Why File California Default Divorce When Parties Agree

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Why File California Default Divorce When Parties Agree

Today we’re talking about specifically filing a default judgment even though the parties have agreed.

There are time when you wanted to do a default style case, this is where you file, serve your spouse and the other spouse does absolutely nothing.

One of the cases that we find this helps is if you have no property, you have no children or limited property or you can have children but it is easier if there’s no children and if the property is separate property is you can purposely do a default even if the parties agreed.

I’ll give you an example of the client today. She came in, they had very little property, what property she did have was separate property, meaning it was not subject to division and no children and the spouse was here but did not want to participate and said, I’ll agree to whatever she wants.

We strategically set this up. That’s the word I was looking for. Strategically set this up as a default. He knew exactly what she was asking for in the divorce.

He had no issue with it so he’d chose to not respond intentionally and we’re going to allow this to go through default.

Default again is where a party files, serves the spouse and the other spouse does nothing. Doesn’t enter into a written agreement and doesn’t respond and does literally nothing and that can strategically be done if the parties are in agreement.

And there’s other reasons to do it but we are specifically talking about doing this in a strategic way to either save money on court fees why should the other party response and pay for response fee if which is as much as $435. Why should he do that if he’s in agreement with everything.

So, we sat down, we drafted the default, knowing it’s going to be a default judgment, drafted the judgment and we’re going to submit that to the court and everyone’s happy. They’re in agreement but they are putting it through as no agreement to save some money so the other spouse don’t have to be bothered with paperwork or be involved whatsoever.

If you any questions about whens it is best to use a default judgment or any other type of judgment, please give us a call, I’d be happy to help you with your divorce in California.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com, 668-281-0266.

Turning California Divorce Document Preparation Business Upside Down

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Turning California Divorce Document Preparation Business Upside Down

This is kind of just a plug about our business not a whole lot of incites like the rest of our several hundred videos that we’ve normally done.

I just want to kind of let folks know that we have been acknowledged as one of the few individuals, me specifically who has been able to take this business of legal document preparation from what is normally been a part time or on the side type of job.

Legal document assistants are generally there to help lowly income individuals who can’t afford attorneys, basically help those people through a certain legal matters.

And I’ve turned that idea upside down and what we have done is instead of going after low income families, because honestly there are hundreds of programs, pro bono attorneys and system in place for those folks.

I’ve turned this on its head and we now have created the legal document profession, at least from our view point, no one else is doing this yet aside from us and our target market is people with higher incomes.

People who would normally use an attorney, who don’t want to spend the money on an attorney or to have amicable case where divorce attorneys just aren’t necessary. And we’ve taken a lot of business away from attorneys.

It’s not that we are harming them, we don’t compete with them. In fact, we don’t do the same thing. We don’t give legal advice or go to court.

We’re handling cases where people who are trying to get through their divorce on their own, they want to save some money.

So we’re not helping the low income or people without money. We’re helping people who want to save money, who probably have money for attorney but there’s no need for it or they don’t want to spend the money on an attorney.

By turning this upside down we have established our self and for probably the first times are running a successful legal document preparation business and helping people in the higher income earners get through divorce. Complicated cases, the idea is that there is somewhat amicable and trying to begin through it together.

The reason I bring this up is I receive a phone call from someone who does this as well, what we do and they basically said they’ve been doing this for 18 years and they have been able to turn this into a successful full time business and I think what it boils down to is flat out turning this process on its head.

Not going after the target market that this industry was specifically built for and what honestly the association called the California association of legal document assistants.

They promote that this business should be for low income earners and we have gone against the grain on that 100% and probably one of the first times turn this into a business model that really helps people that don’t have a help available to them.

Talking about, if you are low income there are hundreds of program out there, free services, pro bono services, self-help centers, etc. If you are the 80% or 90% of people who don’t qualify for free services, that is the biggest chunk of society that we’re going after.

And it’s been a very successful model for us. So, I apologize for the plug on our awesomeness but I just wanted to let our folks know that’s what we’re doing, that’s what we’re here for and we have now been deemed the go-to-folks in California for affordable divorce cases and assistants. Please give us a call at 661-281-0266.

My name is Tim Blankenship. You can go to divorce661.com for more information.

Terminating Income Withholding Order For Child Support California Divorce

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Terminating Income Withholding Order For Child Support California Divorce

Today I want to talk a little bit about terminating an income withholding order for child support and how to go about doing that.

If you have been divorced and the divorce is over and there has been an order for child support with an income withholding order, so let me back up and explain what that is.

If you’re reading this, you probably know what it is. You got divorced, the divorce got finalized for a period of five, ten, fifteen, who knows how many years you have been paying child support and the child support has been taken out directly out of your pay through your employer via withholding orders called an income withholding order.

If you’ve done that, you need to look in to the future in advance and seen when child support is going to terminate per the order.

In most cases it’ll say something to the effect of that you have to pay child support until your son or daughter turns 18 and is no longer a full time high school student.

You have to have one or two conditions met. Make sure to check the language, it should be pretty standard. There’s one or two other things that could keep you having to pay child support so make sure to take a look at that.

But that’s generally the rule, up until 18 and high school student. Once those two things are met then you can terminate child support if that’s what your order says.

I had a gentleman come in today and in advance he is doing the right thing, he’s daughter is going to turn 18 in two months and she is already graduated from high school so, as soon as she turns 18, effectively he can terminate child support.

The reason you want to do this in advance is because you have to go through the motions with the court to get a new court order or zero child support order. So right now, his employer is taking out the money from his pay check.

Unfortunately, the courts aren’t proactive. He can’t go to court before her daughter turns 18 and say, ‘look my daughter is going to be 18 in a few months, please sign a new order so I can get it to my employer now so they can stop paying child support right on the money, right when the time comes.

What he has to do is, he needs to file a motion, he needs to get a court date immediately following her 18th birthday which is what we’re doing for him. So, literally the day after the birthday of his daughter he’s going to go to court, show a birth certificate, she turned 18 yesterday and here’s her certificate or here’s her diploma from high school.

The point of this video is, make sure you do this in advance. If you’ve already got in to the point where you no longer should be paying child support and there’s an income withholding order. Expect to pay child support for another two to three months.

Reason being is it’s going to take that long to get you in to court, get the judge to sign the termination order on the income withholding order and get that filed, signed by the judge and served on your employer. So, keep in mind, do this in advance you are going to want to file a motion around 60 to 90 days before she can get that date you want right after they turn 18.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com, we specialize in divorce in all of California. Feel free to give me a call, I’d be happy to help you with any motions, divorce and things at that nature. 661-281-0266 or you ca go to our website at divorce661.com

Post Judgment California Divorce Motions Must Be Personally Served

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Post Judgment California Divorce Motions Must Be Personally Served

Today someone had written a question on our blog wondering what items have to be personally served and which items can be mail served and it can get a little tricky but this video is specifically about post judgment motion.

So, what that means is post judgment, the judgment is already according to the divorce case and you want to modify something such as child support, spousal support or virtually anything you need to personally serve your motion.

The process would be to file your paperwork, get your court date and then personally serve it. Anyone over 18, process server preferably to make sure it’s done correctly and that has to be done by personal service.

The reason being is or I should say as supposed to when you are going through the divorce both parties knew there is a process going on. They are going through a divorce process.

So, a lot of these things can be mail served once the opening documents have been personally served, everything else can be done by mail for the most part.

After there has been a period of time for divorce whether it will be a month or six years or ten years, the court requires that you personally serve any new motions. Because they don’t want to assume that the person still lives there and you mail serve them and they don’t get it.

They want to make sure that it is actually served on the party, the want to know what address was served to them for purposes of service of process, they want to make sure that they are actually served and they knew that they should have attended the hearing.

Keep in mind, post judgment, anything you want to change in your divorce after the judgment has been entered. If you file a motion, you need to have it personally served.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com, specializing in California divorce. Give us a call if you need some help.

 

Is Doing Your Own California Divorce A Good Idea

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Is Doing Your Own California Divorce A Good Idea

This is the fifth and perhaps last video in the series this week discussing and helping people have the conversation with themselves if they should do their own divorce or not.

We’ve talked about what happens when your divorce doesn’t go as planned if you’re self-representing yourself, who you will turn to when you have questions about divorce.

Why is it important to get you divorce paperwork done right the first time, should you do your own divorce, and we talked about money, when it’s a good idea to hire someone, when it’s a good idea to do it on your own.

And today we are talking about, is doing your own divorce case a good idea. This may seem very self-serving. We suggest that you don’t do your divorce.

We’re not saying hire an attorney, we’re saying hire us obviously. We’re saying hire a professional company paralegal service, legal document assistant service which we are to prepare your divorce case for you.

It’s going to get done right the first time, we’re going to go down the court, we’re going to fill out the forms, we’re going to file them, serve them, explain all the process and procedures, we’re here to answer all of your questions.

We have all the courts software, anything the attorneys have, software wise we have it as well. We can do everything, start to finish so you can go on with your life.

Divorce is going to be an emotional roller coaster as it is. It’s not something that you want to try and figure out paperwork wise so obviously we’d suggest it’s better to do it with a professional company like us.

That’s kind of our take on things. This has been like a wrap up for the week, and helps you people to decide if it’s a good idea or not to do their own divorce.

Some of the things I may have talked on hundreds of different videos about the pluses and minuses of doing your own divorce.

If you have more time than money then maybe you want to do it yourself but there are so many things that can go wrong with the paperwork.

There’s a lot of information out there about yes, you can do your own divorce but from what we see we do so many cases every year that we have clients call us left and right who’ve attempted and spent months and months and years trying to do their own divorce and failed.

And they all tell me: “Tim, if I had found your service before I ever got started it would’ve been a life saver.” and looking back they would have never attempted to do their divorce on their own.

So I think I can only share people that have gone before you and who have told me: “Tim, I would not have done this had I known that there is a service that could take care of everything like you guys do for us.

Those people eventually will hire us once they find our service and we have to pick up where they left off, retrace their entire case, make sure everything was done right, if not, we fix it because it’s usually what happens and then wrap up their case for them.

That’s kind of how I would explain coming to that decision or coming to that conclusion of whether you should try it on your own or hire us.

Look back at the people that have hired us and people that have attempted to do it on their own and their kind of thought process on what they would do knowing what they know now.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Anywhere in California, we can help you with our divorce, call our number at 661-281-0266 and I’d be happy to talk to you and let you know what we can do for you in your particular case.

Talk to you soon!

I Started My California Divorce And Never Finished It

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I Started My California Divorce And Never Finished It

Today we’re talking about for those folks who have started their divorce and never finish.

That’s the service we provide and something we can help you fix. We’re continuing to get lots and lots of folks who started their divorce either months, years, or decades ago. Honestly, I guess the oldest one we did was 18 years ago, they filed and never finished their case.

But, that is the service we provide. We can essentially pick up where you left off and wrap things up for you. I’ll give you an example.

We had a client call from Utah who lived in California filed divorce several years ago, didn’t finished the paperwork and now has moved to Utah and needs to finish his case in California because it’s still an open case and California still has jurisdiction over all the issues of the divorce.

They’ve gotten about a quarter away through the process, they’ve filed and serve the paperwork and that was just about it. They still need to do a lot of work.

The way this works is when you call us, we’ll have you send over what paperwork you have, if you have it. If you don’t have it, we’ll go down to the courts for you and we’ll get the filed documents so we can see what has been done and see if anything needs to be amended.

Then we can determine what’s needed to be done moving forward and it doesn’t matter where you’re at, if you’ve moved out the county, out of the state, out of the country, we can still wrap things up for you.

We can kind of be that local boots on the ground company that can get everything finished up for you.

If you are one of the folks that started your divorce and you never finished it please give us a call. We do and can help you get your divorce finalized in California.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Feel free to call us for free consultation or go to our website and you can call us at 661-281-0266

How To Submit Default California Divorce Judgment With Spousal Support

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How To Submit Default California Divorce Judgment With Spousal Support

Today I want to talk to you about something interesting, something that happened this week with a client of ours. This is in regards to a default judgment with spousal support.

We had a client come in several months ago wanted to file for a divorce who’s supposed to be amicable and as things progressed, it turn out to be not so amicable. Not that the other party is contesting anything but they didn’t want to participate in the divorce at all.

The party that we were working with was unemployed and the other party, her spouse was employed so we wanted to get her some spousal support because they had been married for quite some time.

Well, what happen is we submitted the default judgment and we set it for what’s called a prove up or default setting because we are asking for a specific amount of spousal support because she was not aware of what her spouse’s income was exactly.

So, we set the default hearing, she attended the hearing just the other day and I wanted to share with you what the judge told her.

Essentially, because she didn’t have any specific information pertaining to his income, the judge basically said she is not going to word her any spousal support and what the judge wanted is some type of indication of what he was making.

For instance, perhaps some pay stubs of course would be helpful. Obviously if she had a tax return or something along those lines, perhaps some bank statements. Because she have been separated for so long she had absolutely no source or proof of what he was making.

So, the judge simply said, I don’t know what your husband makes, therefore I cannot make an order for spousal support. And she issue a zero support order, she approved the judgment so the divorce was approved and then they reserve jurisdiction of spousal support.

What that means is she is going to have to go back to court at some time in the future whens she can find out what he is making in order to ask for spousal support. Just keep that in mind if you’re going through a default. It’s one of the downsides to a default. I know a lot of people do it because you don’t have to pay the other filing fee.

It was developed for filing and getting through your divorce when the other party doesn’t participate. That’s what the default is for.

But there are some downsides to it and this is one of them. Had husband participated, then he would have had to do his financial disclosures and we would have known what his income was and there could have been an order for spousal support.

When you’re going through divorce in California, there are several ways you can do this, by default, by hybrid which is an agreement without a response, so it’s default with agreement or just uncontested where both parties participate.

There are benefits to both or to all three and there are also some negatives to all three, really depending on your scenario, your circumstances can dictate what’s the best way to go. If you have any questions on that make sure to give us a call.

We specialize in affordable divorce in California, my name is Tim Blankenship, 661-281-0266 or you can get more information off our website at divorce661.com.

How To Get Your California Divorce Done Right The First Time

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How To Get Your California Divorce Done Right The First Time

Today we are talking about getting your divorce done right the first time.

And this week we’ve been talking all about pro pers and people representing themselves, those of you deciding, should I file my own case, should I try and do the paperwork and a lot of people will call and say “Tim, I’ve tried to file the paperwork or I started the paperwork, I printed it out.”

So, if you’re considering this, you’re going to go through that process. Some people will simply say, I’m not going to deal with this. I want to get it done right the first time.

That’s the topic of this video, how to get your California divorce done right the first time.

Obviously the answer is to use a professional service like ours. I know it’s very self-serving but as a matter of fact, the way the courts have their procedures and processes set up, the paperwork being as complicated as it is.

The procedure of filing and serving and doing everything right can also be very time consuming, not to mention confusing and frustrating and we have helped so many people who have attempted to do their own divorce.

Attempted to just start the paperwork, tried to fill it out or maybe they even went to court and filed it and what we’re finding is, and these are smart folks, don’t get me wrong.

These folks are just having trouble, difficulty, taking months, years in some cases trying to get their California divorce completed and if they realized what they are up against initially, they all said they never would have attempted it on their own.

So for those of you thinking, you might want to give it a shot, by all means, go ahead if that’s what you want to do. If you’re like me, no one can tell me something, I have to learn it on my own.

So if that’s you, go ahead and get started, try and do it and when you get stuck give us a call. We can always pick up where you left off.

Just keep in mind that usually we have to start from the beginning because even if you miss a single check box on the initial petition or you do something wrong, we have to start over from the very beginning and in most cases you’re going to go back and start everything over again anyways.

We suggest you just start with us in the beginning but everyone is going to be different. So, with that said, if you want to get it done right the first time, use a professional service. Give us a call, we’d be happy to help.

We have flat fee services. You can go to divorce661.com and look at our pricing, it’s right there for you, there’s no tricks. It’s the full cost all in aside from your filing fees.

Give us a call, I’d be happy to talk to you over the phone. I can give you a consultation and let you know exactly what we can do for you. And we do handle divorce cases all throughout California so regardless of where you’re at just give us a call and we’ll take care of it for you.

661-281-0266 is the way to get a hold of us. We’ll talk to you soon!

How To File California Divorce Documents By Mail

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To File California Divorce Documents By Mail

Today we’re talking about something very simple, something that people do wrong quite a bit and this is how to submit your document to the court.

Anything that you file with the court, you’re going to want to have an original, with original signatures. This would be, obviously your initial filing paper. Summon and petition or the declaration regarding service of your disclosures and of course the judgment.

Everything you submit needs to be submitted with an original which is hole punched to the top and at least one copy and more importantly, if you’re filing your documents by mail which you can do. You don’t have to go to court every time.

If you file by mail or if you file specific document like the request to enter default, you need to submit original, probably two copies so you can get two back and one to give your spouse if need be or one is fine. Some documents require an original and two copies the like request to enter default.

But more importantly, you need to include envelopes. So what this means is, if you’re submitting something to court and you want it to return to you and of course you do want the documents to return to you like the proof of service, request to enter default, things at that nature. You need to supply the envelopes with postage address from the court to you.

Otherwise, they are not going to put in envelope, they are not going to write your address in there and they are not going to pay with the postage so the file, the document and it’s just going to sit in the court and you are not going to know if it was ever received or what happen with it or get a copy. Now, you’re going to have to go to court.

Specifically the request to enter default, it says on the form that you need to file it with return envelopes to both petitioner and respondent and you need to have an original and two copies.

If you want documents back from the court which of course you do, make sure to send copies, original and copies and envelopes coming back to you with postage paid so you can get proof of your filing and especially when it comes to your judgment.

You need to have three sets if you’re submitting your judgment with your request to enter default with your notice of entry of judgment. You have to have three different sets of envelopes both to petitioner and respondent when you file your judgment.

There’s lot to know when it comes to divorce, that’s why we have this business. We can help you with your divorce case anywhere in California. Please call me at 661-281-0266. I’d be happy to give you a consultation over the phone and then we can talk about how we can help you with your divorce.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

How To Download IRS Tax Returns Online

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How To Download IRS Tax Returns Online

Today we’re talking about how you can now get your IRS Tax Returns online and that may be important if you’re going through divorce in California at least.

Recently they have instituted the need to exchange tax returns. That’s one reason if you don’t have them or you don’t have copies or you’ve lost them. You can now get copies of them online and I’m going to share with you the IRS link to do that.

Another reason you may need your tax return and we came across this recently, is if you’re trying to get spousal support and you can’t prove the other parties income and maybe you don’t have the copies of your tax return and you need to see what’s their incoming was the prior year to help with determining spousal support.

You’d want to get a copy of your tax returns. In the past you had to ask to get your transcripts by mail and there is an application and it took five to ten days, I’m just looking at the IRS site now.

But now you can get your transcripts, your IRS tax returns online instantaneously after answering a series of security questions.

The IRS link is, www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript, and that’s the direct link to IRS site to get your transcript online. I just want to share that with folks.

I had a client trying to get their transcripts recently, their tax returns recently because they’re going to court and the judge wasn’t going to order spousal support without there being any evidence of income and because they have been separated for such a long time.

She didn’t have any evidence of pay stubs or things at that nature and so the only way to do that is to get the tax returns but you might say why you just don’t go the tax prepare or if you use an online, why you just don’t print a copy.

Well, this was a case where they used a physical tax-preparer and that tax-preparer happened to be a relative of the spouse who was not turning over the documents intentionally.

Don’t suppose that would happen in too many scenarios but I did want to share this link in case you are trying to get copies of your tax returns and you need them quickly and you now can get them online so I hope to give you that link was helpful.

We do specialize in divorce in California if you happen to need help in that area. Please feel free to give us a call. 661-281-0266.