California Spousal Support Information | We Explain Spousal Support Issues in California

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California Spousal Support Information | We Explain Spousal Support Issues in California

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship. I’m owner of SCV legal doc assist and our website is divorce661.com.

Today, I wanted to talk to you a little about spousal support.

Spousal support is something you’ll have to address in your marriage, and I just want to cover a couple of topics.

First of all, we can help you with getting a spousal support order if you need one, a temporary order, we can help you prepare a motion during your divorce case and help you get some temporary support.

We also give post-judgment support orders. If you needed to modify a support order, or need to respond to a motion for support that’s something that we can help you with.

But I wanted to talk to you a little bit, just some basics, we’re not attorneys; we’re not a law firm. We’re just here to prepare documents, we do specialize in the divorce process, and we have worked for law firms and for the courts.

So we’re not here to over-complicate things, we’re just here to give you kind of a plain English explanation about how this works.

So, spousal support is determined quite simply by a determination of the income of the parties, the length of the marriage, and the need for support.

Now that can be a very long and complex topic but that’s kind of the essentials. How long were you married, how much the parties make, and is there a need for support.

Now, there are some basic rules to spouse support.

Again, keeping it simple, if you make more than your spouse, you may have to pay spousal support, sounds pretty clear. If your marriage is longer than ten years, the court can retain jurisdiction over spouse support forever.

So, what this says again, I’m not an attorney, so, I just wanted to make that clear, but if you were to look on the internet you’d find that California determines that a long-term marriage is that which is over ten years and the court can retain jurisdiction.

This comes up almost in all of our divorce cases that we filed for folks here. And if it’s over ten years of marriage, the court can retain jurisdiction. Doesn’t mean you have to pay spouse support, or that you’ll get spouse support. There has to be a need, and there has to be some other qualifying factors. But the court retains jurisdiction forever. So, ten years after your divorce potentially, one of the spouse could come back to modify the spouse support.

How spouse support is determined again, length of the marriage, if there’s a need and so forth. And spousal support is determined by what is called a DissoMaster. Courts use this; law firms have access to this. So also, have access to the courts’ software in helping you determine what spousal support would be.

Essentially, we’d take a look at what the parties make, punch it into this software, and spits out a number and lets us know what that numbers are going to be. It just gives you guidelines.

We can just get an idea of what you’re looking at. If you’re going to request for spousal support, you can always bring that if that’s what you decide to do.

Again, we are a full service divorce firm, we are not attorneys but we can help you file your divorce case, get you temporary for spousal support and do everything along the way and everything a law firm would do for you except give you legal advice and represent you in court.

If you’re looking for a cost efficient way of getting spousal support, or getting through the divorce process, please give me a call my name is Tim Blankenship my website is divorce661.com.

You can get tons of information there we have lots of videos on YouTube channel.

What’s best if you’re curious and you have direct questions, just give me a call, everyone’s case is different, so I’d be happy to speak with you, my direct number is 661-281-0266, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Do You Need An Attorney For Your California Divorce?

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Do You Need An Attorney For Your California Divorce?

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship and I’m licensed in bonded legal document preparation firm located in Santa Clarita and serving all of Los Angeles County.

I wanted to discuss with you a few statistical facts in regards to divorce and let you know that you do have some alternatives if you’re looking or thinking you need a divorce attorney for your case. I want to let you know that you have some alternatives in helping you.

Now quite obviously is to use a company like myself and have someone to assist you with your divorce.

Now statistically speaking, I want to give you a few facts; I wanted to let you know that, only five percent (5%) of divorce cases ever go to trial.

So what this means is you’re either going to settle in your case or your case is going to go to trial but only five percent of cases that are filed here in California ever go to trial.

So what that means is there is that ninety-five percent chance that you’ll never see court when you go into your case. That said, why is it you think you need a divorce lawyer in your case?

Another fact, eighty-five percent (85%) of all divorce cases that are filled are done so without an attorney.

So here’s another fact saying that in most cases it’s going to be filed by someone representing themselves and that’s where we specialize, folks that are going through the divorce process in California and are self- represented, we help those clients who are in pro per, we help them get though the process. We help them with the paperwork and completing the divorce process from start to finish.

Again, eighty-five of folks are filing on their own.

Now again, I wanted to discuss with you alternatives. If you think you need an attorney and if you’re on this page, you’re probably sitting watching this video. You probably searched for a divorce attorney in our local neighborhood and you’re considering possibly filing for divorce.

I want to make a suggestion, I want you to call my office and see if there’s something we can do for you before you speak with an attorney, or even after you speak with an attorney. It really doesn’t matter when you call us.

I just want to let you know that you do have alternatives to hiring an attorney and many times in fact, the statistics say that there’s only a five percent chance you’re case will go to court, and eighty-five percent of folks filing for divorce are doing it on their own. Therefore you’d be better assisted by our firm who can help you go through the process and represent yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, if we feel you need an attorney, or if you call us and you’re asking for assistance and we find that we’re unable to help you, we’ll be the first people to let you know that you should seek an attorney or at least get a consultation for your particular case.

Well give us a call, we’d be happy to discuss your particular circumstances, everyone is different. We are very experienced at this we have worked for law firms, we had worked for the court systems. So we’ll be happy to let you know if it’s something, if your situation is something we can help you with, or if we think you need better served with an attorney.

Worst case scenario is you get a great referral to an attorney by calling our firm and discussing your particular circumstances.

Again, Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Be happy to talk to you, give us a call. My direct number is 661-281-0266. Thanks for reading!

More Changes To California Divorce Forms

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

More Changes To California Divorce Forms

Divorce661.com, we are a California divorce document preparation firm.

And today I want to talk to you about changes to the California divorce forms. We recently received some updates today; this will be for July 1st, 2013.

There are generally about two to three updates to the California divorce forms per year, and the reason that I’m bringing this up is there are many people that use either automated document assembly services where you go online and pay a fee to have your documents, your divorce forms done for you online.

You know there are many online companies that will do that. The problem is that they do not update their documents and there has been some specific changes to the California divorce forms as of change of July 1st , that if the forms are not updated by these online legal document companies, your forms will be rejected.

Routinely, I have to help people fix mistakes and errors when they went online and used an online service or some type of divorce document assembly service; and this particular update to the form is going to cost some significant problems for those of you that from this point forward are using these online divorce services who have not updated their forms.

You’re going to have real trouble getting your divorce finalized; it’s just going to get rejected left and right.

So I want to make folks aware of these changes. If you’re going to use one of these online divorce services which we are trying to help people to avoid as often as we can because we get a lot of business from folks who abuse these services. Lost their money, found out it was worthless service, and came to us to fix, and had to pay us as well, which is unfortunate.

So hopefully, you’re watching this video because you’re considering using an online service and we’re going to want to dissuade you from doing that, because it’s going to give you a lot of heartache.

Please give us a call; we’d love to help you with your California divorce.

My name is Tim Blankenship. We specialize in divorce document preparation; you can reach me direct at 661-281-0266 and thanks!

2 Years Tax Returns Now Required In California Divorce Cases

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

2 Years Tax Returns Now Required In California Divorce Cases

We are a California divorce document preparation firm, we do specialize in providing divorce services in California.

And I wanted to talk to you about some changes in regards to family law and the paperwork when you’re filing for divorce.

In July, 2013 we received updates from our software provider regarding the forms software we use for filing divorce papers, and realized there have been several changes to the forms. So, part of divorce is filling out your financial disclosures.

This is called the declaration of disclosure. That said; there are certain documents that need to be served. What they’ve added to the declaration of disclosure, and if you want to look this up, you can look up family code section 2104, but what they’ve added is really two things.

Number 1, is you now have to serve two years of tax returns. So on top of your, with your income and expenses declaration, and your schedule of assets and debts, along with the documentation, you now have to serve two years tax returns, that wasn’t a required in L.A. County as far as I know, until these most recent changes.

It had been part of the disclosure process in counties such as San Bernardino which we filed cases for as well. There has been that rule there, but this seems to be a new change for Los Angeles County.

The other thing that they’re requiring is now that we have – as far as when those declaration of disclosure needs to be served, they are now giving you sixty days, from the day of filing the petition to submit your schedule of assets and debts, and your income, expense declaration.

Normally, or in the past I should say. That wasn’t required; there wasn’t so much of a time frame. You could file your petition, serve the other party and there wasn’t really a time frame in which that had to be done. But now there is a family code section 2104 that also indicates that you have to serve your preliminary declaration of disclosure.

Of course, included here is the two-year tax return within sixty days of filing the petition. So I guess what we’re seeing is the family law court starting to follow suit, more closely aligned with civil procedure as opposed to kind of being left a little more loose.

Again this is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. We do prepare divorce documents in California.

Please call us if you have any questions 661-281-0266 and thanks!

Don’t Waste Your Time Filing Your Own Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce | Los Angeles Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Don’t Waste Your Time Filing Your Own Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce | Los Angeles Divorce

Hi, Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com we are licensed and bonded legal document preparation company specializing in California divorce.

And today I wanted to talk to you about doing your divorce yourself.

You know we’ve done over a hundred videos (now over 300 videos), self- help videos helping people figure out their divorce, if you’re inclined to do it on your own.

As I tell people on the phone, they call. If you have more time than money, you may want to consider doing your divorce yourself.

Other than that, I’m going to tell you, don’t waste your time doing this yourself. If you’re on the fence, and you know, should I do my own divorce? It looks like I can do the paperwork. Don’t get sucked into that. You’re not a professional at this. Whatever business you’re in, I’m sure you’re very good at. And we’re very good at what we do. So let the professionals to this.

You’re talking about court forms; and the divorce process; and separation of assets and debts; and yes you may be saying. “Well Tim, I have an easy case, there’s no children, no property”; and I’ll tell you, people tell me that it’s not as easy, and as seamless as you think, it’s not as simple a divorce as you think, even when you have very little assets; or no assets; or no children, and even a short-term marriage, the divorce forms are complicated, serving your judgment is complicated.

So I’m just going to say, if you’re on the fence, or you have a job, or you don’t have the time, don’t mess with doing the divorce yourself, don’t waste your time. We have people that have attempted for several years to do their own divorce.

They filed, four, five years ago, they started the process, they had issues with the court and they just stopped. We don’t want that to happen to you. Let the professionals do it, give us a call, anywhere in California, we can take care of that for you.

Give me a call 661-281-0266. Go to our website divorce661.com for more information. And we’re looking forward to helping you.

Thanks!

We Serve All Divorce Courts In Los Angeles County

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We Serve All Divorce Courts In Los Angeles County

Hi, Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com; and today we’re talking about what courts we serve in Los Angeles County.

So, there are twelve family law courts in the Los Angeles county area. There is of course a central branch which is in downtown Los Angeles, and then there are eleven branch courts throughout Los Angeles County.

Up north there is Lancaster, down going south you’re looking at long beach. Out west you have Venice, San Fernando. And then to the east you have as far as Pasadena and Pomona. So, we handle all twelve branches as far as our divorce filings in Los Angeles County.

So regardless of where you live, if you’re in Long Beach; or Lancaster; or Palmdale; or Pasadena, Pomona. You know, any of the cities that are served by those courts, we can help you.

We have, we are centrally located in northern Los Angeles County. So we’re in L.A. area. We’re in Santa Clarita to be specific but we have clients all over Los Angeles County and we have filed in all of these courts. We do this primarily by e-mail, phone, fax to get your documents done.

We have a seamless process where we do that. In fact, we have clients that are in Germany; and Australia; and serving in the military that never stepped foot in our office. So, we do have an attorney service that picks up all our documents everyday from our office and they file them with our courts. If you’re wondering how we achieve that, that’s what we do. And we file your paperwork.

What we’ll do, let’s say you’re out of the area, you don’t want to travel to our office, we’ll simply complete your documents over the phone, e-mail them, or fax them to you. You sign them, mail them to us and our attorney service picks them up goes to court, you don’t have to go to court at all.

So if you’re anywhere in Los Angeles County, please give us a call. We are the number one divorce document preparation firm in L.A. County. We’d love to help you out and get you through the process regardless of where you live in L.A. County and we can take care of business for you.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com go to our website. And you can reach me direct at 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

What Is A Divorce Minute Order In California

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What Is A Divorce Minute Order In California

Hey there! Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

Today I want to answer the question: “What is a minute order?”

I just happen to see that someone landed on our blog by typing that in. They did find our blog. I don’t know if we answered it well enough. I know we haven’t done it on video so I’m going to do that today. Talk to you about what a minute order is and what you would need one for.

So, a minute order essentially, and I’m looking at one now. I Just had a client have to pick one up. If you have to go to court, let’s say you filed a motion for child support or spousal support or something along those lines and you had a hearing and let’s say the judge made some orders regarding the hearing.

The minute order is essentially the written document that records what was it that the judge said at the hearing.

So, there will be things that say it is stipulated that the commissioner may hear it to determine and a subsequent matter is judge pro tem, this marriage called for hearing, the petitioner sworn and testifies… and then it will go in to what was said sometimes, but mostly about what the judge ordered after hearing the testimony.

So, in this particular case we needed the minute order because the judge made some orders and we needed to get a copy of the minute order so we can see exactly what it was that the judge said was the order of the court.

Because in some instances, when the judge makes an order, that has to be written up on what’s called an order after hearing which is simply an order written up after the hearing. Makes sense.

And then that needs to go through a legal process wherein the other party needs to sign it and if they don’t sign it in a specific amount of time then you can file it with the court with the declaration and I won’t bore you with all the details of that. But that is what a minute order is, there may be other times when you need one. If you want to see what was it that the judge said specifically what was the order. You’d want to get the minute order.

And to do so, you simply go down to the court. If you had a recent hearing and it usually take them two to three days to get the minute order in the file. But you can go down to the court, walk into the court room. Don’t go to the clerk, the clerk’s office. Go to the court clerk, let them know you were recently there and you need a copy of the minute order, give them the date and they should be able to have a copy for you.

If you have any other questions about minute orders, feel free to give me a call 661-281-0266.

Again, my name is Tim Blankenship and you get more information about the divorce process off our website at divorce661.com

Thanks for reading!

Start Your Santa Clarita Divorce With Us Even If You Need An Attorney

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Start Your Santa Clarita Divorce With Us Even If You Need An Attorney

Hey! Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com in Santa Clarita, California. We specialize in divorce document preparation in all of Los Angeles County.

And today I’m going to make a bold statement. I’m going to suggest that regardless if you know you will need an attorney for your divorce case, that you at least start with us.

Start with us to get your initial documents served, filed, processed and completed before you have to go out and hire an attorney.

Now, we’re not saying don’t speak to an attorney first. It’s always a good idea to speak to an attorney if you have legal questions. But once you’ve done that, do you necessarily want to go out and retain them to prepare your initial filing documents, your summons, your petition, all these forms or check boxes?

The next step is doing your financial disclosures, again, forms that you can use our expert services to complete for you and a fraction of the cost of an attorney.

So what we suggest is, spare your checkbooks, spare your bank account, use us for the initial few steps of your divorce and that is getting the legal documents prepared, get them filed, get them served, get that process done and then go hire an attorney.

Then let them do what they do best, let them represent you in court if that’s what you used to happen, let them appear in court, let them give you legal advice, but why do they need to prepare the legal documents in  $200, $300 or $400 an hour? That doesn’t make sense to us.

So what I’m saying today is, come to us to start your divorce. Whether, if you know, hey this is going to be a battle, we’re going to go to court. I know it. There’s nothing that’s going to keep us out of the court. There’s no sense in having an attorney preparing those initial documents.

Their check boxes, we can take care of that for you and we’ll let you know when it’s time to move on from our service and go speak to an attorney or have attorney represent you.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Give me a call if you have questions – 661-281-0266 and thanks for reading!

California Divorce Judgment Checklist The Courts Use To Approve Your Divorce Judgment

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce Judgment Checklist The Courts Use To Approve Your Divorce Judgment

Hi! Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

Today we’re talking about the forms necessary to file a default dissolution judgment.

This is a series of videos we’re doing where we’re going through the actual checklist, the courts checklist of what needs to be submitted when you file a particular type of case. In particular, the judgment forms. The final forms that you will be submitting.

So, today we’re talking about a default dissolution judgment. This is going to be when a response was not filed, so you filed for a divorce, your spouse did not file a response. It’s foreseen by default or default will be entered and the judgment is prepared solely by you, solely by the petitioner.

This means, this is what’s called a true default case. So, you filed, your spouse never responded and they’re not even involved in the case whatsoever. You filed a default at some point after thirty days or you’re doing it along with the judgment paperwork, which is totally fine.

So, here’s what you’re going to need, and by the way, I’m going to put a link in this YouTube video. You can just go down get this link. It’ll go to my blog; in the blog you’ll have a link to the, this actual checklist and we suggest you attach this, put your name to the top when you submit your judgment forms.

You know, check off these as you go and this will do two things, it’ll help you keep track that you have the right forms and you’ll let the court know this is the type of judgment you are preparing. Sometimes, they don’t take a lot of time to look at these and will just reject them quickly. If you submit this it’ll give the apparent at least that you made a good attempt to get it this time.

Alright, previous service and summons, you’re going to need to send a copy of that, requesting a default FL-165, your FL-141, petitioner’s declaration regarding service of preliminary declaration of disclosure, this is where you, after you file for divorce, you did you’re PDD’s, your preliminary declaration of disclosure that was the schedule of assets and debts and incoming expense declaration. You don’t need to send all that in, just the one form. The FL-141 that say, you complied with that, you mailed out the documents to your spouse and he filed the form with the court.

Declaration for default or uncontested dissolution or CFL-170, the judgment, the FL-180 and the notice of entry judgment, FL-190. That’s going to be the core essentials of the case. This judgment discuss is a lot of other options that you may have, if you have children, there are several other forms you’re going to need and it’s all on here.

If your child support or spousal support, property, attorney’s fees and cost request and all of those are additional attachments. We’re going to cover those on subsequent videos. Talking about the different form attachments and we also did another video talking about the proper order of submitting this, how to put this together, how to staple of how many copies. So, look for that video as well.

This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

You can reach me direct at 661-281-0266. Hope this video has been helpful. If you’re looking for assistance in your divorce, please feel free to give us a call.

Again, Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. 661-281-0266.

Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks!

Why You Should Watch Our Santa Clarita Divorce Videos

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Why You Should Watch Our Santa Clarita Divorce Videos

Hi, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

And this is officially our 100th video upload to YouTube.

And we do lots of videos as you know, if you’ve watch our videos. We cover a broad array of issues related to divorce and today I was reminded why I do all the videos I do.

A client just left my office and he was fully aware of the divorce process and how we work and everything to do with divorce as far as what he’d seen off our videos. Everything he learned was off our videos.

I’m guessing he probably watched twenty or thirty of our videos. Because when he called us originally, he said, he knew what we want to do. He want to do a particular style of divorce because he thought one thing and then he asked, he thought maybe he should do another but after watching our videos he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

He has watched the videos on how to prepare the forms, He was kind of deciding, should I try and do this myself. Because we have so many videos, you can literally complete your entire divorce process on your own.

But after watching the videos, he decided, he’d rather just pay someone to do it professionally and take care of everything for him in the end.

The benefit to us is, we have very informed clients. By the time they come into our office they have already decided to use our service. It’s not a meet-and-greet-and-tell-me-how-the-process-works.

We either had a long conversation on the phone after they’ve watched our videos and read our blogs or both. We’ve talked to them, we’ve directed them to our blogs; watch some videos, get informed. We really want you to understand the process of our divorce because at the end of the day you’re the one technically filling out the forms. We don’t exist, we’re just doing this for you and you’re representing yourself.

So, we adjusted, recopied. We’re glad we put these videos out there. It does help us. We do find clients this way, by getting this information out there but at the same time, folks who wanted to do their own divorce can completely do all the forms, all the filing and we cover everything from A to Z on how to do it.

So, we’re helping the community, but at the same time people wanted to help themselves by working with us. They’re free to do that as well and of course we’d love to help you with our divorce service.

So, make sure you watch our videos, get informed, go to divorce661.com website, go to our YouTube channel which is: youtube/divorce661 and you can, again there’s over a hundred of videos as of now where you can learn about the divorce process and everything there is to know about it.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

Please give me a call if you have any questions, we would like to get it started. 661-281-0266.

Thanks for reading!