Divorce Paralegal Service In Atwater Village California

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Divorce Paralegal Service In Atwater Village California

Today we are talking to our friends in Atwater Village, those of you that may be considering going to a divorce.

I wanted to let you know that there is an affordable service out there for divorce which is us and I’ll talk a little bit about our background and what we can do for you.

We’re a full service divorce document preparation firm. All we do is divorce in California. We’ve really become the go-to-folks for anyone in California that called us.

We’ve been doing this for several years now and the word has really spread that if you want your divorce done correctly and quickly and properly, that we are the company you need to contact for that.

We are a full service firm. So that means we’re going to fill out all the forms, we’re going to go down the court for you and we’re going to file the documents, we’re going to serve them.

We’re going to do all the necessary financial disclosures, processes and procedures and we’re going to complete your final judgment, that means the agreement per se as far as who’s going to get what property and determination of child support, determination of spousal support.

We’re going to really help you work through those issues and get those points across and we’re going to do that for you so you don’t have to worry about what comes next, how to fill out the forms and so forth.

Probably one of the biggest values we offer aside from the document preparation is our experience. I’ve worked with the courts for several years in the family law department for Los Angeles Superior Court.

After which, I worked for the largest family law firm in California for several years and now I’ve ran this business for several years and we’ve seen a lot, I’ve seen it from different perspectives, the court perspective, from a law firm perspective, and now helping several hundred people get divorced per year representing themselves.

I can tell you that, that’s probably the biggest value with what we offer, is our experience and knowledge in the divorce process. So, you get a lot more than just document preparation when you work with us.

With that said, feel free to give us a call. I’d love to help you through your divorce, help you save some money, help you answer your questions. I’d be happy to give you a free consultation over the phone to make sure we are the right fit for you.

A 90% chance that we will be, meaning that less than 10% of divorce cases actually goes to trial in California and that’s really one of the main reasons you would need an attorney to begin with outside of just getting some legal advice which you can do on a consultation basis only.

You don’t have to necessarily retain them. So, make sure to give me a call, I’d be happy to discuss your particular case and circumstances and help you through your divorce when you’re ready.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Call me at 661-281-0266. I’d be happy to talk to you and let you know if you are a good fit for our company. Talk to you soon.

Can I File For Divorce In California I Wasn’t Married In California

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Can I File For Divorce In California I Wasn’t Married In California

Today we’re talking about why it doesn’t matter where you were married for purposes of getting divorced.

I’ll assume that too many people would have this question but it’s come up enough times to address in video.

For instance, I get calls such as ‘Tim, can I get divorced in California, I was married in the Philippines or I was married in Australia or I was married in the UK’ things of that nature.

When it comes to divorce, it’s basically a jurisdictional issue as far as California is concerned, if you’ve lived in the state for six months and in the county for three months, that is the court that you would file in.

So, if you live in Los Angeles County and you’ve been in the state for more than six months and the county for more than three, you would file your divorce in LA County.

If you had recently moved in to California, technically you would have to wait. If you’ve change counties, you can move from one county to the next and if you are to file, technically speaking you’d have to file on the county you left unless you wanted to wait the time requirement for the county to file in the new county you’re in.

One other thing is if you are married in another country and you’re spouse is still in that country, only one of you needs to be in the county to file. The court only has that jurisdiction or I should say, you can file if you’re living in the county, not both of you have to be there.

As long as one of you are, and then when you serve your spouse, wherever they may be, the court will have jurisdiction over them at that time so they can make orders over the divorce.

I hope that clarifies that question if you had it, that you file where you live not where you’re married.

Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com, we can help you with your divorce anywhere in California. Please feel free to give us a call at 661-281-0266.

California Divorce | What Is Included In The Divorce Judgment

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce What Is Included In The Divorce Judgment

Today we’re talking about child custody and parenting plans and the different ways you can go about determining that.

We handle a large volume of cases in California and I wanted to address this because it’s a big part of getting a divorce which is dealing with your children, if you have them obviously.

And that is what kind of parenting plan are you going to come up with after you’re divorced. What kind of parenting plan, who’s going to have custody, the visitation and do you even need a parenting plan. That’s what I’m going to talk about.

When it comes to going through a divorce and we’re talking about divorce is where you’re trying to work through this amicably, more of a friendly divorce, you’re not going to court and have a long drawn out argument.

If you’re going to come into an agreement, the courts will allow you to pretty much agree to everything as it pertains to children regarding the parenting plan and it really just depends on you and what you agreed with your spouse on how you want to care for your children.

Let me give you some examples, first of all you can have a very specific child custody and visitation plan, a parenting plan if you will. That basically indicates every minute of the day of your children whose care they’ll be in for instance.

It could be that so specific that it says “husband is to have custody on alternating weekends from 5PM on Friday to 8PM on Sunday and a weekday visit on Wednesdays from 4PM until 9PM”. You can get very specific.

You can even indicate who is going to pick them up, who is responsible for transportation. You can get really, really detailed and really grind it out if you want.

Where we see that happening, not so much on what we do but when I worked for a law firm in the past where people are battling in and out, fighting for every inch. We see very specific child custody and visitation agreement or orders.

The other way to go is to say, and I had people straight out say this, “I don’t want the court involved in our ability and decision making on how we raise our kids and custody and visitation.”

So you don’t have to have a specific custody and visitation agreement if that is something that will work with you and your spouse.

You can simply say, we want joint legal and joint physical custody and as far as who’s going to have them, when and for how long is going to be determined on an on-going basis and the best interest of our children and leave it at that.

That way, it’s open for you guys to make decisions as you forward. Who’s going to pick them up, who’s going to have them, when it’s going to be and so forth?

And kind of be adults about the situation and probably treat is as you did when you were married if you’re able to have that on-going ability to communicate effectively after you’re divorced.

I just want to talk about those two differences in ways you can go. In our business, we see a lot of open ended custody and visitation or folks just wanted to continue on with raising their children the way they did without any court intervention or specific orders telling them what they have to do.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Go to our website for more information. I’d be happy to help you with your divorce in California, that’s what we’re specialized in.

California Divorce | What Can Go Wrong When Doing It Yourself

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California Divorce What Can Go Wrong When Doing It Yourself

Today we’re talking about what happens when divorce doesn’t go necessarily as you planned.

And this is specifically related to the idea of doing your own divorce, and I mean specifically those of you who are considering doing your own paperwork trying to save money.

If you think that’s what really happens. Not necessarily the case and I’ve done videos on why but for purposes of this video I want to talk about what happens if the divorce doesn’t go as you planned.

Meaning, you get into it, you do the paperwork, you think it’s just a matter of filling out forms and to a certain degree it is but a lot of it has to do with, when it comes to the forms, what goes on the forms, how to fill them out, how to file them, how to serve them, all of that type of process and questioning that you’re going to have to go through. That’s part one.

But the most important part is the questions you’re going to have about the divorce process in general. You’re going to have questions about child support determination and how’s that calculated. Spousal support determination and how’s that calculated.

You’re going to have questions about how to divide a property, how can you divide a property, what will the courts allow as far as dividing the property. What’s the best method to go?

Should you do it hybrid divorce, a default divorce, an uncontested divorce, basically what I’m getting at is there’s a lot of things you consider when deciding if you’re going to do your own divorce or deciding if you should get a professional company such as us to help you.

Obviously, our recommendation from day one, before you ever get started, you give us a call so we can provide a consultation to you and explain to you the process and then we’ll let you know based on what you’ve told us if we think you may be able to do it on your own or if we’d suggest a company like us to take care of your divorce for you.

There are just so many things that can go wrong not only with the paperwork but just in decisions and procedure and processes with the court. It’s just not as easy as people think.

There is a big misconception out there that you can do your own divorce and while that is technically true, those that accomplished completing their divorce on their own without any assistance is very far and few between.

I just want to get that point across. When you work with a service like us, we offer a tremendous value in that we do everything for you from beginning to end including prepping the paperwork, take them down to court, filing it, serving it and most importantly providing you an information you need and answering the questions you will have whether you know you have questions about it or not.

We will bring certain things to life, food for discussion if you will, throughout the process that will help streamline and facilitate and make this process of getting divorced easier than you thought imaginable.

Please give us a call at 661-281-0266. I’d be happy to talk to you about your particular case and what we can do to assist you.

We do specialize in divorce in anywhere in California.

California Divorce | Use The Same Name On All Divorce Forms

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California Divorce Use The Same Name On All Divorce Forms

Today we’re talking about the importance of having the information on your forms identical throughout the divorce process.

As you’re filling out your divorce forms, it’s important that your name specifically, on how you list your name in the summons and the petition remain the same all the way through.

We had recently some clients that came to us who were attempting to do their own divorce. They’re having some difficulty, they had their paperwork rejected multiple times and one of the reasons was the name throughout the process, because this is over a period of several months and almost a year.

They started changing their name, meaning they left out their middle name or instead of William they used Bill and things like that.

What you want to do is when you start your divorce and on the summons and petition, whatever name you start with you’ll going to want to use that throughout the divorce. So, if my name is Tim S. Blankenship, I would want to use exactly that on all summons and petition.

You’re going to want to use that at the top of all your forms and where you name the petitioner and respondent on the summons and petition. You’re going to want to make sure that that’s the same all the way through.

Now, when you use our service this is never an issue because we use some courts software that once we set up the account it’s transferred over to all the forms. That’s never an issue for us.

But if you’re out there trying to do your own divorce and you’re doing this a bit at a time and you’re getting the forms off the internet or you’re filling them out by hand with pen, there is a chance that as the weeks and months goes by that you start to change things. That you put a different name, maybe leave out an initial which is all it takes to have this problem.

So, this particular case, they were trying to file a default case and when they submitted the request to enter default, it was rejected and it says ”names of petitioner and respondent do not match the names on the petition”.

When we looked at the paperwork, what they had done is on the petition they had first, middle and last. And then when they filled out their notice to enter default they just had first and last and because the names no longer match, they rejected it solely on that.

Just keep in mind if you’re doing your own divorce, make sure you use the same name. If it’s first, middle, last or first, middle initial, last, whatever it is, make sure it’s the same at the top of the forms where you’re listing your name and address and where you list your name as a petitioner and as a respondent.

This is something you can really foul up your divorce, whether it gets caught at the nose of request to enter default stage or when you submit your judgment. if that is in the wrong name or different name than the petition, the judgment will be rejected for that issue alone.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Feel free to give me a call. The number is 661-281-0266. I’d be happy to help you with your divorce whether you’re just getting started or you’re somewhere in between or you’ve taken it all the way to judgment and had it rejected multiple times.

Give us a call, we can pick up where you left off, we’d be happy to help.

California Divorce | Property Order Attachment Completion FL-345

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California Divorce | Property Order Attachment Completion FL-345

Today we are talking about the divorce judgment when you go to enter your judgment and what forms are needed and today we’re specifically talking about the judgment order attachment.

So, when you submit your judgment, we’re talking about the forms specifically not the marital settlement agreement. If you have a judgment that involves children, you’re going to have the child custody order.

If you have child support you’re going to have the child support order. If you have spousal support, you’re going to have spousal support order. If you have property, you’re going to do the property order and we’re talking about form FL-345.

What we’re starting to see is a trend with the courts here that they now want to see a property order attachment, even if there is no property.

In the past we could get away with just marking on the judgment there’s no property to be disposed off by the court. And then we started seeing the trend of judgment coming back with the clerk asking that we include a property order and simply saying none on there.

This is form FL-345 and where it says, division of community property assets for petitioner and respondent. And if there’s no property, simply mark the box that there’s no community property asset.

And same goes for separate property and community property debts. You can simply mark the “No” box.

So even if there’s no property, just mark “no community property assets”, “no community property debts”, and for separate property, everyone is going to have some separate property whether you listed it or not in your financial disclosures.

One thing that we’ve noticed that the courts would like as far as separate property, you don’t have to actually list all the separate property. What we have been writing is this following phrase, and also this is the court confirms the following assets or debts as the sole property or sole responsibility of the petitioner, and then, there’s a line for the respondent as well.

But what we write under there and this is number 4A on the FL-345 is “any and all assets and debts in petitioner’s name or possession”. Same thing for respondent, “any and all assets and debts in the respondent’s name or possession”.

That basically will take care of any and all assets that are in your name and possessions are going to be confirmed to you as your separate property. And that takes care of that without having to list all your separate property.

Just a quick little note on that, here’s a trend we’re trying to see with the courts so I want to make sure we got that out to you guys.

Please call us if you need help with your divorce in California, that’s what we specialize in. please check our website or give me a call. The number is 661-281-0266.

California Divorce | Notice Of Case Review Default Letter

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce Notice Of Case Review Default Letter

Today we’re talking about a little bit of a change with the California court systems in the past.

And we’re going to be talking about a notice you may get in the mail if you’re representing yourself, lets say, notice of case review / default family centered case resolution. So, notice of case review default.

In the past when you would file for divorce, you’d file the paperwork. You’d serve the paperwork, and if you didn’t do those things, then the court wouldn’t ever get involved. They wouldn’t ever step in. You would never get any letter or anything from the court.

Now what they’ve done is there are certain milestones, certain dates that will trigger the courts to automatically take an action to notify parties that their case is not finished or that they need to do the next step.

Again in the past they never got involved. You can file, serve and your case could linger 5, 10 or 15 years – I’ve seen it – and not a single notice and a lot of times people would think they’re actually divorced when they’re not.

Because of those issues I’m assuming and many others, what the courts started doing and we noticed probably towards the end of 2013, into 2014 is they started taking a proactive approach to handling divorce matters and making sure they’re moving along so the notice of case review default.

That’s a letter you’ll get if you filed you’re paperwork, you served your paperwork and let’s say you’ve done your financial disclosures but then nothing else is going on and you haven’t filed a default case yet.

If your spouse hasn’t responded after 30 days after being served you have a default where you can file a default and complete your case. So this specific notice, notice of case review default, you’ll receive this in about six months, four to six month mark after you served your spouse.

When they’ve seen you filed, you’ve served your spouse, you’ve done your financial disclosures and then it kinds of just lingered, you’re going to get this notice, notice of case review/default and what it is, is it’s a notice from the court basically saying your case is not complete.

Here are the steps to complete your case, file a proof of service if you haven’t, do your financial disclosure if you haven’t, and that you need to, if you’re going to proceed by default, enter the request to enter default.

So they can default the case and then you can move forward with your judgment. It’s just a little bit of a notice to let you know that your case is not complete because there’s certain amount of time has elapsed since you’ve filed and served your spouse.

So, if you get this, there’s no alarm and it doesn’t require you to appear in court, at least this one did not. So, if you get this, read through it.

They’re just letting you know there’s more steps to complete your case and I think it’s a good step forward in helping people understand, who’s representing themselves like the clients we help that their case is not complete.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com, specializing in affordable divorce in California. Please give us a call at 661-281-0266 if you’d like help with your case.

California Divorce | Form FL-110 Summons Changes For 2014

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California Divorce Form FL-110 Summons Changes For 2014

This is just a quick video to let you know about the 2014 Form updates for Family Law for California divorce.

There are usually two updates a year and I just want to do a quick video on the form changes.

So far, for this first change of the year, there’s only one form that’s changed and this is the summons. This is FL-110 and looking at the form, it is much different as far as how it’s setup. I think the information there is exactly but it’s a lot easier to read and understand.

Specifically and I’m looking at the amount, what they’ve really done is they’ve really put an emphasis on the fact that on the back, on page 2 there are so much restraining orders that they need to be aware of.

They really make that a point to see that before you had to go to page 2 which looked like a lot of legal lease and I think those people just skip it over and when people come over to our office, I make sure to point out what those restraining orders are, they’re called ATRO’s and I’ll do another video right after this one where we’ll go through this and discuss the different issues with regards to the automatic restraining orders on the summons.

So I just wanted to make sure you knew that so if you’ve got an older form, if you’ve gotten something offline or online and you have the older form, it’s going to be rejected automatically if you try and file it with the court so make sure you have the form revision for the summons FL-110 dated January 1, 2014 and that will be on the bottom left-hand corner of the form.

Alright that’s it for today, if you have any questions and need help about your divorce in California, call the number 661-281-0266 or the number on your website divorce661.com for more information.

California Divorce | Different Ways To Address Child Custody & Parenting Plans

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California Divorce | Different Ways To Address Child Custody & Parenting Plans

Today we’re talking about what is included in a divorce judgment.

What does that mean? What is a judgment or agreement or stipulation? What does all that mean? It’s a question I get quite a bit when people call our office; they want to know what is going to be included in the divorce.

Or they’ll ask me questions like: Is child custody or parenting plan included – you know – these types of questions.

So I want to address what is entailed in the final product, or what is included as far as agreements in the final product of a divorce judgment, divorce agreement or stipulation or whatever you want to call it.

So first of all, the divorce is going to handle everything. It’s not just that you will end up divorced and single. The divorce is going to take care of dividing up all your properties, all your assets and debts that you accumulated during the marriage will be distributed.

You will have to make a decision if you’ve bought a house, if you’ve got cars or a 401 case, pensions and so forth – those things are going to need to be divided and that will be included in the property order portion of the judgment where you will say who is getting what and how things are going to be divided.

So property is one of the things that are addressed in the divorce.

The next thing is if you also have children that will also be discussed. We’re talking about child custody, child visitation, and child support.

That is something you’ll have to figure out as well. So you’re going to have specific child custody and visitation orders, are you going to have a specific parenting plan or you’re going to have an open plan, perhaps as you’re married you took care of the kids as you did whoever was available to pick them up, you can do that as well.

Or you can have a very specific “My husband will pick up the kids from Mondays through Thursdays, from this time to that time and he’ll have them, I’ll have them this time.” it can be very specific.

Child custody and visitation also known as a parenting plan is included in the divorce when you get divorced.

Child support also will be addressed as well as spousal support. So anything that you can imagine that will have to do with getting a divorce is what’s included in the divorce.

You aren’t just getting a divorce. You also have to address all the assets and debts, all the property, your children and anything else that had to do with your marriage will be addressed in the judgment.

Any other agreements that you want to have will be addressed in the judgment so once you get divorced, everything will be your separate property, you will have a parenting plan in place, and you will have spousal support and child support number set and that’s what I want to talk about today since I get that question quite a bit.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com, for more information. We can help you with your California divorce anywhere in California.

Thanks!

California Divorce | Default Setting & Prove Up Hearing

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California Divorce Default Setting & Prove Up Hearing

Today we’re going to talk about a default setting or what’s also known as prove up hearing.

This is when you go through a divorce and you submit a default judgment, a default judgment is where you file and serve the other party and they did absolutely nothing.

There are some cases where the courts just straight away approve the default and that’s usually in cases where there’s limited property or the property has been evenly divided or you’re not asking for anything out of the norm for a default judgment.

In some instances, the court will require you to attend a hearing even though the other party didn’t respond or isn’t participating, in that sense a default judgment.

We’ve had several cases recently where the court asked us, upon submitting the default judgment to resubmit the default judgment but with what’s called a default setting.

Basically what the court is saying is we’re not necessarily rejecting the judgment, we just have some questions about the judgment that we like to talk to the petitioner about, maybe get some testimony on record, ask them some questions procedurally to make sure they did things correctly.

Maybe ask some questions about the default and about the property and the kids and make sure they really want to get divorced.

We had two clients in court this past week. They both had prove up hearings or a default setting hearings. It lasted less than 15 minutes, they just want to ask you a couple of questions about the judgment.

One of the questions from the judge, for one of our clients, they reported to us, was asked “are you sure this divorce is irremediable?” meaning you’re not going to reconcile then get that back to us. That was one of the important questions apparently from the judge aside from some of the property and procedural type of questions.

If you’re asking anything out of norm in a default judgment or perhaps something like not dividing the property evenly which the courts require, you may want to set your judgment, you may want to submit the default setting paperwork along with the judgment so in case they want to talk to you, they can set the hearing. They’ll send you a notice to appear and they can ask you questions.

If you don’t and you’re judgment is outside the norm, outside the parameters for them to approve. Their only option is to reject it and send it back to you.

So if you have any questions about your default judgment or you think it might be incorrect. Submit it with the default prove up form. It’s a default setting. I think it’s FAM-031. Submit that with your judgment and if there’s something they want to talk to you about they’ll set a hearing.

And the nice thing about that is you’ll go to the hearing and in this two party’s cases, they went to the hearing, after the judge asked them the questions, the judgment was entered and they were divorced effectively, immediately at the hearing.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

We specialize in divorce in California so make sure to give us a call if you need help with anything. 661-281-0266. Talk to you soon.