would be costly to begin.

Give us a call and I can speak to you to learn more about what you and your spouse have going on and let you know the best way to proceed.

California Divorce Filings Slows Sooner Than Years Past

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Over the last 5 years of providing our divorce service in California, I have noticed, and commented before, that as we get closer to the Holidays that the amount of divorce cases that are filed slow.

It makes sense that going into Thanksgiving and through Christmas and the end of the year that people decide to put their problems on hold so they can have some semblance or normalcy during the holidays.

In fact, while the new divorce filings go down, we see many of our clients wanting to finalize their divorce paperwork a few weeks prior to Thanksgiving so they too can have a somewhat normal holiday and not have to think about divorce.

I used to wonder why the divorce filings slowed and the first year thought it was possibly my marketing or something like that. But over the years this has happened each and every year. I have spoke to several family law attorneys as well and they too get slower over the holidays.

I am able to track my website visits during November and December and we see an approximately 50% drop in visitors to our website.

Now this year, I have noticed that this has started a few weeks earlier than normal.  For instance, in years past, I would notice it start to slow down around the middle of November, right around the 15th through the end of the year. In fact, I have placed a calendar popup for this year on the 15th of November to remind me that business would naturally start to slow.

What was interesting is that it had already started slowing closer to the the 1st of November, 2 weeks earlier than last year.

The only thing I can thing that is different is the 2016 Election. I think that a lot of people are keeping their eye on the election and are concerned for whatever reasons they have to be concerned about.

In any case, it is not as if by not filing for divorce during November and December reduces the amount of cases filed. All it does is cause a lot more people to file for divorce when January rolls around, which another trend that people in the divorce business call, “Divorce Season” which then really kicks off starting with Valentines Day when we see a huge uptick in divorce filings.

Divorce Court Awards Party Community Property Then Judgment Reflects Different Orders

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Today I had an interesting question posed to me via email from someone he reached out to me for help. Their question was regarding prove up hearing’s which is where the court sets of hearing when you have filed a default judgment and they want to bring you in to ask questions about your proposed judgment.

Generally speaking, The court will ask you to come in for a prove up hearing if you have questions related to things such as community property division spell support child support or specific requests that go against Court policy.

In this particular question they had gone to a hearing and the court agreed to give the petitioner to community property assets. But when she got the judgment in the mail after it was processed by the court she noticed that the two community property items that the court granted to her now said that they were reserved for later jurisdiction and determination.

So what I advised her to do is to get a copy of the minute order from the court room so she could see if the clerk properly wrote down what the judge ordered. If the minute order does not show the order the judge made i advised her to get a copy of the transcript which is the word for word discussion in the court room where as the minute order is just the highlights and notes.

Once she gets a copy of the minute order and or the transcription we will be able to see if it was the courts mistake or whether the judge made a decision after the hearing to reserve jurisdiction over the issues of community property or if they change their mind.

When Spouse Dies During Divorce What Do You Do?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

This is probably the second or third time I am remember this happening, but this morning I open up my email and the first email I read is from a client who says that their spouse had passed away and was wondering what they had to do.

From the perspective of what you need to do procedurally when a spouse dies during the divorce and the case has not finalized yet, is that you need to dismiss the divorce case.

If you filed for divorce and your spouse never responded, then you can dismiss your case with just your signature. If you had a divorce case where your spouse filed their response, then normally you would need their signature to dismiss the case.

So when you need to dismiss your case when one of the parties has passed away, you will still need to file the request for dismissal, but you will need to attach a copy of the death certificate to the request for dismissal form so the court can see that they have passed away.

These are unfortunate circumstances that occur and is a good reminder that it can happen during the divorce process. It is also good to remember to make sure all your financial affairs are in order and have been discussed, especially when going through a divorce.

One can just hope that during the divorce process, where one of the parties dies, is that folks did not let life insurance policies lapse. I know many times when people are going through a divorce, they sort of put those things on hold for some reason.

California Divorce | Spouse Won’t Sign Notice Of Acknowledgment Of Receipt

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

This is as much a rant as it is instructional and conversational about divorce and divorce procedure in California. This discussion is about when you file for divorce and how to serve your spouse in the most amicable way possible.

When going through divorce in California, you don’t have to personally serve your spouse. When clients hire our firm, we want to make sure that your divorce case remains amicable. To this end, we make sure we never have your spouse personally served the divorce papers. I don’t care how amicable you think you and your spouse are, have a process server slap some divorce papers in their face at work or home and I can guarantee you are going to hear about it.

But what i don’t understand is that I have a few divorce cases right now, where the parties hired me to help them with their California divorce and after we have the case filed, we sent the notice of acknowledgment of receipt to the other spouse and they refuse to sign it.

I feel that it is not so much that they don’t want to cooperate, rather that they feel that by signing this form they are agreeing to the divorce when they maybe not really want it. It seems that they think that if they are “personally served” divorce papers, that, even though they agree to getting a divorce, they feel that by not signing this form, that they will feel as if their spouse divorce them and that it was not what they wanted.

Just know this. While I don’t understand your decision to not sign the FL-117, I do understand that there are principles that you feel you are following and that nobody else might understand. But also understand this. If you don’t sign this form, you force the other party to serve the divorce papers to you personally which may come at a time not convenient and that might be embarassing.

Either way, you will have to be served and I don’t find any good reason why someone would prefer to be served divorce papers personally when they can just sign a form saying they got a copy.

Just my two sense and nothing more…

California Divorce Judgment Rejected | FL-170 Wrong or Missing

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Ok, another article and podcast on how to handle the issues when your California divorce judgment is rejected. This one is about form FL-170. This is a mandatory, what I call “procedural” form. It essentially lets the court know what type of divorce case you are filing. Is your case a default with agreement, default without agreement or uncontested divorce case.

The other thing it advises the court is what the status of your financial disclosures are. Meaning, you both disclosed and is a uncontested case or is it a default with agreement where you both agree to waive your final declaration of disclosures.

California Divorce Judgment Rejected | FL-141 Missing Or Wrong

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce Judgment Rejected | FL-141 Missing Or Wrong

Having your California divorce case rejected is never fun. However, this article will discuss what to do if your California divorce judgment is rejected for the following reasons listed on the FAM-001.

Judicial Council form FL-141, Declaration Regarding Service of Declaration of Disclosure & Income and Expense Declaration [revised July 2013]

  1. must be submitted by the Petitioner as to the Preliminary Declaration of Disclosure (the Preliminary Declaration cannot be waived). See Family Code §2104.
  2. must be submitted by the Respondent as to the Preliminary Declaration of Disclosure (the Preliminary Declaration cannot be waived). See Family Code §2104.
  3. must be submitted by the Petitioner & the Respondent as to the Final Declaration of Disclosure & Income and Expense Declaration; in the alternative, the parties may stipulate to a mutual waiver of the requirements of 2105(a) concerning the final declaration of disclosure by execution of a waiver under penalty of perjury by separate stipulation by filing Judicial Council form FL-144, Stipulation and Waiver of Final Declaration of Disclosure [revised January 2007]. Please refer to Family Code §§2105, 2106.

This is a common error and is easy to fix. Most people forget about the form altogether, but when the form is submitted to the court the biggest problem is that people forget to fill in the date.

You see where it says on paragraph one that either the Petitioner or Respondent has served the other party their preliminary declaration of disclosures?  And then there is some white space between paragraph one and paragraph two? There is where you are supposed to put the date that the disclosures were served.

As usual, it is a poorly formatted form and just begs for mistakes to be made. Thankfully it is an easy fix, but is cause for rejection of your California divorce judgment.

When The Divorce Court Wants Your Matter Set For Hearing

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

When The Divorce Court Wants Your Matter Set For Hearing

Okay, this is another article about helping you with issues related to submitting your divorce judgment in California. This article discusses what to do if the court rejects your judgment and advised you to set the your divorce case for a hearing using form FAM-031.

Listen to the podcast where I explain in detail why you received this notice and what you need to do.

The FAM-031 is a form you use to set your case for a hearing. The reject letter you receive that has this section marked simply means that the court found something in your divorce judgment that they have a question on and they want you to come to court so they can ask you about it.

We see this happen mostly on default divorce cases. Default divorce cases, either default with agreements or default without agreements also known as a true default.

Here is what you do…

File the request for default setting form FAM-031 and check off the boxes that apply. They will usually say what the issue is that will relate to one of the check boxes on the request for default setting form.

The most common issues and reasons we see the court setting hearing is as follows:

  1. You are trying to terminate spousal support on a long term marriage
  2. You are asking for a specific amount of support
  3. Request for no child visitation or supervised visitation
  4. Request for child support either for more or less than what the court would order
  5. Any other reason… If the court states the specific issue then use the “other box” If you don’t know the reason then use the “other box” and write “per court request”

Having your divorce judgment rejected is very frustrating and learning you now have to wait for a hearing (which can be as much as 90 days off or longer) will likely not make you happy especially considering you were opening the package from the court thinking your divorce case was finalized, only to learn it is not.

Please call us if you would like assistance with your divorce case.

High Net Worth & High Income Earners Using Divorce 661

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I had a client sign up for services that I just had to comment on. You see, their family was what I would call high net worth / high income earners. They earned around $25,000 a month from their business which i would consider to be a fairly high income.

When I first spoke with this family, I asked them why they had decided to use me instead of an attorney since they likely could afford it.

Their answer was one that I was familiar with. They said that once the divorce attorneys would look at their income and they spoke about their net worth and possessions that the attorneys seemed to feel they could get a lot more money out of them.

The clients actually said that even over the phone when they would speak to attorneys that they would ask where they live and that the attorneys would even comment and say something like, “oh, you are in that part of town” referencing the expensive homes in that particular neighborhood.

Make sure to listen to this quick podcast where I talk more about this issue. You can also download the pdf of this blog post below as well.

Divorce Judgment Rejection : Prior To Submission Of Judgment Default Must Be Entered

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Divorce Judgment Rejection : Prior To Submission Of Judgment Default Must Be Entered

In this article and podcast I am explaining how to correct the issue of having your divorce judgment rejected when you either don’t file the FL-165 or make errors when submitting the request to enter default form.

The exact language of the rejection notice says….

Prior to the submission of the Judgment, the Default must be entered. In the alternative, submit a Judicial Council form FL-130, Appearance, Stipulations and Waivers [revised January 2011] signed by both parties (and their counsel, if any) and include the first appearance fee of $ . Make check payable to L.A.S.C.

Below is the audio and written explanation

Here is how to fix the rejection on the FL-165

Today were talking about one of the reasons your judgment can be rejected. This article is talking about when you turn in your divorce judgment to the court and it is rejected because you did not file the request to enter default form FL 165.

You see when you turn in your divorce judgment and the other party has not responded this becomes what is known as a default case. It is a default case because the other party did not file a response. That is all it means when filing the default.

So to correct this issue if you had your judgment rejected because you did not file the request to enter default all you need to do is resubmit your judgment and then include the request to enter default form.

Make sure when you are filing a request to enter default that you have signed all four places on the form. I see often that people make the mistake of not signing the first line on the first page because they think it says attorney. But that signature line is for you to sign it’s written poorly and it makes it look like it should only be for an attorney but that is for you to sign.

Make sure to have an original and three copies of the request to enter default when you submit this to court with your judgment and don’t forget to include two envelopes each addressed to one of the parties and make sure to put postage on the envelope.

And finally, remember that you cannot submit The request to enter default any sooner than 30 days from the date of service of the petition. If you delete the request to enter default form any sooner than the 30 days from the date the other party was served your request to enter default will be rejected.