Claiming Your Spouses Social Security Does Not Reduce Amount Earned By Spouse

Tim: I just want to touch on one topic if you’re going to claim the divorce spousal benefits what is the rule in regards to being getting remarried, you would loose it if you get remarried? Am I reading that correctly?

Janelle: Yes. If you remarried you can’t get this unless your second marriage ends in the divorce. If your second marriage ends then if it was longer than ten years then you have a choice of whose you want to claim. You can claim either spouse.

Tim: So oh interesting! So I–you get divorced you’re collecting let’s say and you remarried that would terminate the collection of Social Security from the prior marriage?

Janelle: Yes, it would.

Tim: Okay. And then if they divorced again then they have—well they have to be married for at least another ten years?

Janelle: Right and then makes the action and if they do get divorced before ten years they can claim the first spouse’s social security.

Tim: They go back or either back and claim it.

Janelle: Right.

Tim: Okay. So and spouse say I hope they get remarried. It’s not an end all to the Social Security. They could come back if the first or second marriage doesn’t work out either.

Janelle: Right and the Social Security really doesn’t really affects the spouse, it’s the government paying it. It’s not detrimental, you’re not taking away any of either spouses social security benefits. It’s the government that’s making it—

Tim: Oh! It’s not deducted from the spouse?

Janelle: No. The government is taking it so it’s not like your– if you have yours and you get divorced and now your spouse is claiming yours it’s not you we cannot reduce yours at all. So—

Tim: So there’s no detriment to the other party to do this?

Janelle: No, there’s not.

Tim: So they should certainly look at this?

Janelle: Right.

Tim: …when going through a divorce it’s not going to harm the other party at all.

Janelle: No it’s not going to harm them. It’s just a government benefit.

Tim: We’ve had clients say ‘I have to keep all of my Social Security benefits.’ like they said that to us but had they not said that it’s not going to impact them negatively–and the only way is?

Janelle: And the only way that it could possibly is if in the Divorce Decree it’s stated that if the spouse gets a $1000 they have to pay the other spouse some portion of that.

Tim: Like a percentage?

Janelle: Right. And that would just be in the Decree if you’re saying you know spousal support you’re going to collect some of the Social Security. If you’re just filing for the government it doesn’t affect anyone’s.

Mail Serving Post Judgment Child Custody Modifications | California Divorce

Today, we’re talking about how to serve Post Judgment Modifications for child custody and child support.

So in a Post Judgment so Post Judgment means your Divorce is finalized and you’re going to file a motion with the court.

Most cases we’ll require you to serve personally serve the other party.

So you can’t just out of the blue mail them some papers that you filed that has a court date attached to it. You need to personally serve them.

However, if you’re trying to modify child custody or child visitation there is a way that you can mail serve the other party.

The reason the courts have done this and it says right there on the form itself.

It says it is done to help offset the cost and make it more affordable to get modification for child custody so you don’t have to hire a process server essentially.

But there is some requirements. I’m not going to go through all of them.

But you have to basically know where this person lives. And you have to fill out an address for verification.

And it’s a form Address Verification, I think it’s FL-334 if I recall correctly. So you have to have one or five or six ways of verifying that the address is correct.

And you’re going to certify that you know that the address is correct.

Either for instance knowing maybe you have been there within the last 30 days or receiving mail or correspondence from the other party with that address or that was the last known address you use for as far as the court papers that the address that used was on that court papers.

So you have to some type of verification that you’re going to certify that you know that’s the case.

And if you meet that criteria and it’s a custody or visitation modification you don’t have to hire a process server and you could actually mail serve those documents.

Just to make sure that you are taking a look at the FL-334 Address Verification form and look at and see one of those five or six reasons there are that you can actually mail serve instead of having to hire a process server.

So I hope that helps on how to mail serve Post Judgment Modifications for child custody visitation.

We serve clients all throughout California. Give me a call if I can be any further assistance to you 661-281-0266.

California Divorce Attorneys Taking Advantage Of Self Represented Clients 1

We don’t complain very often on video but lately we’ve been representing a lot of clients.

I’m can’t say representing—I can’t use that word representation because we’re not a law firm but we are assisting a lot of clients.

I think that’s a better choice of words. We are assisting a lot of clients who are unrepresented by attorneys.

Most cannot afford an attorney or don’t want to spend a money on attorney and where the other party has an attorney.

So what we’re seeing is that the attorneys, because they are unrepresented, our clients are unrepresented they are being taken advantage of by attorneys.

What we’re seeing is attorneys are doing things that they would never do, if the client we’re representing or the client we’re assisting were represented by an attorney.

Now I’ll give you an example. We think that attorneys are going to do the right thing and that we’re talking about Family Law here.

So we think that the parties involved and the children involve would be the priority of the attorneys. It’s just not.

They are I shouldn’t say all of them but the attorneys lately we’re talking about have been all about playing games, being deceitful and trying to do a trip up of all the clients that we’re assisting.

I’ll give you an example. We file the motion, served it on the attorney.

Everything was done correctly and they found a little loophole with which to file an objection.

Now they didn’t file the objection in advance. They didn’t call our client and say, ‘Hey we were going to file an objection.’ Or ‘Hey you did this wrong.’ or anything like that.

What they did they waited till three days before the hearing, filed the objection and said, ‘Oh by the way you’re going to have to redo this.’

So and we scrambled and we got that corrected but the objection they filed would have never done this.

They would have never treated another attorney this way and pulled this type of stunt.

So we started to see a lot of these different things. And we start calling people out on it because its your attorneys—I’m sorry but all of you, you’ve earned that reputation.

You all knew those jokes about attorneys and you guys have some of you have definitely earned the reputation.

Divorce661.com specializing and assisting litigants who do have an attorney, we can help you navigate your divorce.

We can help you navigate through the court system if you are going through legal proceedings in Family Law arena.

Divorce661.com 661-281-0266.

Avoid Marital Settlement Agreement Being Rejected | California Divorce

Today, we’re talking about putting together your final agreement. This is known as your Marital Settlement Agreement in the years past.

And then a lot of people are still doing this as far as attorneys are concerned, the Marital Settlement Agreement was a lengthy drawn out narrative.

So a series of paragraph 20, 25, 30 pages long.

And the reason we’re doing this video is the courts are trying to get away from having this long narrative you know 20, 25 pages written document regarding your Settlement Agreement.

And have many years ago have gone to a forms type set up. And that’s how we process divorce cases.

We use the court forms and I want to explain why. We have a lot of people that come to us and say they already have a written agreement and they want to submit their case to the court.

And they’ll either have it done on a piece of paper or these are folks trying to do it with themselves. And it lacks the legal sufficient legal language to process through the courts.

And that’s one of the benefits of the judgment forms is they have all the required language and then it’s just a series of check boxes.

So it makes it very difficult to miss getting that legal language in because these are court, these are documents prepared by the court where you are just going through in checking boxes and filling in the blanks.

What we’re seeing is a lot of folks that are using these online type services where you get the forms complete it for you automatically that they do not meet the legal guidelines for submitting your case, your judgment to the court and they’re being rejected.

So people are paying a couple hundred bucks getting their forms done.

They’re having this written, I’m not saying these are created by a computer, and then submitting to the courts being rejected as the clerk is going through the MSA Marital Settlement Agreement, it’s missing all kind of legal language and they’re telling folks to add this, add that but they don’t do specific.

They’ll say this paragraph is missing, this such and such information per Family Code Section and you’re going to have no idea what is to go in there.

So when people come to us, we essentially will use their written narrative Marital Settlement Agreement as a guide.

But we’ll transfer that information on to the judgment forms which have all the required court information.

So if you’re trying to do your divorce case yourself, save yourself some time and frustration and use the courts judgment forms for each of your child custody orders, property orders, etc, if you have any questions about that feel free to give me a call.

We are a Full Service Divorce Paralegal Firm serving California. The number here is 661-281-0266 or you can go to Divorce661.com for more information.

California Divorce | Don’t Use Marital Settlement Agreement Format

Today, we’re talking about putting together your final agreement. This is known as your Marital Settlement Agreement in the years past.

And then a lot of people are still doing this as far as attorneys are concerned, the Marital Settlement Agreement was a lengthy drawn out narrative.

So a series of paragraph 20, 25, 30 pages long.

And the reason we’re doing this video is the courts are trying to get away from having this long narrative you know 20, 25 pages written document regarding your Settlement Agreement.

And have many years ago have gone to a forms type set up. And that’s how we process divorce cases.

We use the court forms and I want to explain why. We have a lot of people that come to us and say they already have a written agreement and they want to submit their case to the court.

And they’ll either have it done on a piece of paper or these are folks trying to do it with themselves. And it lacks the legal sufficient legal language to process through the courts.

And that’s one of the benefits of the judgment forms is they have all the required language and then it’s just a series of check boxes.

So it makes it very difficult to miss getting that legal language in because these are court, these are documents prepared by the court where you are just going through in checking boxes and filling in the blanks.

What we’re seeing is a lot of folks that are using these online type services where you get the forms complete it for you automatically that they do not meet the legal guidelines for submitting your case, your judgment to the court and they’re being rejected.

So people are paying a couple hundred bucks getting their forms done.

They’re having this written, I’m not saying these are created by a computer, and then submitting to the courts being rejected as the clerk is going through the MSA Marital Settlement Agreement, it’s missing all kind of legal language and they’re telling folks to add this, add that but they don’t do specific.

They’ll say this paragraph is missing, this such and such information per Family Code Section and you’re going to have no idea what is to go in there.

So when people come to us, we essentially will use their written narrative Marital Settlement Agreement as a guide.

But we’ll transfer that information on to the judgment forms which have all the required court information.

So if you’re trying to do your divorce case yourself, save yourself some time and frustration and use the courts judgment forms for each of your child custody orders, property orders, etc, if you have any questions about that feel free to give me a call.

We are a Full Service Divorce Paralegal Firm serving California. The number here is 661-281-0266 or you can go to Divorce661.com for more information.

Life After Divorce An Explanation Of The Healing Process

Tim: When my clients come to us that is a major issue like they can’t see the end.

Patti: Yes.

Tim: They’re stuck in that moment or they’re like–

Patti: They’re in dark hole.

Tim: They’re how do I do this? How do I—we’re talking how do I tell my spouse?

And I try and tell them when we see our clients on the other end they are happy, they’re so glad they did it.

They didn’t say perhaps wait till our kids turned 18. We see a lot of that going on.

Patti: Yeah, you’re right.

Tim: They’re all happier. So there is life after.

Patti: There is a great life after.

Tim: Yes. How would you get them to –How would you say? I can’t tell that to people. I’m still married.

Why should they believe me? But you’ve been through that.

Patti: No, you know the analogy that I use it’s like going–it’s like giving birth to yourself.

We’re going to the birth canal right? And there’s a visual.

Tim: I didn’t know we’re going there. I’m kidding.

Patti: It’s really dark. It hurts. It’s you don’t know where you’re going. You didn’t know what’s in the other side.

At the other side it’s life. There’s just a period of time where it’s going to hurt. It’s going to be painful.

You don’t know where you’re going. It’s a blank faith situation.

And you then will come out at the other side and it will be wonderful. It’s a process.

You have to be patient with yourself.  Be patient with others.

It’s like a physical realm. If you were getting to accident and your leg will split open, right? And you just it’s hurt. You can’t wish it to heal fast.

You just need to get a doctor, get it cleaned out, protocast, rest and take care of yourself and let it heal naturally, same thing with the emotional world.

You just got to heal yourself carefully, take good care of yourself. That’s really a critical point taking really good point taking really good care of yourself, focusing on you, focus on your children.

And say process will happen. Mother Nature will take its course.

But just know absolutely, positively, without a doubt become much happier at the other end if you take care of yourself well.

Tim: Yeah.

50 Ways To Flourish After Divorce Book By Patti Handy

Tim: Today, we’re talking to Patti Handy. And we have her here today about a lot of things talking about a new book she has written, ‘50 Ways To Flourish After Divorce’.

I thought this would be great to talk about and introduce to you so you know we’re doing as many as divorce cases that we do in California.

And when she sent this to me I saw that you had some value potentially to my clients and I want to just give you an opportunity to talk about it.

This is your chance to—you know let’s talk about your book and how we can help people. It’s very interesting that you went through divorce as well.

You make that very clear here and here and so we can just tell our viewers a little bit about—

Patti: Sure.

Tim: …what this book is all about and—

Patti: Sure. After my divorce my divorce was something I was surprised. My son was 18 months old.

And there was a lot of craziness obviously emotionally, financially, physically—it was a hot mess basically.

And I found ways to a journey and we all go to a journey when we go to divorce.

And if you’re in a middle of a divorce I can tell you that the journey is worth it because at the end you will become such a better, happier person.

I wrote this book, maybe years after my divorce because going through my journey I found ways that I am healed and that helps me healed, things that I just found that brought me to my journey.

At the end of my journey I should say, ‘Well we’re all on a journey forever.’ I shouldn’t at the end of my journey but post divorce.

And I thought you know I want to show this information and it’s not anything I’m going to come from my financial background.

But it’s not financial related. It is purely from place of heart, it’s simple tools and tips that I used to really flourish after divorce.

So it’s literally 50 things that I did. And it’s some humorous embarrassing things and it’s things that I hope will help people.

Tim: Yeah, I really like how this is formatted. It’s literally just 50 things that some are short as just a page or half a page.

It’s a quick read. You could do one a day. I mean you could read a whole book in a sitting and if you wanted to can read the whole book everyday.

Patti: Yes.

Tim: Just to remind yourself. I mean do you have any recommendations or do you have people I’m sure you know people buying this book and say, I know you’re getting the acclaims and things that helped me, that they say how they utilize the book at all.

Patti: Yes. It’s one of the most things I remember when I went to my divorce that I didn’t have the bandwidth to sit and ready anything at length.

I just I don’t have it. Emotionally, crazy I was dealing with my son. You know life was just overwhelming.

So a friend of mine gave me a book. And it was a book that had short little bits. So from little I can read the page and put it down.

Then it was done but I gained a little nugget from that one page. So I wanted to do that same format in this book.

So it’s something you can pick up and read literally from page in 30 second and put it down or you can read it in one sitting.

And people had done both. And it depends on where you are, if you’re at that very raw, very vulnerable, very difficult stage at the very beginning.

You will have to begin with to read one page. And you put it down.

Tim: Yeah.

Patti: And you come back to it. But yes, you can come back to it six months later and you sort of recap ‘Oh yeah that’s right! I should do that.’

Tim: Yeah, I read through probably half the book and it’d be useful as a reminders.

When you’re going through this process and just open this up and you can just kind of flip page and read one.

Patti: Right.

Tim: You can tap things that you want to continue to remind yourself. Is there one in here that you—

Patti: One in particular?

Tim: Yeah, I always wanted to ask you that. Is there one in particular that you think or is it kind of implying as many as possible?

Patti: You know it’s there are some that are going to resonate more with others. I can’t say I like one more than the other in terms of any particular tip.

Tim: Fair enough.

Patti: However, if there was one thing I would say the onset to focus on is taking really good care of yourself.

Taking care of yourself physically, eating well, exercising, having a quiet time being with friends.

We all speak to the women at this time, women tend to be dealing with the kids, the house, they’re multitasking and we forgot taking care of us.

And we can’t give to our children what we don’t have in ourselves.

So my recommendation is to really start with yourself, fall back in love with yourself and really acknowledge all of your gifts and the beauty that you bring to the world.

And bring that back to you and then you’re able to give that to your kids if you have kids or to friends and family.

And it’s a great way to move forward from a better place.

Tim: So it’s really great information. How can they get a hold of your book?

I know you have this on Amazon. How can they find your book and order your book.

Patti: Yes, Amazon is the best source right now to buy that book absolutely.

Tim: So just Amazon and search for 50 Ways To Flourish or what’s the best way?

Patti: Search my name, yeah.

Tim: So search for Patti Handy.

Patti: Yeah, Patti with an i and Handy with the y.

Tim: Patti with an i, Handy with the y and it’ll bring up your book.

Patti: It’ll bring up this and I have another book.

Tim: Perfect. Alright, thank you so much for sharing that information and you guys can find that on Amazon.

Search for Patti Handy and order the book.

Patti: Thank you.

Tim: Alright, thanks for stopping by.

California Divorce And Finances | Why You Should Trust But Verify

Tim: We have clients come in through here, I think a good percentage of them have a pretty good idea of what the finances are.

I think much as far as I say husband made income like you’re kind of referring to.

We had seen about probably if I had to guess probably 50-50 of people who know what the finances are and some they are just clueless what had been you’ve experienced.

I mean you’ve written a book that we’re going to talk about here shortly.

Do you have any information on that like what you’ve seen people are aware, they’re not aware, they’re clueless, what have you seen in here?

Patti: You know it’s interesting even outside of divorce I think more times than not money is one of those topics that are it’s, I don’t want to say taboo but it’s uncomfortable for most.

And again whether you’re going through divorce or not it’s, there’s a lot of people that are uncomfortable with the process.

And I think to answer your question the majority of people that I see who aren’t the money managers, who aren’t  the people who pay the bills and take care of the investments they are somewhat clueless.

They don’t know where the assets are you know if the husband has a 401K and what, where is it, and how much is in it.

Other mutual funds, other investments, other stocks, checking and savings accounts that probably have a pretty good handled, where there’s any outside investments they don’t really know where they’re at and who to call.

If they would have called you know Vanguard or [inaudible 0:01:34] or Charles Robert or whoever.

Tim: Yeah.

Patti: You know here is my account number. What do I have in there? So I’m seeing more times than that many people not knowing.

Tim: Not knowing.

Patti: The spouse who doesn’t know the money managing they don’t know.

Tim: Yeah.

Patti: They just trusted their spouse to take care of their money. And they just dealt with the kids or a lot of times the woman is the money manager.

And the husbands are working. And that was the case in my marriage.

I was the person who dealt with the money. I manage everything. My husband is out working and I have a job as well but he was the one that just let me do well.

He said you know money you do it.

Tim: You know it’s funny here’s that trust factor we have you know. Say we have a wife in here filing for divorce and I say shame on me I should have read more attuned or I should have paid attention and I usually will tell them, you know now you’re saying that it’s too bad in life that has to be something you have to be concerned about.

You should be able to have a marriage and not be worried about these things. It’s not until this type of thing happened there.

Patti: No.

Tim: It becomes a real issue. And you know the other thing I think the courts got something right in that you know where parties aren’t informed of the finances.

You know when going through divorce you have to do what’s called your preliminary declaration for disclosures to list all your assets and debts.

This is so both parties become aware of what the assets and debts so there can be an even distribution of the property so –

Patti: And you’re right and the whole trust aspect going through a marriage and you don’t go into the thinking that you’re going to get divorce and I want you to watch out what you’re doing.

And you know you’re in love and you’re going to spend the rest of your life together and this stuff is never you know expected.

Tim:  Yeah.

Patti: And just it’s just smart and again whether you’re ever going to divorce or not you should know your money.

I mean if your husband gets off to work and he gets killed in a car accident—

Tim: Yeah.

Patti: You still need to know what’s, you know what things are happening financially.

Tim: Yeah. Okay.

Free Divorce Survival Tips Ebook California Divorce

Tim: Today we’re here with Patti Handy, Patti with an i, Handy with the Y. That’s great. Today we’re talking about a Ebook that she has.

So you’re going to learn her book here first of first and foremost.

Patti: I’m your mortgage adviser, yes.

Tim: But she has come up with an Ebook at divorcesurvivaltips.com

Patti: Yes.

Tim: That is the six steps to financial healing after divorce.

Patti: After divorce.

Tim: I can’t even read my writing. But it’s another resource if you follow our videos you know we always put information as much as possible, helpful tips.

And I thought this would be great to go on video and have another resource for you. So I thought maybe you could come on this video and tell us what they may learn or why should opt in for this Ebook.

Patti: Yeah, it’s a great resource for anybody who’s thinking about divorce, going through divorce even post divorce.

Getting their financial house of order, basically it’s again six steps of financial healing after divorce. It’s free. It’s an auto download Ebook at divorcesurvivaltips.com. Excuse me.

It is basically goes to steps that you should do in order to get yourself kind of dialed in financially.

Organizing and getting a handle on your credit score, pulling your credit reports, separating assets, separating credits specifically.

And just taking charge for what you’re doing financially because that’s a real painful parts of the process because when you do go through divorce you’re splitting everything in half and you’re starting over.

Tim: I can tell you with our clients like we’re talking earlier when they go through divorce of course there’s the emotional tool that it takes but there’s also a financial tool.

And when you have one income, one household, you have one standard living, you have one income, two households, it’s totally a lower standard of living.

And I think it’s a real eye opener to folks to see what’s that standard of living is. So this is something that sounds would be helpful in opening your eyes to things that they are going to have to deal with in going through this transition.

Patti: Absolutely. And typically what happens in a marriage is one spouse will be the money manager that will be the one who pays the bills, that’ll be the one who does the investments.

They know where all the accounts are at. So the other spouse really doesn’t have a clue.

So if you’re the spouse that doesn’t know where things at I mean it’s absolutely crucial that you get to handle on where all the accounts are at, get the account numbers, get an Excel spreadsheet, get everything that’s part of the organization part of it.

And know where all those assets are and become empowered become knowledgeable with money and money itself is a topic that’s very uncomfortable for many people, divorce are not.

So the more you’re empowered and educated the more confidently you’ll be able to go through this process which is of course a very emotional exhausting process.

I have been got through divorce myself, I completely understand that.

So as frustrating as it maybe you know speak with your spouse, get everything organize, get all those statements, know the credit cards are.

Just know really what your financial house looks like. That’s going to be really the first step.