068: How & When To File A California Divorce Default Setting Form FAM-031

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

In this episode, we will talk about California divorce default setting and how and when to file it.

If you are going to file a default California divorce, one where you file and serve your spouse, but your spouse does not file a response or participate at all, you may need to file a form called, “Default Setting” which is form FAM-031.

There is a specific use for the default setting form and certain times you will want to use it.

When you file a default California divorce, there are certain rules such as having to evenly divide community property, ensure there is an order for child support if necessary and other rules.

Make sure to listen to the latest podcast to know more about California divorce default setting.

067: Notice Of Case Review Notices Issues In California Divorce Cases

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

In this episode, we will be discussing what is the notice of case review in California divorce cases. The courts never used to really get involved or make sure that your California divorce case is moving forward or not.

However, recently the court started monitoring the progress of California divorce cases to ensure they are moving along properly. The first notice you may received is what is called a Notice Of Case Review for your California divorce case. The issue that sets this notice in motion is for failure to serve your divorce summons and petition within 60 days for filing.

Make sure to listen to the latest podcast.

066: What Is The Court Acquired Jurisdiction On California Divorce FL-180

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

In this episode, we will be talking about the California divorce form FL-180, specifically what is the court acquired jurisdiction on form FL-180.

When you go to complete your final judgment in your California divorce, you will have to complete form FL-180. This form gives people a lot of trouble, especially regarding what to put where it says, “The Court Acquired Jurisdiction”.

So what goes in this field on the FL-180 where it is asking you when the Court acquired jurisdiction?

Make sure to listen to the latest podcast to know more about courts acquired jurisdiction on form FL-180.

065: California Divorce | Keep Or Change Last Name During Divorce?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

In this episode, we will talk about keeping or changing your last name during divorce.

Here are the things you can do to change your last name while on California divorce. When you are going through a divorce in California, you have the option of asking the judge to change your name back to your former name.

This will help in changing your name with the various state entities such as the Department of Motor Vehicles and Social Security Administration.

There are reasons why a spouse would decide to keep their spouses name or go back to their former name. We will discuss things we have been told when women are deciding on whether or not to keep or change their last name during divorce in this episode.

Make sure to listen to the latest podcast.

How To File For Divorce In Santa Monica, CA

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To File For Divorce In Santa Monica, CA

If you live in or around Santa Monica, CA and considering going through a divorce, you are going to want to watch this. We get a ton of calls everyday with people asking how to file for divorce in Santa Monica, CA.  We specialize in divorce in Santa Moncia, CA and have become the go-to divorce paralegal service in Santa Moncia, CA, so we thought we would shoot an informative video on how to file for divorce in Santa Monica, CA.  Watch the video below to learn more.

We’re getting a lot of calls where people simply want to know, what’s the process of filing for Divorce in Santa Monica?

So I’m going to talk about that. But briefly let me quickly let you know who we are.

We’re a licensed and bonded Legal Document Preparation Firm tat specializes only in Divorce in California and that of course includes the Santa Monica area.

We’re a full service, so we do everything, fill out the forms, go to the courts, service, everything a law firm does except give legal advice and represent you in court.

And we’re a neutral party to help you save some money on getting through your Divorce in Santa Monica.

So here is three simple steps that we break down the process of Divorce. We break it down in to three simple steps. So here we go.

Number one, so, you need to find out who’s going to file the paperwork, who’s going to be the petitioner.

You’re going to file your forms. And then you’re going to serve your forms. Of course, that’s the service that we’ll take care for you.

So we’ll prepare your documents, we’ll go down to the Santa Monica Court House.

We’re going to file them. We’re going to get a case number for you. And then your spouse needs to be served.

Two ways that can happen. They can either come to our office or we can mail them to your spouse if it’s an amicable type Divorce.

It doesn’t need to be hired by process server, have a sheriff go out there. We’re trying to keep things very simple.

Number two, once the service the process has happened, that’s would starts the clock on the sixth month process.

Next thing, we need to work on your financial disclosures. Aside from children and spousal support everything has to do with Divorce, has to do with dividing the property, your assets and debts.

So you have to list your assets and debts. We have to list your income, provide some certain documents. And those things have to prepare and in some cases filed with the court.

And they have to be served on your spouse. And that at least happened for both of you. We take care of that for you as well.

Third is preparing your agreements. You need to let us know who’s getting what, how you want to divide things up, what you’re going to do with the children, is there going to be issues or orders for support?

And we can help you work through all those issues as well. We just need to put those down on paper.   You got to sign them.

It goes to court. The judge signs it. And it’s a done deal. That’s how easy Divorce in Santa Monica can be.

So I just want to explain the process. Of course, your circumstances, there maybe a little twists here and there.

You have certain issues that come up and that does happen. We handle so many cases. We’ve seen so many different scenarios.

I’m certain that we can help you with your Divorce in Santa Monica. Just give us a call.

I did want to explain the process in just in generality because we do hear a lot of calls people from Santa Monica saying, ‘Tim what’s the process? How does Divorce work?’

And this was just a quick summary of how that happens.

Affordable Divorce In Santa Monica, CA

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Affordable Divorce In Santa Monica, CA

We are the #1 Affordable Divorce service in Santa Monica, Ca.  We specialize in only divorce and serve the greater Santa Monica, CA area.  We are a full service Santa Monica divorce paralegal firm and can handle your entire Santa Monica Divorce case from start to finish. We discuss more about our Affordable Divorce in Santa Monica, Ca in this video, so make sure to watch for more information.

Today we’re talking to the folks in Santa Monica about our affordable Divorce process. That’s right!

We have an affordable Divorce service right here in Santa Monica to help you with your case. We are a full service Paralegal Firm.

We’re a Divorce Document Preparation Firm. And all we do is Divorce. Not only in Santa Monica but we have clients all throughout California providing affordable Divorce services.

If you’re looking for an alternative to an attorney for your Divorce, please pick up the phone and give us a call. We do provide free consultations.

Now as a licensed and bonded Document Preparation, we offer a full service process which means we do everything a law firm would do for you including fill out the forms, going down the court, filing them, serving them, all the paperwork that the court requires as far as financial disclosures.

And then we’re going to put together the agreements for you as well. It’s a very affordable way to get through your Divorce in Santa Monica if you and your spouse are trying to work towards an agreement or even if you need help coming up with agreements, we can certainly help you with Mediation Services as well as our Document Preparation Services in Santa Monica to really save you some money and provide that affordable service to you.

If you go to our website at Divorce661.com you’ll find there that we have flat fee pricing right on our website. The rates are very affordable.

We can even help you save some money on court fees in some cases but give us a call because people think they need an attorney and they don’t in many cases.

In fact many times, a large percentage of people as high as 90% of Divorce cases filed in a way in Santa Monica in California are without an attorney.

Using Santa Clarita Divorce Paralegal Services & Mediation Together

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Using Santa Clarita Divorce Paralegal Services & Mediation Together

We offer a Santa Clarita Divorce paralegal service and have helped 1000’s of clients going through divorce in Santa Clarita and all throughout California.  When you are going through divorce and are having difficulty coming up with agreements regarding the terms of your divorce in Santa Clarita, mediation is often the best option.

When you use our Santa Clarita divorce paralegal service, you can also use a Santa Clarita divorce mediator to help you come to the terms of your divorce agreement.  Our Santa Clarita divorce paralegal services and Santa Clarita divorce mediation services combined, can get most people through their divorce without the need for hiring an attorney.

Watch the video below for more information on this topic.

Tim: Most of what we do is amicable cases where they already know for the most part what they want.  But they don’t have to all have the agreements.

And the reason why I wanted to get this information out there is people don’t need attorneys even if they’re not in agreement.

Lisa: Right.

Tim: You don’t have to run through an attorney because you don’t have an agreement. You can use our service.

We can get the paperwork started for and get that process moving with the courts. We’ll move forward and work with you towards the end. And let you know about the agreements.

And if you have struggles and problems, that’s when you would call a mediator to get those little things, ironed out.

Lisa: Right.

Tim: And once those agreements are drafted and you guys agreed to what the terms are going to be, simply they come back to us. And then we put that on the legal documents –

Lisa: Right.

Tim: …for the court and that gets submitted to the court. And that’s honestly how easy it can be instead of hiring an attorney to do all these things.

Because once you have attorney what automatically happens is your spouse is going to get an attorney and because –

Lisa: And that’s when the adversarial process steps in.

Tim: Because it’s adversarial, they have to defend and fight for you. It’s automatically things that you won’t agreed upon are probably going to go away.

Lisa: Right. They dissolved.

Tim: They’re going to bring up new issues and new problems and all that. So hopefully by us doing this video people will watch this.

Lisa: Right.

Tim: And say, ‘Wow! There’s this new way of doing things.’ It’s not really new. It’s thousands of years old.

Lisa: But new to our society for sure.

Tim: Yes. And I don’t want to say steal away business from attorneys. We want to give them the assistance they really needed.

They won’t need litigation—

Lisa: And you know in Family Law especially, now there are areas where attorneys are extremely beneficial to people in businesses in tax areas.

These are areas where you, that’s probably where I would send you first.

But when there’s a Divorce, when there’s difficult family decisions to make, when there’s kids that are sad and upset and they don’t know what’s going on, attorneys make it worst 99% of the time.

And the court system is not where you want to have your family. You don’t want to spend your time and your money when at the end you’ve lost your shirt, you’ve lost your sanity and things are a hundred times worst than they were at the beginning of it.

Tim: Now it takes two though where there are certainly cases Divorce cases that there’s no way it’s not going to an attorney.

Lisa: Right.

Tim: People hiding assets.

Lisa: Oh yes!

Tim: Domestic violence, I mean—

Lisa: And those issues come up that’s when I terminate mediation.

Tim: Yes.

Lisa: I mean not everything can be mediated.

Tim: Right.

Lisa: Unfortunately I would love to think so. But when those issues come up and those were on my intake questions when I talked to people in the phone, I asked very specific questions about domestic violence.

Tim: Yes.

Lisa: And about what types of financial issues are you having? Those are the things that need to be straightened out.

Those can’t just be you can’t come in and just smoothen it all over and say, ‘Oh, we’re all going to hold hands now and just we’re going to agree on everything.’

That’s something that really needs the professionals, the legal professionals to step in.

Tim: Right. So attorneys are there for those who need it in their cases. We’re not here to say that no one should be using an attorney.

Lisa: No!

Tim: Because when there’s people hiding assets and doing those types of things and not playing fair.

Lisa: No, you really need that one—

Tim: The only way or they have a business and they’re hiding assets.

Lisa: Definitely!

Tim: They’re not showing their true income or you need business evaluations, these are things where attorneys would be needed. But that’s the very far and very few in between.

Lisa: Yes, they’re not many like that.

Tim: 90% 95% of the cases are no attorney involvement.

Lisa: Right.

Tim: Definitely, they have some professional services like ours preparing their documents.

They probably have some assistance with coming to agreements. And but outside of that they can save a ton of money.

Lisa: Yes.

Tim: They can get through it and still have somewhat of relationship with their spouse or their ex-spouse.

Lisa: Right.

Tim: Former spouse.

Lisa: Co-parents, oh yeah!

Tim: Co-parents, that’s particularly important with kids.

Lisa: Yes.

Tim: So ideally document preparation with us, mediation with you that should solve things after you put together the agreements.

They could go to independent attorneys for consultation and say, ‘Take a look at those agreements.’

Lisa: Check it out and I encourage that.

Tim: ‘Take a look at this agreement, does it seem fair? And then let them tell you what the persons minds are of it—‘

Lisa: And come back and we can talk about it for sure.

Tim: You come back and talk about that. Now don’t hire the attorney. Just go on a consultation. I’ve always try to help people and save money.

Lisa: Yes, you don’t have to

Tim: Pay for a one hour consultation and let them review it. So Lisa would have put together the agreements.

I would put them on to the actual judgment documents for the court. And then you could take them before we file it with the court, you sign it, the attorney can review it and –

Lisa: And I definitely encourage before you sign anything and make anything and send anything in to court, I want everyone to feel comfortable.

And because of our society and the way that we feel about our court systems and give them so much authority it gives people a peace of mind to know ‘Okay, my legal person said that this is a fair agreement.’

Tim: Right.

Lisa: And of course they’re going to ask and look at it and maybe say, ‘I don’t know. Did you really agree to that?’

And that something that you can come back and then talk about it if that’s something that you’re not completely settled.

I don’t want you to sign anything if you have any kind of reservations. That’s I’m not going to make you do it.

Santa Clarita Divorce Mediator Lisa Scholz | 661-481-2202

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Santa Clarita Divorce Mediator Lisa Scholz

In this video we  talk to Santa Clarita divorce mediator, Lisa Scholz, is a local Santa Clarita resident who specializes in divorce mediation in Santa Clarita.  If you are considering getting a divorce in Santa Clarita, we can certainly help you with the document preparation service and if you need assistance with the divorce agreements, Santa Clarita mediation is a great option.

Below you will find the transcription of the video.

Tim: I’m so excited to find you because I had nowhere to send folks that need mediation services. I was to send them out of town.

Lisa: Yes. It’s nice to keep things in and about.

Tim: It is. So why don’t you one last time Lisa Scholz in your website and where is the best way they can contact you?

Lisa: Well, okay, well I have a business phone number. I have an office on Magic Mountain, Parkway.

And my business phone number is 661-481-2202. And they can reach me no matter where I am.

And my email address or my website is lsrmediation.com and I’m combining everything. So that is –

Tim: And your email is lsrmediation@yahoo.com.

Lisa: @yahoo.com

Tim: .com

Lisa: So yes, it’s easy because my name is in everything.

Tim: Yes.

Lisa: And like I said I check my emails every evening. And it’s on your schedule. So—

Tim: Free consultations.

Lisa: Yes!

Tim: You got to take advantage of that and make sure to give her a call. And definitely I’ve already sent some clients through your way. I don’t know if you got any calls or not?

Lisa: I’ve gotten a couple and like I said I check my emails

Tim: Yes.

Lisa: It was in the evenings so it’s just —

Tim: Very good and that helps my business. If I with confidence can get people and they say, ‘Tim, we have no agreements at all. We have no agreements. Can we use your service?’

‘Yes, because I can refer you at to mediation.’

Lisa: Yes, to get those agreements.

Tim: To get those agreements.

Lisa: Perfect!

Tim: And that’s a beautiful thing.

Lisa: Good!

Tom: We also give free consultations. Give us a call and we’ll let you know if you’re a good fit for our service.

You can call Lisa if you have questions about Mediation. Other than that Divorce661.com is my website.

We’re on YouTube. We have silver outlets, live podcast and broadcasting just trying to get that—

Lisa: Great, I like all those stuff.

Tim: All these informations out there to folks and kind of pull the curtain back on how Divorce works here in California.

Lisa: Good.

Tim: So thanks so much for coming.

Lisa: Thanks for having me.

Tim: Alright!

How To Find A Divorce Mediator – Santa Clarita Divorce Mediation

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Find A Divorce Mediator – Santa Clarita Divorce Mediation

If you are looking for a divorce mediator for your divorce in Santa Clarita, there are a few ways you can locate one.   In this video we discuss the different websites and ways to locate a divorce mediator for your divorce in Santa Clarita.

Lisa: You can.

Tim: Alright.

Lisa: I have a websites lsrmediation.com. I am on a lot of different mediation organizational sites, mediate.com and Southern California Mediation Association and there’s couple of other ones.

And when you look for a mediator those are great resources because a lot of times they are private mediation firms that don’t have that attorney background.

And there’s more and more of us coming because we love, we’re passionate about the process. We want to bring peace especially in the Divorce situation.

We want to bring peace to these families and really save a lot of heartache. And so we’re trying to focus and educate the public.

Tim: Right.

Lisa: About these options that we’re out there.

Tim: That’s why we’re doing this today.

Lisa: Yes.

Tim: Yes, to let people know that mediation exists.

How To Choose A Divorce Mediator – Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Choose A Divorce Mediator – Santa Clarita Divorce

There are several factors you will want to consider when choosing a divorce mediator in Santa Clarita.  The first thing you will want to consider when choosing a divorce mediator in Santa Clarita, is if you want to use an attorney-mediator or a non-attorney mediator.  There are different styles of mediation depending on which type of divorce mediator you use.

Watch this video for more information about how to choose a divorce mediator in Santa Clarita.

Tim: Now you brought up education. I want to touch on that because I looked in to offering mediation services because as Legal Document Preparation Service we have limitations.

Lisa: Right.

Tim: So we don’t give legal advice. We don’t go to court for people and represent them in court, not in that fashion.

We’re just here to fill out the paperwork properly, correctly and give that professional service. And sometimes even though people have come to us and they think they have all their agreements, something happens.

Lisa: Right.

Tim: And they have trouble coming to agreements usually about money or something like that. And we didn’t offer mediation services, so, I actually looked into becoming a mediator as in additional service.

And what I found was there’s no real governing board. There’s not any real way of getting certified.

Lisa: Right.

Tim: I mean I can call myself a mediator today with zero training.

Lisa: And a lot of people do that.

Tim: Yes.

Lisa: There are lots of trainings available. They’re very cursory. They just kind of scratch the surface.

And it’s more of ‘Okay, you kind of have an idea of what it’s like. Good luck!’ They kind of throw you out there.

My educational background was much more intense. It involved cultural differences, differences within, different family backgrounds I mean it came from every angle that you can think of.

And then my work in the court system helps me not only say, ‘Hey, this is a great option for your family to do this without having to deal with attorneys, without having to go through the court system.’ because this is what I know about what happens to families in the court systems because I’ve been there.

And I can continue to work there. But my goal is to steal people away from that.

Tim: Right.

Lisa: Because it’s just not a happy ending 99% of the time.

Tim: Sure. And so education is important if someone is looking for a mediator. You have to really be careful and find out what their background is. And make sure it’s going to be a suitable—

Lisa: Well, like you said anybody can say, ‘Hey, I took a two week course of Mediation. And now I’m a mediator.’

And that’s not, and the attorney mediators, a lot of times that’s what they do. And say ‘Now I offer mediation services.’

They’re still coming from a litigation background.

Tim: Right.

Lisa: Where it’s a win loose–

Tim: About the law.

Lisa: We got the laws. The only thing that matters you need, we need, they’ll even take one of the parties side and say, ‘You really shouldn’t be agreeing to this.’

Tim: Really?

Lisa: It’s not on your interest. And they forget that their job is to help the people come together and communicate and not pissed. It’s just this automatic thing.

Tim: It’s just that’s how their brain works.

Lisa: It’s how their brain works. That’s how they were trained in law school.

Tim: Right.

Lisa: And that’s what happened. So—

Tim: Okay.