Jurisdiction Date For Substituted Service Of California Divorce Papers
Substituted or Sub-served divorce papers simply means serving someone other than the actual person. I discussed how to substitute serve divorce papers in this article.
When you are going through a divorce in California, one of the first things you will have to do after filing for divorce is have your spouse served. The date of service becomes the date of jurisdiction.
This is important because when you turn in your final California divorce papers you will need to let the court know what the jurisdiction date is.
If you look at the FL-180 Judgment Form, you will notice that on the first page, number 3 says, “The Court Acquired Jurisdiction Of The Respondent On” This is where you will place the date of jurisdiction.
Now, when someone is personally served California divorce papers, the actual date they were served is the date the court acquired jurisdiction of the Respondent. So you would just put the actual date they were served there.
However, when California divorce papers are served by substituted service, you have to add 10 calendar days. So let’s say your spouse was served today on April 26, instead of using April 26 you would use May 6th instead.
The reason it is important to know the correct date the court acquired jurisdiction of the respondent is because that is the date that the 6 month cooling off period begins and dictates the soonest your divorce case can be finalized.
If you put the wrong date of jurisdiction on the FL-180, the court will no correct that and will simply reject your California divorce judgment and return it to you. Sometimes they will tell you what the correct date is to be used and sometimes they will just leave you to figure it out as it is not courts job to correct your paperwork.
If you need assistance with your California divorce please give us a call for assistance.
