FL-117 Notice And Acknowledgment Of Receipt Jurisdiction Date To Use

So far we have discussed different ways to serve your spouse during divorce. First we had personal service, next we had service by publication and now we are talking about using the FL-117, Notice and Acknowledgment of Receipt for serving your California divorce Petition.

Using the FL-117 is our preferred method with our amicable California divorce cases. Let’s face it, nobody likes being served divorce paperwork, I don’t care how amicable your divorce is and is why we avoid having to personally serve divorce papers at all costs.

But the purpose of this article is not on how or why to use the FL-117, Notice and Acknowledgment of Receipt, but rather to explain what jurisdiction date you will use on your FL-180 judgment form when you turn in your settlement agreement.

When you use the FL-117 to serve the California Divorce Petition, the jurisdiction date will be the date the Respondent signs the notice and acknowledgment form.

The only different between when someone is personally served and when you use the Notice and Acknowledgment of Receipt is that the soonest you can turn in your judgment is 40 days after the date the court acquired jurisdiction over the respondent.

This is also the soonest you can turn in your Request To Enter Default as well.

For our clients we work with, we wait 45 days from the date the FL-117 is signed just to make sure enough time has passed before turning in the Request To Enter Default and Judgment. If you turn in your paperwork to soon, they will reject all you paperwork and return it for you to fix and resubmit.