Valencia Divorce Service | Why Choose Our Divorce Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Valencia Divorce Service | Why Choose Our Divorce Service

Today I want to talk to you about why you should choose our divorce service.

We’re licensed, we’re bonded, in fact we’re the only divorce paralegal service in Valencia Santa Clarita Valley doing divorce only.

You can search around, you’re going to find that there are some other paralegal services that offer a myriad of different services but they are not good at really any one of them.

We specialize only in divorce. We’re currently handling anywhere from 15 to 20 cases a week and we have a background with just family law. When I say we I’m taking about I. I do have several employees but when it comes down to this business, I’m the one that has all the information and knowledge about divorce.

I’ve worked for a family law firm for 2 years prior to open this business, prior to that I worked for the family law courts and if you’re here in Valencia, your case is going to be in San Fernando.

We don’t have family law here in Santa Clarita and I’ve actually worked to that court for several years as well prior to working for them law firm.

We have lots of information about the divorce process. And I really believe that we are the best service out there.

Not only are we affordable, but we will run your case just like a law firm does. Which means this.

We fill out the forms, take them down to court, file them, serve them, do all the financial disclosures all the mandatory court requirement and then we’ll prepare your final agreement or judgment or stipulation or whatever you know that, that for you to be.

We help you with determining child support, spousal support, custody plans, visitation, parenting plans. All that is wrapped up into our flat fee pricing.

You won’t have to go to court. We handle cases that are amicable, all the way through contested cases. What we’re hoping is that folks will come together at some point during the process and come to an agreement on terms.

Should you not or need additional assistance while you’re going through the process with us, we have referrals out for mediation firms and we can also refer you to a good attorney here in Santa Clarita if it ends up going that route.

But in any case, start your divorce with us.

We can probably get you most of the way through if you have trouble. 95% of our cases never need mediation, never need attorneys and they go throughout, go through the process with us without a hit.

Sometimes we hit a little road bumps but we get people through that.

But, start with us. Give us a call. I’d be happy to give you a free consultation. 661-281-0266.

Our website is divorce661.com. We have hundreds of video tutorials, podcast audio. We’re also on iTunes and Stitcher Radio if you’re into pod casting. You can look for Divorce Master Radio, that’s our show name on iTunes and Stitcher Radio.

Make sure to look for us there if you are into pod-casting.

Please give me a call when you’re ready to go through your divorce here in Valencia. 661-281-0266.

Again, my name is Tim Blankenship.

Valencia Divorce Paralegal

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Valencia Divorce Paralegal

Today I want to talk to you about our full service divorce process.

So, people hear the word paralegal, which we are. We’re actually legal document assistants. We can have a direct client relationship with you and we are full service.

That means, when you hear people talk, I just want to bring this up because when people hear a paralegal, they think we’re just going to fill out the forms.

What we do is much more than that, being full service. I’ve worked for the courts where your case will be filed. I’ve worked for large family law firms out here in Santa Clarita. We know the process. So, the benefit in working with us, being full service is that not only do we fill out your forms.

We take your paperwork down to court and file for you. We serve them, run you through the process and our knowledge base is huge on divorce.

You haven’t done this before, in most cases. This maybe your second time, but for the mass majority of people this will be your first time going through divorce.

You’re going to have a lot of questions. You already do have a lot of questions and you’ll have a lot of questions to the process.

So, instead of searching online, trying to learn, talk to friends. Give us a call. I’d be happy to explain the process to you. Tell you what we can do for you and you’re going to have our ear to answer any questions through all the divorce process.

That’s the benefit in full service versus let’s say some online process or trying to do it yourself.

People call us all day long. They have attempted to do their divorce or they used some online service and they couldn’t get through the process.

There are so many questions about how to do the forms, procedural questions and then things such as how to determine custody and visitation, issue about child support, spousal support, division of assets and debts. All of that we can help you with.

And that all comes at our flat fee pricing. We don’t care if you call us five times or five hundred times, that’s what you’re paying for. We offer and provide a huge value with what we do being a full service here in Valencia.

Please give me a call, divorce661.com is our website. Phone number 661-281-0266.

We have hundreds of video tutorials. We have lots of audio pod casts. You can find us on iTunes and Stitcher Radio at divorce661.com. Show name is divorce master radio on iTunes and on Stitcher Radio.

Please feel free to give me a call for more information. Tim Blankenship. 661-281-0266.

California Divorce Scams! Cheap Fast Online Divorce Scams!

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce Scams! Cheap Fast Online Divorce Scams!

Today we’re talking about scams you need to watch off or when shopping online or looking online for divorce service to help you.

We’re talking about online divorce services, we’re talking about cheap and fast divorce services, automated document assembly services, there are hundreds of them.

If you’re looking online, you’re looking for a cheap divorce. You’re going to come across all kinds of companies online and I wanted just to talk to you about the people that we have had come in to our office that have attempted to use these services and some of the results they’ve had.

What happens is you get lured in to these fast and cheap divorce services, where they’ll have $59 maybe a $100, $200, $300 package. They’ll have these very low fees for a variety of services.

Well, what happening is we’re seeing the customers are being overcharged for the services they didn’t pay for. They’re being told that there are additional regulatory fees and all types of craziness.

But really, what you need to watch out for is these services are trying to handle all the states of the US. They’re not just doing California, so the forms are usually deficient.

In California, the divorce forms are updated at least twice a year. Sometimes they’ll come out with additional changes to the forms and if you’re not using a current form, it’s not going to be approved by the court.

So because we’re finding that some of these companies have forms that are over five years old and they’re being rejected by the court.

What happens is, people get lured in to these low cost services. They pay a fee and then that money is totally lost and they have to come to our service and we have to charge them to start from the beginning because everything they’ve done up to that point has been completely wrong.

I just want to warn you about the types of scams and the services, they’re very poor for these cheap, fast, online, all these types of different divorces. Again, there are hundreds of them.

Have someone like us professionally prepare your divorce for you. We can work with you anywhere in California. We don’t use questionnaires, we don’t use have an automated software system.

We do it the old fashion way. We’ll actually type it up for you.

Now, if you are out of the Los Angeles area which is where we’re housed or where we’re based and you’re anywhere else in California, we can do this completely over the phone. We can work with any court. All you need to do is call us up. You’ll pay for our services and then you’ll speak directly with me and we’ll start getting your documents typed up.

We’ll file them with the court, we can do that by mail and we can take care of everything for you.

Now, let me talk to you about the costs.

When you through a regular divorce like one of these cheap online services, you’re going to have to pay twice the amount of filing fees. You’re going to have to file your initial paperwork and pay the petition filing fee and your spouse is going to have to respond and pay another fee and that was $435 in most cases times two, so you’re talking about $870 in fees.

When you use our service, we can get you through the process with one filing fee which will help pay for our services. We’re going to save you that $435 bucks.

Give me a call so we can talk about that. 661-281-0266. You can go to our website for more information at divorce661.com

Santa Clarita Divorce Attorney Do You Need One???

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Santa Clarita Divorce Attorney Do You Need One???

Something you might find surprising is less than 10% of all divorce cases actually need a divorce attorney. We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in divorce in California and we’re headquartered right here in Santa Clarita.

A lot of people initially, when they feel they’re going to go to a divorce, the first thing they’ll do is reach out and talk to an attorney. At least that’s what they think they need to do because they don’t realize there are other options.

Because less than 10% of divorce cases actually need an attorney and because you can represent yourself during your divorce, chances are, you probably won’t need an attorney for your divorce.

I’m not saying, it’s not a wise idea to go out and consult with your attorney and find out what your legal rights are. Other than that, there really is no reason retain unless you need legal advice or you are going to end up in court. But again, less than 10% of those cases filed in California actually go to court.

We’re a licensed and bonded document preparation firm, we only do divorce cases. We are doing this in the Los Angeles are and because we don’t have attorneys in our office and because we’re not a law firm, we have a lot more affordable rates.

What we do is we will professionally prepare all of your documents. We will prepare them, file them, serve them, walk you through the entire process, start to finish and the benefit to using us is the cost.

You get your documents prepares professionally, you don’t have to go to court. We take care of everything for you and if something goes sideways where you run in to trouble and it’s not as amicable as you thought or you’re going to need a legal advice, you guys can’t agree on things. You have other options.

We have folks that start with us, they can’t come to an agreement for something, let’s say, spousal support or something financial. We’ll refer them to mediation. They’ll go to mediation, they’ll work out their issues, they’ll come back and we’ll finish things up.

Still going to be a lot cheaper than both of you get an attorneys. Very worst case scenario, you have to go get an attorney. And it happens, we have folks who start with us, it goes really sideways and they end up with attorneys and that’s fine. At least they save money up to that point.

I’ve worked to the courts. I’ve worked for major law firms here in Santa Clarita. We prepare our documents just as they would be done if you did them in a law firm. Obviously, just a lot cheaper, so for some reason you have to pick up and go.

You can, you grab your file, you go find an attorney, which we’ll be happy to refer you to and they can pick up where we left off.

You do not have to go back to square one. Everything will be prepared professionally just as it would have been done in a law firm.

Give us a call, if you think you need an attorney, call me, I’d be happy to give you a free consultation and we can talk about whether or not you truly need an attorney.

We can get you started, we can get you up to a certain point you can get an attorney then, when it becomes required or if you know you need an attorney flat out and you know our service aren’t going to be useful for you, give us a call, I’d be happy to refer you to a good attorney here in Santa Clarita. We know all of them and there’s no obligation. There’s no benefit to us for referring. Just we want to be nice guys.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com is our website. Please go there for more information. We have wealthy information in our sites. Please feel free to give me a call. 661-281-0266. We’ll talk to you soon.

Why Was My California Divorce Never Finished?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Why Was My California Divorce Never Finished?

Today we’re talking about some of the top reasons why your divorce case in California may not have been finished.

And this article is spurred by the fact that we get lots of calls, people calling us saying they thought their divorce was finalized and later realized they’re not. And this has been folks that got remarried where maybe twenty years has gone by. Sky is the limit.

We want to kind of give you some of these reasons so maybe this won’t happen to you or you can also look at this video as things to watch out for or potential pitfalls when trying to file your own divorce in California.

The first reason we discussed and this will be linked in with our blog articles as well, is that you just didn’t finish your case.

Folks are under the misunderstanding that when they file their divorce papers, that’s all there is to do. That they file the summons and petition, the other party didn’t file a response and maybe they did some of the other paperwork, maybe they even submitted the judgment but they never received court approval.

They just assume it was done because they didn’t get anything back.

A lot of times the reason they didn’t get anything back is because you didn’t send an envelope with postage paid to you, because the court is not going to send it back.

The next thing we came up with is that you went to a hearing during your divorce and you receive some orders. This happens quite a bit too.

If you’re going through a divorce process and you need to file a motion because you need to support or custody reasons or something like that. You will get a temporary order issued. And that’s all it is. Temporary, it’s not the final order in your divorce and we just had this happen.

We had a client who had called us. They said their divorce was finalized.

We looked online and the judgment had not been entered and we saw they went recently with the court and they said yes, we went to court and the court made orders for our divorce.

And that’s great. Those are temporary. Those are not your final order. You still have to submit your final judgment paper-works.

So, watch out for that, if you had filed a motion and you have temporary orders. They’re only temporary.

Number three, and this kinds of falls out to number two. Final judgment in your case was never entered. Kind of going back to that motion. You have to file your final judgment you have to do all the final paperwork. You have to get a notice of entry of judgment. You need to get that back from the court with the judges signature or our divorce is not over.

Number four, this is kind of a blank of statement. You made an error on your paperwork. This could be your judgment paperwork. It could be any of the paperwork leading up to. It could be the summons, the petitions, anything leading up to the judgment. If there’s one mistake on any of the paperwork in your case, your judgement will be rejected.

Number five, you did not comply with the divorce procedure leading up to judgment. This means, this is different with the forms. The other issue was messing up the forms not checking the box.

This is procedure. Did you serve the party correctly? Did you file the proof of service? Did you serve something by mail that had to be done in person? The procedural issue of spouse we pull up quite a bit.

So, we want to get some of these top reasons out to, we cover five top reasons why your divorce may get rejected or maybe unfinished, however you decide to view this.

We can help you wherever you are at. People call us in various stages.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm and we specialize in divorce in California. We can handle your case from the very beginning before you ever file a single document or we can clean up your mess if you’ve already started it and you’ve found yourself in trouble.

Feel free to give us a call. I’d be happy to help you out. Number is 661-281-0266 or get more information off out website at divorce661.com.

California Divorce | How To Complete Property Order For Judgment FL 345

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce | How To Complete Property Order For Judgment FL 345

Today we are going to talk about how you properly complete the judgment document as relates to your property.

This is the FL-345 and this is the document which will be part of your judgment if you have property. In fact, even if you don’t have property you still want to attach the FL-345 property judgment or property order rather because you want to show the court that there is no property.

We’ve had judgments rejected because despite there being no property, they still wanted there to be a property order to show that there’s no property being divided.

Let’s get into the form a little bit. If you’ll notice at the top it starts off with the community property and then on page two, there’s the separate property.

And that’s important because you need to list the property correctly if its community, meaning, something that is during the marriage that is being divided that’s going to go to the community section and you’ll notice there’s a part for community properties to the petitioner and community properties to the respondent and the same goes for the separate property on the other page.

Specifically regarding the property there’s a certain way the court in California wants you to list the property, so I’m going to go over a couple of these issues that you’ll have if you don’t do this.

Number one, for vehicles, you need the year make, model and licensed plate of the vehicle or the van. If you don’t identify the vehicle that way, they’re going to reject your judgment.

Number two, property, any real property, homes, that you list. You need to have legal description. So you need to pull the deed, there will be a page that show a legal description. It’s a couple of lines, map, partial number and so on.

Make sure you list the address, followed by the legal description. Bank accounts, credited cards, 401 case. Any type of account, you have to have a number listed. So if you have an investment, fidelity, number one, two, three, four.

You don’t want to put the entire account number because it is potentially a public record. You just want to list the last four digits.

401 case, last four digits. Bank accounts, credit cards, anything you’re listing that needs to be identified to the best of your ability. For as an account number, put it, but just put the last four digits.

This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. We specialize in divorce in California. We can help you with your divorce if you like us to take care of it for you. We do have flat fees. Please give me a call at 661-281-0266 or visit our website at divorce661.com.

You can click the link right below and it’ll take you to our blog which has more information about this topic.

Different Types Of California Divorce Mediators

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Different Types Of California Divorce Mediators

Today we’re talking about the different types of divorce mediation companies in California.

First off, let’s talk about certification. To become a mediator, a divorce mediator or to call yourself a mediator, all it requires is forty hours of training.

I’ve found that there are online training courses. You can go to a facility to be trained but there’s not a whole lot of training that’s required to become or call yourself a mediator.

Now, let’s talk about the two types of mediator you’ll find when it comes to divorce.

First is someone who will sit down with you, talk with you try and help you work with your differences, but these are a non-attorney mediators.

These are someone who is going to basically just sit down with you and try and help you work out something that’s fair. It may or may not be something that’s in your best interest or it may not have anything to do with your legal rights are.

It’s just going to be helping you guys work through a fair agreement. If that is all you need, someone to help you, sit down with you, talk with you, maybe have a little bit of counselling to get you guys to come to an agreement. That’s fine.

Just know that all you’re going to end up with is a verbal agreement or at the very most a letter will be written out what you’re agreement is that you’re going to sign.

Now, that document signed or not is not useful for purposes of divorce other than the fact that you came to an agreement.

So, that’s great that you came to an agreement but that document that you get from them, that you sign or don’t sign that has your agreements down on paper is not a court document, not a legal document it’s not something you’ll submit to court.

I guess it would just be something that you guys can say, well here’s what we’ve agreed to but really it’s not legally binding as suppose you could sign it and if it had the appropriate legal language it could be something you could sue for but as far as divorce is concerned it’s not going to be of much use.

Now, the second type of mediator is an attorney mediator. An attorney who is going to be operating as a neutral who you and your spouse will meet with and sit down. Now, this person knows the law hopefully.

They can discuss with you family law. They can tell you the ins and outs, the pros and cons. What your best case scenario is. What your worst case scenarios is and help you come to an agreement and then what they’ll do is, they’ll draft a legally binding marital settlement agreement.

This will have this sufficient language that you and your spouse can sign and that’s what will be submitted to the court.

Now, in the first case, those mediation services. They do not result in a marital settlement agreement are going to be much cheaper.

I’ve seen people pay $200 or $300 total to sit down and not know how long to spend with them but that is something that’s going to be a lot less expensive but you’re not really getting a document at the end that is going to be useful for your divorce.

An attorney mediator is going to give you a marital settlement agreement at the end which you can simply attach to your judgment, which will be your final agreement in your divorce case.

That’s going to be more expensive but you’re actually getting an attorney to do it where you have a marital settlement agreement at the end which you need to file for a divorce.

Now, if you are using mediation, all they’re going to do is mediate for you. They’re not going to help you prepare for your divorce documents in most cases.

That’s where we come in. give us a call, we can help you prepare all the divorce documents that needed to be attached to marital settlement agreement and submit your case to court. If you need an assistance finding a mediator and you are in our local area please give us a call.

I’d be happy to refer you to a great mediation service and I just want to talk to you about that today so you had an understanding of what you’ll get with these different types of divorce mediators.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

We are headquartered in Santa Clarita, California but we can help you with your divorce anywhere in California. Please feel free to give me a call at 661-281-0266 or go to our website at divorce661.com

How To Serve California Divorce Papers When Spouse Out Of State

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Serve California Divorce Papers When Spouse Out Of State

Today we’re going to talk about how to serve your spouse when you file for divorce in California but your spouse lives in another state. And it’s very simple.

You have three ways you can do this.

If you guys are not in agreement and your spouse is not going to cooperate. Simply, file your case in the county you live in and hire a process server in the city they live in.

We do this a lot, where parties are not cooperating, where the other party is not going to agree. You can simply hire a process server. Call them up, fax them or scan them and email them the divorce documents and then the documents that needed to be served. Give them an address.

It’s somewhere between $50 and $75 depending on the state or the city and get them served.

They’ll send you the proof of service. Done deal. File it with the court.

Now, before I do that. If you have a case where you guys are going to work through this together and you’re going to be cooperative. You have two other ways you can do this.

Number one, you can mail it or have someone else mail it rather. Not you. Mail it to them at the state the papers to be served along with the notice of acknowledgement of receipt. This is a form the other party can sign, essentially acknowledging receipt of the paperwork. It’s the easy way of doing things.

They sign it, they date it. They send it back to you and you file that form with the proof of service and the effective date of service is the date they signed the paper. Very simple.

The other way you can do it when they’re out of state is by certified mail.

If you do it by certified mail, your date of service is going to be the date it’s delivered. When you do certified mail make sure you do return receipt requested. That way, you’ll get the card back. The green card, the postage card back from the post office after it has been delivered it’ll be stamped having been delivered. That date that it’s either signed by the other party or stamped by the post office. That will be your date of service.

You need to file the original post office return receipt with your proof of service and make sure you mark the appropriate box on your proof of service form.

This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. We can help you with your divorce in anywhere in California. Please give us a call, I’d be happy to help. 661-281-0266 or you can go to our website at divorce661.com for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

The California Divorce Process Is Frustrating We Can Help

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

The California Divorce Process Is Frustrating We Can Help

We have fixed fee pricing so make sure to call us when you need some help.

This article is talking about people being frustrated with the divorce process.

We get people that call us from all over state of California asking for assistance which we happen to do for a fee and because of the frustration in the paperwork, or the process, or just the whole issue of getting divorced.

People call us from, again, all over California and they call us at different stages in their divorce, so let’s talk about that.

We get calls from the very beginning when people have decided on getting a divorce, they don’t want to hire an attorney, they want to work it out on their own and they want more than an affordable cost – that will be us.

They call us at the beginning. They don’t want to deal with it; they’re both working, they don’t have time and they don’t want to deal with the paperwork. That’s number one.

Number two – we have people call us who have gone down to the courthouse, picked up the paperwork or got off line, tried to fill it out, maybe they even filed the initial paperwork; it got returned, rejected, having problems – they’ll call us.

Another time they’ll call us is when they get three courses of the way to the process. They’ve filed, they served, they think they do everything right and they are to realize everything was done wrong and they’re pretty frustrated and they call us for help.

The worst cases are these: You filed, served and all the financial stuff – all the forms; you think you’ve done everything right; you’ve tried to prepare the judgment, you submit your judgment to the court, months go by, you don’t hear anything, you think “Great! It’s over!”

Six / eight months later, you get a rejection sheet, mailed with all of your forms coming back to you and you’re devastated because now you have to literally start over.

You’ll have a sheet with check marks of issues and things you did incorrect and it could go as far back as the initial paperwork you did because the court is not reviewing your forms that you file at any point in your divorce until you submit your final paperwork.

So, obviously, we recommend that you call us – and from the very beginning. You don’t have to do this on your own and we’d be happy to help you there but we can also help you at any point in the process.

If you get stuck, if you get completely frustrated, throw up your hands and want to give up – call us. We can figure out where you’re at, picked up where you left off, fix all of the stuff you already messed up and take it to the finish line for you.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. 661-281-0266. Anywhere in California, we can help you, so please give me a call.

 

 

Do I Have To Live Separate Before Divorce In California

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Do I Have To Live Separate Before Divorce In California

Today we’re answering the questions of is it okay to live with your spouse during divorce.

And the reason people have this question is because it varies by state. In California you do not have to live separately in a different residence from your spouse while going through the divorce process. You do not have to be literally separated.

In fact many of our clients, because of financial reasons continue to live together in the same house until their divorce is finalized, some even afterwards.

So, it’s okay. You don’t have to move out of your home before or move in a separate residence before you file for divorce. And that’s different from state to state, in California that’s the case.

I’ll give you a different idea of what that would be on another state. In Arizona for instance, I was talking to a family law attorney, they’re in Phoenix and the have to be separated for twelve months, literally live apart for twelve months, separate residence. Apparently not even in a separate room in the same house but you have to be separate living apart for twelve months.

That brings up some interesting considerations and thoughts because a lot of times people going through divorce it’s costly. You’re going to spend some money on your divorce and when you live apart you still have to make your family finances be a part of your divorce.

We have people that are going through divorce for months. It could take six, eight, twelve months in California to finalize your divorce even in an uncontested case and those people maintain the status quote by still paying the bills together, collectively.

Because when you live in two different households and you’ll soon realize when finalized your divorce. It’s more costly to run two households than it is one. So, those folks in Arizona assume ably are having a little bit more difficult financial time because they are forced to live separate for twelve months.

Just keep in mind, California, you can be in the same house, you can be in the same bed. The courts don’t matter it’s a no fault state. You don’t even have to be in different rooms. You don’t even have to be on the couch. We get most of our clients do this out of necessity.

Please give me a call if you’d like assistance with your divorce in California. My number is 661-281-0266 and you can get more information off our website at divorce661.com.