How To File For Divorce In California (Step 1 – Summons & Petition)

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

This is the first video in a series on how to file for divorce in California.  This post will discuss the first step of which forms you will need to file for divorce.

We are also going to go line-by-line and discuss how to fill out each of the forms.  You will also find the video embeded below if you prefer to watch us demonstrate how the forms are completed.

Also, keep in mind that we do have an online divorce document assembly service where you won’t have to worry about how to fill out the forms, as the software fills out all the divorce forms for you.

Click Here on this link to the software

We are licensed and bonded in the county of Los Angeles and can serve you in any court located in California. We are providing these how-to videos so you can get through the entire divorce process on your own if that is what you so choose to do, however for those that find it confusing or don’t have the time to go through the divorce themselves, please give us a call as we are a full serve divorce document preparation firm.

Now, in this particular video we are going to talk about step 1, which is above, which is filing the forms. In the previous video we talked about the legal steps for divorce and went through the 4 steps as outlined by the court system.

So let’s jump in. Step 1, again is going to be talking about starting the process and what forms you need to complete, we’re gonna talk about getting those forms completed.

Okay so here’s step 1, according to Los Angeles county process: The petitioner, who’s the person who will file the first divorce forms with the court, is going to file 2 forms, the petition FL-100, and the summons form FL-110, and if there’s children, FL-105. Today we’re just gonna talk about the petition and the summons, and then we will talk about the other steps.

So let’s jump right in to the FL-100. Okay this is the FL-100. This is the form that is going to be the petition, the 2 page form. And what I’m gonna go do is go through this quickly, not going to fill out every box, but show you essentially what you need to do to get this completed.

If you’re representing yourself, you’re going to put in your name essentially, so here we can type in, if it’ll allow me, my computer is freezing up now, in any case, up on this top box you’re going to put in your name, your address, your phone number, let’s see if it’s gonna let me do this now, let’s…okay, little computer freeze there.

Alright, so today we’ll be John Smith, 123 Main Street, and address, California, the phone number is gonna go here…okay… your email address is optional, and for attorney name you’re gonna say In Pro Per, it means you’re representing yourself.

If you’re in the county of Los Angeles, this would be Los Angeles, and you’ll put the court information here, let’s just use our San Fernando Branch, it’s 900 Third Street, same, and that’s North Valley, you’ll be the petitioner so John Smith would be the petitioner here, oops, and then you put your spouse’s name here as the respondent. Don’t worry about the case number.

This is for dissolution of marriage. If the address that you indicate on here is for yourself in the last six months you mark petitioner to which both of you have been a resident of the state for the last six months you can mark both boxes its fine.

Date of marriage, date of separation, and then you’re gonna tally the totals, years and months of your marriage. Here you’ll indicate wether there are children or not. If you have children, their name, birthday, age, and sex, very simple. Separate property discusses property that you had before marriage and after separation and there are some other properties but because we’re not attorneys we can’t advise you on what that is.

So here you can either write in the property here that’s your separate property or say see attached or you can leave it blank or there’s some boiler point language that we use that the law firms use as well that basically says we’re gonna settle amends and list the separate property later on.

Page two is going to be regarding community property, accumulated during marriage and debts; you can do the same thing here, you can use the same boiler plate language here or “see attached”. Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s going to be irreconcilable differences, California’s a no fault state, so essentially they don’t care the reason, they just call it irreconcilable differences.

And I know I’m going through it fast, but I don’t want this video to be fifteen minutes long, so feel free to pause this at any of your time if you’re trying to keep up and complete the forms along with me.

Alright, and legal custody of the children, you can mark either that you’re the petitioner, or respondent, or joint, same with physical custody, that where the children will live.

If you wanna have visitation to one party, you can also attach additional forms here if you want orders for child visitation or holiday schedules and things of that nature. If you have a child that was born prior to your marriage, you’re gonna want to mark this box, this is to determine parentage of any child born to the petitioner and respondent prior to marriage, if not leave that unchecked.

If you want the court to terminate jurisdiction to award spousal support to the other party you would mark this box. Here if you want your name back, your former name. And other, anything else you’d like to ask, again we have some boiler point language to that as well. Just put in the date and you type your name here, sign it here, and this form is done.

Now let’s move on to the FL-110. This is the summons. You’re gonna type the other party’s name here, so spouse’s name will go here, okay your name is going to go here, who are we John Smith.

And now let’s talk about a little about what the petition, or the summons rather, discusses. This goes over some legal actions here that the other party have. Now this is gonna be served on the other party. So this is to your spouse. That they have thirty days after receiving this to file the response; if after thirty days no response has been filed, there’s a procedure for moving forward; we’ll discuss that again in other videos.

One thing to note is that there are automatic restraining orders that go into effect on you once this is filed, and upon your spouse once they are served; and we are gonna cover those, not in detail, but to just acknowledge the fact that they are there and draw your attention to them.

Here is gonna be your name and address of the person filling out this form; and this will be, oh I’m sorry; this will be the name and address of the court. This will be your name, your address and phone number because you’re not represented by an attorney. You’re gonna mark this box here as an individual, if that’s the case.

And then on here are these standard family law restraining orders, being one that will take effect on you once this is filed and on your spouse once they are served.

So that is step one of the divorce process as outlined by the courts. These are the first two forms that you’ll fill out, you’ll file them with the court and they’ll send you a case number; and once you have that filed, and you have the case number, that’s the form that you’ll serve on your spouse and then we’ll talk about process and service and how you can accomplish that in other videos.
Again, my name is Tim Blankenship, SCV Legal Doc Assist, we specialize in the divorce process in California. We are providing these videos to you to hopefully help you in preparing your divorce and representing yourself.

And don’t forget that you can use our online divorce software by clicking on this link, which will save you a lot of time and frustration trying to figure out how to complete your divorce forms in California.

And again if you don’t have the time, you can’t figure it out and you’re looking for professionals to take care of the divorce paperwork for you, please give us a call, we’d be happy to help you; or visit one of our websites. And if you’re watching this video on youtube, or one of the other video site, we do have a link to our website below so you can contact us for additional information. Thanks so much.

California Divorce Self Help Video Tutorials

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Hello there! This is Tim Blankenship, owner of Divorce661.com , and I just wanted to talk to you today a bit about the divorce videos that we’re working on.

We’re working on an entire video library; I guess you could call it where we’re going to go through step by step of the divorce process. We’re going to use the court’s websites as a guide, so we’re not instructing you based on our knowledge, ‘cause technically we can’t, but I can look at the court website and I can go through their website and look at what they’re saying to do, and then I can show you what they’re telling you to do and do it on video so it makes it easier for you to get through your divorce process if you are looking to represent yourself.

Now, we are a licensed and bonded legal document assistance firm in Santa Clarita and serve all the divorce courts in California.

We are doing this as a community service, so hopefully you can get to use the divorce videos and get through the divorce process on your own if you like. However, if you’re looking for a professional company who’s licensed by the county of Los Angeles to prepare your divorce forms, we welcome you to give us a call and find out about our affordable services.

Today I’m just going to show you where you can find those resources; I’m gonna take you to our sites here, our divorce661, and as you saw on the previous screen we do have a website for each specific area code in Los Angeles county where you can get site-specific information for local courts.

Today we’re talking about the divorce661 website here in for Santa Clarita and all of the 661 area codes and I wanted to show you where you can access all of our divorce videos and how-to videos and how to get divorced.

So, what you do is go to divorce661.com, click on Divorce Videos, and then you’ll just page down and all our videos that we’ve uploaded to YouTube are automatically brought to our website. So if you’re looking for a single source, you can either use YouTube channel and view the videos there, or you can go to our website here and you can find all the videos that we’ve prepared.

Now, we just got started on this process, and again we’re going to do a video on how to prepare each and every divorce form, so obviously it’s going to take some time to get all of that done, but eventually we will have several hundred videos on this site.

Our YouTube channel will be organized so that you can find the video forms on our video channel through YouTube, where if you’re the respondent, or the petitioner, or how to prepare the judgement and so forth, all of that will be on here.

But for now you can find all these videos on our website, we will have these on all the websites eventually; right now they’re just on the divorce661 website, and as you can see we probably have a good 250 to 300 videos right now, anything from how to prepare a divorce summons, how to serve divorce papers, the divorce process in general; you can click on these, and you’re going to get the video to pop up, you can watch it right here on-screen.

So, we hope this has been helpful, and we hope you are able to use our website as a resource for information on divorce and getting through the process.

And if you’re looking for a professional company, we would hope you would think of us. We are the only license and bonded legal document preparation service in Santa Clarita that specializes in divorce. And again, we work all throughout California and serve all the divorce courts.

Also, we’ve worked with the law firms, and we’ve worked in the court systems and the self-help centers so we have tons of experience to get you through the process, and we think you’d really like our affordable divorce service.

So again, Tim Blankenship, divorce661, we hope you enjoy the videos, either on our YouTube channel or on our website. If you have any questions, you can more information off our website or please feel free to give me a call. Thank you.

 

The Real Costs Of Divorce In California

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of Divorce661.com. We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service and we specialize in the divorce process.

Today, I want to answer the question of how much does a divorce cost. While this is a difficult question to answer, I did do a little bit of research to see if we could come up with some averages and I’m going to share that with you today.

When people call me, I always ask them “why are you using a paralegal types of service as oppose to hiring a law firm?”, and most of the time the answer comes down to cost.

Many of the clients that end up using my services have gone out and spoke with attorneys found out the high cost of just getting a consultation and then find out how much the cost is just to walk through the door. So I want to share some sites with you and show you some of the research that I found as far as the cost of getting a divorce in California and in the United States.

I got an article here written by a Rachel Small and this is probably one of the most recent articles I’ve found, dated September 6, 2012 and she estimates that divorce in the Unites States is reported to be approximately $15,000 on average. Now it doesn’t say whether that is per person or per divorce in total.  But here it says $15,000 where an attorney’s fees can range anywhere up you know as $500 an hour.

Another article, this gentleman in a justia.com article, answered the question of how much it cost for divorce is in California and here he estimates the cost to be $15,000 to $20,000 per person.

Another website here using a US Census Bureau Statistics of average income, household and children and so forth said that the on the low end could be $53,000 and as high as $180,000 to divorce.

Now we’ll see the $15,000 to $20,000 average per person. We can see how they came to the $50,000 low end and that could be for both sides.

One more slide I found here is on bankrate.com, which is interesting, but they were saying that divorce is a $28 billion year industry with an average cost of about $20,000.

So I think it’s safe to say that if you’re looking at about $20,000 to go to the divorce process if you hire an attorney and that may be per side.

Now to tell you, I’ve worked for law firms, I’ve seen folks spend lots more money than that going through a divorce process. So I will leave you with this thought—you need an attorney in two circumstances, to be represented in court and to get legal advice. Outside of that, going through the divorce process is a matter of filling out forms and filing them with the court appropriately and that’s what we do here at SCV Legal Doc Assist.

We specialize in the divorce process and we get you through the entire process, start to finish, at one affordable flat rate.

If you like more information on our services, please give us a call or visit our website for more information. I would be happy to help you out and answer any questions you may have.

 

I Have Questions About Divorce In Los Angeles County

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of https://divorce661.com. We’re licensed and bonded legal document preparation service and we specialize in the divorce process.

We serve all of Los Angeles County courts and have years of experience in the courtrooms, in self-help centers and in local area family law firms. We specialize in providing an affordable divorce service.

Today, I wanted to show you how you can find answers to your frequently asked questions about the divorce process. When we get calls, we have clients who contact us and have questions about the process and some are specific questions related to their specific circumstances.

One of the issues we have found is that there is a ton of legal resources available online, some of this is good information and some of this is bad. So we wanted to direct you on how to get the correct information.

We are not a law firm; we are a legal document preparation service. So I cannot give you legal advice by law, but I could direct you to that advice and we have found that the best sites are going to be the court websites.

So that’s said, today, I’m going to show you how to access the information on frequently asked questions about the divorce process and it goes in with some very specific details.

Today we’re going to talk about the divorce 661 website. . When you come to my site, divorce661.com, what you’ll do is go to the Legal Resources tab, which by the way is a wealth of information in of itself.

Essentially, we brought in links to all the court websites, case summaries, case law and law libraries all under one page in this legal resource page where you can be taken directly to the source. So we’re not talking about it here. We’re going to take you right to the source through our website and hopefully by doing this, you’re able to locate the information you’re looking for.

Today we’re going to talk about frequently asked questions. And here, you can go to Family law self-help center on our resource page and click on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s).

This will take us right to the court website and you can see this is the California Courts, the judicial branch of California.

Here, all the facts you’ll find or any information you’re looking for on procedure, on forms and so forth. We wanted to make this easy for folks to locate because when people search for this type of information, they go to Google and they search and they may end up in a law firm website that may not be completely accurate.

So we thought, “Hey, let’s take them right to the California Court website so they can get the answers to their questions right here from the courts”.

So as you can see, there’s divorce and separation basics — frequently asked questions, how to file for divorce, completing your divorce or legal separation, annulment information, property and debt—frequently asked questions and what we’ll end up doing is doing videos on each and every one of these separate questions just directing people right to the specific question that they have so they can watch the video, type it in Google, hit our video and get the information right up the website.

It’s just a wealth of information. You don’t have to ask a friend who doesn’t know, you don’t have to call an attorney. You can get the information right here on the court’s website.

Again, we are a legal document preparation firm. We are doing a complete series of how-to videos that includes how to fill out the form, how to find certain specific information like this one did and how to use our website to get information on divorce so you can get a better understanding of what the divorce process is going to take to get through it.

If you have any questions, please go to one of our websites. There will be a link in this article and they’ll take you right to our site or please call us for more information. Thank you so much and have a great day!

California Default Divorce | You Cannot Ask For Anything On The Judgment You Did Not Request On The Petition

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Default Divorce | You Cannot Ask For Anything On The Judgment You Did Not Request On The Petition

If you are attempting to complete your own California divorce and are proceeding by way of default (Other party did not respond and is not participating) then you most likely received a rejection of your judgment when you went to enter it.

Why do I say this?  Because it seems like it is happening to everyone, and a lot.

So first, I wanted to let you know that you are not alone, if that makes you feel any better.

There are many reasons that your California default divorce can get rejected, but today we are specifically talking about the issue of asking for something on your judgment that you did not ask for on your Petition

See the slidehare below where you can see exactly what we are talking about.

Here is what it boils down to.  If you are filing a default divorce, you cannot ask for anything on the judgment that you did not request in the Petition.  More on that below the slideshare.

Let me talk a little about divorce procedure.  When you file for divorce, you will file Petition.  It let’s the court and the other party know what your “Request” are.   You will notice that the specific language of the Petition says, “Petitioner’s Requests”

So you are letting the other party know what you are requesting in the divorce.  If the other party does not have any problem with what you are requesting, then they may choose not to file a response and contest what you are requesting.

So it would not be fair if you did not request something in the Petition and then turn around and request something different or add requests you have not let the other party know about.

If you do this, the court will reject your default judgment.

If you will notice on the Judgment Reject Sheet above, it says that this person cannot ask for the child custody and visitation schedule on the judgment because it was not requested on the Petition.

This not only applies to child custody and visitation, but also to spousal support, and distribution of assets and debts.

I get at least one call a day from someone who has become completely frustrated by the process of trying to file their own default divorce in California and ask us to help wrap up their case.

We specialize in divorce in California and can help you through the divorce process whether you are just getting started, are somewhere in the middle of your divorce case or have taken it all the way to the end and had you divorce judgment rejected.

Give us a call.  We would be glad to help you out.

007 DMR | Why Preparing Your California Divorce Judgment Is Difficult

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

007 DMR | Why Preparing Your California Divorce Judgment Is Difficult

In this episode we discuss the issues associated with attempting to complete your divorce on your own in California. Specifically, we discuss the issues you will face when attempting to complete your divorce judgment.

The judgment is the last thing you will file with the court and will prove to be the most difficult. Not only because there are a lot of forms and the forms are confusing,  but because this will be the first time anyone at the court actually looks at any of your documents and reviews them.

If you make even one simple mistake on your divorce judgment, the court will reject the entire case and send everything back to you.  This can have a significant delay on when your divorce is actually finalized, because it generally takes the court at least a couple of months to review your case each time you submit the judgment.

Here is a brief list of some of the reasons why your California divorce judgment might get rejected:

  1. You missed a check box
  2. Wrong forms
  3. You didn’t follow procedure
  4. Not enough copies of forms sent to court
  5. Missing forms
  6. Didn’t include postage on the necessary envelopes
  7. Didn’t include any envelopes
  8. Didn’t notarize the Judgment
  9. Asked for something in Judgment, you didn’t ask in the Petition

As you can see, there are some really ridiculous reasons the court will reject your judgment.  We go into more detail on these rejection reasons, and more, but what we want you to take from it is that it does not take much to get your divorce file rejected.

 

Press Play Below To Listen To This Podcast Or Click Here Subscribe To This Channel On iTunes

 

Will I Have To Go To Court For My California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Will I Have To Go To Court For My California Divorce

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We are licensed and bonded legal document assistant firm specializing in divorce.

Today, I want to talk to you about how to avoid court when going through the divorce process in California. Many of the calls we get from our clients ask us “Tim, why have to go to court?”, and that all depends on a couple of things and there are some things we could do to help prevent you having to go to court.

Many times, when you go through an uncontested divorce case, the courts or the self-help centers, will want you to deal what’s called a ‘default judgment’.

A default judgment is where only one spouse participates in the divorce, the other spouse does not respond nor do they enter into an agreement.

We’re finding in many cases on these default judgments because the other party has not been involved whatsoever, the judge will often times ask the one party that’s initiated the divorce to come into court to explain the distribution of assets and debts.

Now, I will talk to you about another way of going through the divorce process that accomplishes exactly the same thing with a much less likelihood of having to go to court.

This is called the hybrid judgment. The hybrid judgment is very similar in that the other party will not file a response. However, the other party will enter into a written agreement.

Now when the court sees this judgment, they realize, while the other spouse did not respond, they’re still participating and have entered into an agreement and that agreement has been authorized. When that’s the case, even if the assets and debts have not been distributed evenly, that agreement has been authorized.

When that’s the case, even if the assets and debts have not been distributed evenly, they understand that there has been an agreement and that the parties have the best interest in mind of each other, they will not generally ask you to come to court when you have entered into an agreement in the judgment.

If you have further questions about the hybrid judgment or how to avoid going to court during divorce, please give us a call at 661-281-0266.

How To Look Up Your California Divorce Case Summary

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Hi. My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We’re licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm, specializing in divorce.

Today I want to talk to you about your California divorce case summary. There are many instances where you want to refer to your case summary to look up what documents have been filed in regards to your divorce.

If you’re representing yourself or if you’re working with a legal document preparation firm, it’s important to check your case summary.  Anything that you file with the court, you’re going to want to ensure that that has been appropriately filed with the court, and the only way you’re able to do this is by looking at the case summary online.

We have a legal resource page with a direct link to the Los Angeles County Family Law Case summary page. All you do is click on that link for the legal resource page, go to the page summary look up and then you enter your case number.

You can use the case summary to look at what documents have been filed and this will be particularly important at the time of judgment. When you go to file your judgment, there are certain documents that need to be filed before the court will approve the judgment. They will generally look at the case summary to verify that certain documents have been filed with the court appropriately.

That said, when you submit your judgment, it’s always a good idea to print off a copy of your case summary and highlight the necessary documents, showing them that it was filed appropriately.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm that specialized in divorce in California.  Please give us a cal for more information.

3 Easy Steps To Divorce In California

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Hi. My name is Tim Blankenship. I’m the owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist and we are a licensed and bonded legal document assistant firm specializing in divorce.

Today, I want to talk to you about the three steps of the divorce process when you work with our firm. We’ve broken it down into three digestible steps because there is an enormous amount of paperwork and it can be confusing.

The first step is for us to file and serve the initial divorce documents. This would be the summons and petition and there’s some other paperwork if you have children.

After the documents are file and service are completed, the second step is to complete your financial disclosures. Both parties are required to file and serve their financial disclosures. Now, this financial disclosure of this process is one of the most unliked processes of the divorce.

This is because you have to go through all your finances before marriage, during marriage, and after separation and put it all down on paper. Most don’t find this to be a fun process at all. After that, we move into the judgment phase.

We can prepare the divorce documents, prepare the judgment, put everything on paper, as pre request, and this will be in regards to the distribution of assets and debts as well as the in-child custody, child visitation and any other language you want incorporated into the judgment.

If you have any more questions about the divorce process when you work with a paralegal firm such as ours, please give us a call or use our website to get more information.

We are headquartered in Santa Clarita, California, and can assist you with your divorce anywhere in California.  Please give us a call at 661-281-0266.

How Divorce Document Preparation Works | California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. I’m a licensed and bonded legal document assistant registered in the County of Los Angeles. Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about what you can expect when you call our firm.

When you give us a call, the first process we’ll utilize is to have a phone consultation where we’ll ask you a series of questions on a better understanding of what your specific circumstances are and what you’re going through as far as your divorce is concerned.

Once we get a good idea of what the process is, we will discuss what the costs would be to prepare your specific forms and get you through the divorce process.

As far as the divorce process is concerned, we have broken it down into three digestible steps. The divorce process can be overwhelming at times so we have broken it down into these three steps which I’ll cover now.

The first process we will run you through is to file the initial paperwork. This will be the summons, the petitions and any remaining paperwork that is necessary based on your circumstances, whether you have kids and things at that nature. Once that is filed, we can serve that on the other spouse which will officially start the divorce process.

Part two is where we will have both parties prepare their financial disclosures. We can work with both parties to complete their financial disclosures and get those file with the court so we could move on to step three.

Step three is preparing the judgment. The judgment essentially takes all the information from the financial disclosures and all the wishes of both parties in an uncontested manner and documents the division of assets and debts and in any other parts of the divorce that you want included in the judgment will be wrapped up and included in the language of the judgment.

So that’s how we break it into three digestible steps and that’s a little bit about how our process works. When you do call us, we will talk to you more in detail about the process and exactly what you can expect, the time frames and so forth.