What You Need For A Post Judgment Divorce Modification

Lately I have been getting several cases where the parties have already been divorced, but where they now want to modify some portion of the agreement.

This could be modifying spousal support, child support or even asking the court to enforce the judgement when the other spouse is not complying with the stipulated agreement or order of the court.

We handle both filing of the request for order as well as those who need to respond to a request for order.  We can even help you file and Ex-Parte motion when an emergency exists.

When you are going to file a post judgment modification, you will need to complete the following forms.

1.  FL- 300, which is the application for order (request for order)

2.  Income and Expense Declaration, if the issues is related to money.

3.  Any other attachments that may be required based on your request.

One thing to remember is that if you are filing a post judgment motion, you need to personally serve the documents on your spouse.  you can’t simply mail them to him or her.

In a case we are working on right now, we are helping the spouse to file a response to a motion.  The husband was upset that the wife did not transfer title out of his name like the divorce judgement said and claimed that the wife was paying late on the vehicle causing his credit to be tarnished.

This was a fairly easy response because the wife had already sold the vehicle which took husband off title.  The wife really should not have even had to file a response if husband would take the motion off calendar, but he refused.

If you need to file a motion, respond to a motion, whether it be post judgment or not, we can help.  We will complete the required forms, help you with your declaration and file and serve all the documents.  All you will have to do is show up in court.

We are a full service divorce document preparation service and are headquartered in Santa Clarita, CA, however we serve all of Los Angeles County.

We Have No Property Together | Santa Clarita Divorce

One of the questions I ask folks when they call to find out about our services is in regards to the amount of property that has to be distributed.   What I am  trying to find out is things like homes, pensions, accounts, vehicles and debts.

Many times what people tell me is that they have nothing!  While there are certainly people out there that literally no property, what I end up having to do is explain what property is.

When it comes to disclosing property during a divorce, it is not just tangible things such as cars and homes.  This also includes checking accounts, savings account, credit cards and furniture.  If you own a toaster, you have property.  Even if you have a dog, you have property.

So the likelihood that you truly have no property is very slim.

You have to fill out the preliminary declaration of disclosure whether you have property or not.  You might as well do it correctly and list all property, regardless of which spouse it belongs to.

This brings me to another point.  Just because the property is not in your possession, does not mean you don’t have any property.  I spoke to a young lady the other day who said she had not property because her husband left with everything.  He took the car, the furniture and everything else not bolted to the ground.

So does she still need to list this property on her disclosures?  Hopefully at this point you are saying, “Yes”.

I guess the best way to look at it is not what you literally have in your possession, rather what the totality of the property is whether in your hands or yours spouses.

It does not even matter if your spouse has had an account in his name and you never had access to it.  You still list it.  Why?  So it can be assigned as his account in the final judgment paperwork.

 

Difference Between Legal Document Assistant and Legal Technicians

As the State of California attempts to deal with the fact that most people cannot afford an attorney for their legal issues, their response is to create a new legal specimen they will call “Legal Technicians”.

These new legal technicians are really just a new name to an old industry called Legal Document Assistants.  Why they think that creating a new name will help people get more legal assistance is beyond me.

As it stands now, the Legal Document Assistant industry (which is what we are ) is a barely known term.  And this is after 13 years!  In fact, there are less than 600 legal document assistants in all of Los Angeles County.  And many of these are folks out of the County who want to carry multiple licenses so they can obtain business in other Counties.

It is almost laughable.  California is looking at Washington State for guidance on the issue.  What they don’t realize is that the requirements to become a legal technician is the exact same as that of legal document assistants currently in California.

There is one small condition that is different.  You have to take a test.  In California, you have to meet certain educational and experience guidelines to become a legal document assistant.  You also have to get licensed and bonded in the County you provide services.  The only difference is that you do not have to pass a test.

However, California has what is known as the CLA which stands for certified legal assistant.  This test is mostly for Paralegals who are working under an attorney, but how much do you want to bet that this test becomes the standard in California if they ever try to bring Legal Technicians to fruition in California.

I, for one, don’t think that they will ever develop a legal technician industry in California.  Heck, they can’t even get the legal document assistant name off the ground in over 13 years.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document assistant firm in Santa Clarita that specializes in divorce.  If they ever do bring the legal technician profession to California we will simply take the test and change what we call ourselves.  But again, I don’t think it will ever happen.

Attorney Last Resort When Divorcing | Santa Clarita

Of course, this is just my opinion, but I firmly believe that an attorney should be used during your divorce, only as a last resort.

There are many people that share my opinion that attorneys, and the legal system, should not be involved in divorce matters.

Of court, attorneys do not believe this, but mediators, family law counselors, facilitators, marriage counselors and the like all feel that divorce would be better handled outside the legal system.

So if using an attorney is the last resort when getting divorced, then what are your other options?  Lets explore this.

First, you have companies such as ours which provide affordable divorce document preparation.  We provide a full service divorce process that can get most divorces completed.  Even ones that have some issues that are being contested.

We will show you how to use the courts free services to come to an agreement on issues that have not been agreed upon yet.

The next step, if there were still outstanding issues that you needed help on would be to pay for a mediator to help resolve your issues.  When I have cases where the parties cannot agree on something, I will refer them to a local Santa Clarita mediator.

This is a paid service, where you and your spouse will sit down with a Lawyer together.  This lawyer is a neutral third party who does not represent either one of you, rather it is their job to explain the law and what the potential outcomes may be so that you can make an informed decision.

It is recommended that you spend as much time as it takes to reach an agreement.

If you still cannot come to an agreement, then you might have to hire an attorney.  Just be aware that once you do this you can expect many more issues to arise.  Why is this?  Because it is the attorney’s job to fight for you and your rights.   You spouse’s attorney is going to do the same thing.

This is not really an environment that invites agreement.

Try to use the steps as outlined above when possible and use an attorney for your divorce only as a last resort.

Divorce Is Not Something You Want To Gamble With | Santa Clarita

There are bad apples in every industry.  Whether it be the shady salesman or some widget you bought that broke the second you got it home.

The legal industry is not any different.  Especially in the field we are in preparing legal documents for people.  There are strict licensing requirements needed to qualify to do what we do.  Most people are not able to get the certification that we have.  This is proven by the fact that in over 10 years, less than 600 folks in Los Angeles County are able to legally prepare divorce documents directly to the public as we do.

The problem is that their is little to no regulation of these companies and they normally fly under radar.  It would not be such a problem, except that there are so many of them out there.

We say that divorce is not something you want to gamble with.  We mean that you should not throw the dice and chose to work with these characters out there saying they prepare divorce documents or any other legal documents for that matter.

But how do you really know if they are above board or not?  There is truly only one way.  You have to ask them to provide their Legal Document Assistant Identification.

When one is authorized by the County of Los Angeles to provide legal document assistance, they issue a identification card.  I have actually written about this and posted a picture of my actual legal document assistant license.  In fact if you are on this website you can see it scroll across our featured news area.

Hopefully you will only get divorced once in your lifetime.  When you have to, make sure you work with the best the industry has to offer.  We have many clients that fell victim to these companies who did a horrible job attempting to prepare their divorce forms whom made it even more difficult to fix.

Military Divorce Service | Divorce Assistance For Military Families

It is probably no shock to learn that our military families go through divorce like everyone else.  What with long deployments, stressful military occupations and trying to keep a family together.

I have been getting more calls than usual from folks in the Military seeking help with filing for divorce.  We have been able to help every one of them as well.

We have Military families calling us who are stationed in San Diego as well as those deployed overseas.  We even helped someone stationed in Germany.

Because the divorce process is relatively the same everywhere in California, we can help you get through the divorce in any County in California.   For some reason, the Military personnel that we have helped has already started the divorce process and just needed us to pick up where they left.  They found that they just did not have the time to invest in attempting to see it all the way through.

It does not matter if you are overseas or stationed state side, we can help.  Most of what we do it done right over the phone and by email.  The person in Germany was obviously on a totally different time zone, which made email a very handy tool to communicate so we could complete his divorce.

I know that folks reading this probably live in other states besides California, but unfortunately we specialize in California divorce procedures.  I wouldn’t have any idea how to complete a divorce in another state.

Feel free to give us a call so we can discuss helping your out.  Many of the service members who found our website used the “email us now” button on our home page to make initial contact with us.   Either way is fine and we will respond to your email right away.