Santa Clarita Divorce : How To Start Divorce Process With Divorce 661

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We get asked a lot on how to start the divorce process with our service.  My answer is always the same.

We make is very easy to start your divorce case. Because we are a full service divorce firm and serve all of California, one of the most popular ways to get started is right over the phone or via email.  A lot of people don’t know that the initial divorce forms the court needs to start your divorce case can have a scanned signature.  They do not need the original signatures on these documents.

Therefore, there is no need for an actual in office appointment.  In fact, for many of our clients we complete the entire divorce case via email and over the phone. Here is the video and podcast.

 

We try to make the divorce process as convenient as possible for you to get your California divorce case started and finished using our divorce service.

Santa Clarita Divorce : Time Is Money & Self Help Is Not Free

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

You are going through a Santa Clarita Divorce or anywhere in California and want to be money conscience. I get it. But, over the last few years of owning this business, I have seen people who try to do their own divorce end up spending more money and a ton more time (which also translates into dollars from lost wages)

Don’t bet me wrong, i understand wanting to save money on your divorce in Santa Clarita but you can’t do it at the expense of missing time from work at the court’s self help centers, waiting in line, and having to go down there several times only to be treated badly by the employees of the court.

I know I am not painting a rosy picture, but it is the truth. Ask anybody who has been down to the court’s self help centers and they will tell you how awful it is.

We have both a full-service and self help online divorce service so there is no reason why you can’t afford one of our services.

To check out our online self help services go to California Divorce Tutor for more information.

Community Property Inheritance : Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

When you are going through a divorce in California one of the things you will want to learn about is how inherited property is treated so you can figure out how you are going to divide up your assets and debts.

 

We are not a law firm and don’t want to give legal advice here, but wanted to be able to point you in the right direction for doing your own independent research.

What you are going to want to search for on Google are terms such as:

(Feel free to copy and paste into your search)

Divorce Community Property Division in California

California Divorce How Is Inherited Property Treated

Inheritance And Quasi Community Property California Divorce

I think you will find plenty of links about community property and how inheritance is treated during divorce.

Santa Clarita Divorce : How To Value Assets During California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

A much asked question when going through a divorce is how to value assets and debts.  It can be complicated if make it, or you can make it as easy as possible.  What I normally tell people to do is pick a date and use that date for values on all your assets.  This is important for things such as stocks and 401’s that have values that are always changing.

Watch this video for more information. ( I have been asked by many clients to provide more personal videos and this is my first attempt)

 

Chatsworth Divorce Court Advised Client To Seek Counselling Instead of Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We handle a lot of divorce cases and are usually the first to come across something that has changed.  In this case, we are seeing the divorce courts and some Judges specifically start doing things that are a bit differently.  I am putting that mildly because we are seeing some outright weird things.

This most recent issue was when a client had a total agreement with their spouse in their divorce.  I mean everything.  But the Judge at Chatsworth indicated that she wanted a hearing set so she could speak with our clients.  She did not indicate what the issues was.

So we set up the hearing for our client and asked them to report back on what they were asked.

Turns out the Judge started asking personal questions about their marriage and advised our clients that instead of getting a divorce that they should get counselling and work on their marriage.

If you ask me, it is not up to the court or a Judge to give marital advice.  Our client said she was crying in court because of all the personal questions that were being asked.

You can listen to the podcast where I discuss in more detail.

California Divorce & Changing Your Name With Social Security

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

As you may or may not know, when you go through a divorce you can make the decision if you want to go back to your former name.  This means, do you want to go back to your maiden name you had prior to marriage?

And no, you can’t use any name you want.  I get asked all the time.  You can go back to your former name only.

That said, if you decide you want to revert to you former name you can do so. The benefit to doing this during the divorce process is that you won’t have to file a separate name change case to change your name later down the road.

So when you get the divorce judgment back from court it is not only your judgment for divorce but the court making an order so you can go back to your former name.  This way you can take the judgment to the Social Security and show them so you can change your name back.

However, the Social Security Administration won’t accept any old copy.  They are requesting a Certified copy of the original. This means that you will have to go down to court and ask the clerks office to pull your divorce case, make a copy of the original and stamp it with a certified stamp to indicate that it is a certified copy of the original divorce judgment.

I wanted to write this because we had a client take a non-certified copy to the Social Security Administration to change her name back and she was turned away and obviously frustrated.

Los Angeles Divorce Courts Closed For Veterans Day 11/11/2015

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Just thought I would save a few people the pain of going to any of the Los Angeles divorce courts on Veterans Day on November 11, 2015.  For those of you who follow this blog or check this blog regularly for updates, I hope to save you a trip.

It seems that many people work on Veterans day and so people forget it is a Federal holiday and end up going to the courthouse forgetting that they will be closed.

So I just wanted to write this quick post to remind folks that the courts will be closed on Veterans Day 11/11/15.

Avoid Identity Theft During Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

When you go through a divorce you will be providing whatever company you work with, with just about all your financial and personal information.  This includes tax returns, pay stubs, credit cards and names and date of births or you and your children.

But nobody seems to ever worry about identity theft!

I have never been asked about our procedures for destroying files after we have completed a divorce case!

I bring this up because I know we are not the only game in town, and many people are just shopping for a low price to get through their divorce.  But what I want to warn people about is the security steps companies, if you can call them that, are taking to protect you.IMG_1442

We are the only divorce paralegal company in Santa Clarita that actually has offices. The majority of people who say they can handle your divorce case aren’t even licensed to operate, rather they are just people doing this on the side out of their home.  What do you think happens to your paperwork?  Thrown in the trash with all your personal information?

I bring this up because my staff and I were recently conducting an end of year file clean-up and had to destroy hundreds of files.

Fortunately we utilize a company called Iron Mountain that provides us with year long bins where we place all our legal documents to be shred which they pick up about every 3 to 4 weeks.  We shred all your documents!

Yes, this comes at a cost, but your financial security and helping to protect you from identity theft is one of our chief concerns.

6 Months? Why Does Divorce Take 6 Months?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

As much as I talk about divorce, the divorce process and explain things to clients, the one thing that just keeps coming up is how long the divorce process takes. We’ll it takes 6 months. Yep, 6 months. Why? Because the court’s want you to have a change to work on the relationship. That is all.

In this video we talk more about how to process your divorce paperwork. Some folks think they need to wait 6 months to turn in their divorce agreements or judgment which is not true. There are certain timeframe restrictions on filing paperwork, but you don’t have to wait 6 months to turn in your agreements. Watch this short video for more information.