Santa Clarita Divorce | Terminating Spousal Support | True Default Divorce Cases

How do we handle spousal support on a true default case. Okay what we’re talking about is divorce cases that are true defaults.

What that means is the other party is not participating they’re not cooperating they’re not filing a response they’re not doing anything.

And the question we’re answering today is when you are asking for spousal support to be waived and not have spouse support and even terminate the Court’s Jurisdiction over spouse support.  That can only be done through a request on the petition.

I often talk about in amicable divorce cases where both parties are participating if the parties agree to terminate spousal support that you include some additional language where the parties will both initial indicating that they agree to waive spouse support.

There’s two different versions one for short-term marriages and one with long-term marriages.  Now when it comes to terminating spousal support the issue with true default cases, where there’s no agreement, is it is possible to terminate spousal support if you requested it in the petition and you have a short-term marriage.

One of the issues that always comes up is if you have a long-term marriage over 10 years and you mark on your petition to terminate jurisdiction over spousal support and then when you go to submit your judgment you’re going to have to match your petition and say terminate on the spousal support order.

The issue is the court cannot approve that because California law indicates that spousal support should be reserved unless it has been waived by both parties.  So what’s going to happen if that’s the case is you would have to amend your petition to reserve jurisdiction over the issue of spouse support, re-serve it,  re-file your request enter default then enter then enter your default judgment with Reserve jurisdiction.

This is only an issue on long-term marriages it is non-issue on short-term marriages less than 10 years

Santa Clarita Divorce | How To Notarize Your Divorce Judgment – Marital Settlement Agreement

Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com and what we’re talking about in this video is issues we’re having with notaries when our clients go get a notary the notary is writing the wrong description of document on the notice of acknowledgment.

So when you finish your case and you’re having your judgment notarized the signature page – the marital settlement agreement page where your signatures are, you have to have that notarized. And they need to attach this certificate of acknowledgment.

It’s called all-purpose certificate of acknowledgment for your signatures and what the notaries are doing –  there’s a box on this form that says description of the attached document and they’re writing in names of other forms that do not need to be notarized.

So the Assumption by the court is that you had the wrong document notarized. What they need to write in that box is marital settlement agreement or  judgment attachment or stipulated judgment –  something that’s related to the document you’re actually signing not some other random form that does not need to be notarized which is causing will cause your judgment to be rejected

Santa Clarita Divorce | Legal Separation Vs Divorce

Legal separation process is not faster than the divorce process.

We get calls where people are asking about legal separation and I’ll usually ask them are you doing this because you’re never going to get married again or for religious reasons.

And usually the answer is because they think it’s faster to go through the legal separation process than the divorce process. Now you would think it would be because there is no six-month waiting period,  I understand why you’re thinking this.

However on in practical terms when going through the process it follows the same timelines as the divorce process does. Meaning we have to file a petition for legal separation, it has to be served, a period of time has to go by before we can submit the judgment, and once the judgment is submitted, depending on what county in California you are in, it’s going to take two to three to four months to process that judgment.

And until the court signs off on that judgment your legal separation case has not been finalized and this is the same process that’s going to go through with the divorce case.

It’s not going to be done any faster so if you’re thinking of legal separation versus divorce because you think it’s going to get you there faster it’s not.

Santa Clarita Divorce | How To Start The Divorce Process

To start the divorce process all you have to do is file a few forms.

So the forms that you would file for divorce are the summons and petition and that’s really all there is to file for divorce. Now, if you have children there’s an additional form fl-105 known as the UCCJEA and then depending on your county you may have a local form.

So let’s assume that you have these forms completed – what’s the next step well the next step would be to file these forms and get a case number issued by the court.

You have to file them before you serve them, so once you file them you’ll get a case number issued by the court now they’re ready to be filed the step after that is they need to be served.

Now there’s several steps there are different ways that you can have these documents served if you are amicable like our clients are.  What you’d want to use is a notice of acknowledgment of receipt there’s no reason to personally serve someone that you’re friendly with especially your spouse if you’re trying to go through an amicable divorce and then irritate them because you had them served by someone.

Now you may want to use a friend or a family member or even a neighbor but honestly all you have to do is have someone mail it to your spouse and have them sign a notice of acknowledgment and then you would file that with the proof of service after you filed for divorce and had it served now it’s ready to do your disclosures.

The parties will do their financial disclosures share them with each other so you guys are aware of what all the assets and debts are that are on the table subject to division. And following that you will draft Your settlement agreement.

Now that was a broad Strokes overview of the divorce process more than just how to file if you’re looking for help with getting an amical divorce anywhere in California give us a call be happy to help

Santa Clarita Divorce | How To Avoid Paying Child Support

It’s actually quite easy we get a lot of flack on this on social media on YouTube people upset about us telling folks how to avoid paying child support.

But we’re not telling people how to get out of paying child support we’re simply saying for our amicable divorce clients that if you do not want to have an official child custody order as part of your divorce we can make that happen.

We’re not breaking any rules we’re not cheating the system.  There’s a process with the court where we can ask for what’s called a non-guideline order.

So in every settlement agreement that we draft for our clients we have to include a child support order, we can’t just say it’s waived, a lot of people say they want to wave it you can’t do that.

So what we do is a non-guideline order.  We still have to attach the child support order, we still have to do a child support dissomaster calculation,  we still have to give the incomes of the parties to the court.

And here’s what’s happened so we do the calculation and on the child support order we write down, yes, child support  calculated shows x amount of dollars however we’re asking for a non-guideline order per the agreement of the parties that they wish the child support to be set at zero as opposed to the amount calculated and in doing so essentially will not harm the child

That’s how we do it if you’re looking to get a divorce and not have child support.  And doing your own divorce it’s going to be very difficult because you’re not going to know the legalese that has to be included in the divorce to make this happen.

We’ve been doing this for 10 years aside from making the divorce process easier on you by us handling it as a full service for you anywhere in California we can also get you a zero child support order as well

When You Don’t Need To File A Response To Your Santa Clarita Divorce

Here’s when you do not want to file a response to your divorce.

If you have an amicable divorce case you’re going to notice when you’re going through either the self-help center or you’re looking online it’s going to give you instructions on what to do.

First step is going to say file your divorce case step two serve your spouse step 3 response to be filed within 30 days. I know it says it on the forms I know it says it on the instructions.

I know the summon says if you don’t file a response in 30 days your spouse is going to get everything they want and be able to finalize the divorce without them let me tell you this, I’ve been doing this for 10 years we do not have our clients purposely file a response because nothing bad is going to happen.

We are working with amicable clients going through an amicable divorce process and all the response does is generate more fees for the court.

A response is not required to finalize a divorce especially when it’s amicable. It’s called a default with written agreement you can Google it you’ll probably see videos I’ve done on this we do this purely to save clients money why pay the courts another $435 dollars if we can still get your divorce done on a single Court filing fee.

We are a full service divorce firm serving all courts in California.

Orange County Divorce Status Conference

Hearings

Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com and what we’re talking about today is the Orange County notice of status conference hearing. If your case is in Orange County and you received one of these notices you’re getting this because your case is not moving fast enough and the Court’s calling you into court so you can tell you what you need to do to get your case finalized so you’re not lingering in the courts Forever.

This is a must appear notice which means you have to go to your hearing if you don’t there’s all kinds of threats they could penalize you they could even go as far as dismissing your case which you wouldn’t want to happen because then you have to pay your fees all over again, start from scratch, refile your petition and serve and all that good stuff.

But if you’re getting this notice just give us a call we can help you finalize your divorce quickly there’s no need to take time off of work again losing more money or using your vacation to go down to court and meet with the attorneys and with the court to finalize your case, just give us a call we’d be happy to help you out.

We just happened to do this we’re getting this one under the wire you can see here that it says that the Judgment that needs to be submitted 10 days and that’s going to be 10 Court days prior to the hearing and we are getting this in just under the wire so the parties do not have to attend court.

So if you have this hearing coming up and you want to get your divorce finalized you don’t have to just wait and then show up to this hearing give me a call we can help finalize your divorce well before you go to court and then you can actually avoid going to this hearing because you’ve submitted a full judgment to the court on all issues.