I Need Help With My Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I Need Help With My Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce Service

If you’re reading this, did you type into the search engine on either YouTube or Google ‘I need help with my divorce papers’ or some variation of that?

Well, you’re not alone. Many people run into trouble and need help with the divorce process at some point during the process.

It is a difficult and confusing process, and people just like you, ordinary people, smart people, have difficulty completing the paperwork.

Some people get stuck at certain points during the process; some people will look at the initial paperwork and say ‘you know what, I don’t want to do this’, ‘I don’t want to deal with this’, and ‘I can’t figure this out’; and they call us for help before they ever file a single thing, or fill out a single form.

To the other extreme, we have people that attempt to do the entire process on their own, from start to finish, including submitting the final judgment, and then run into trouble there; or we have calls come in from any point in between.

Maybe they did their initial paperwork and now they fell stuck; and they want to hire us to complete the remainder of the process.

So anywhere, at any point when you need assistance, we can pick up where you left off. Whether, you haven’t filed a thing. Whether you’ve had your judgment submitted, and rejected. At any point we can pick up and take off. Pick up where you left off. Okay. Glad I got that out.

So, give us a call if you need assistance at any point with the divorce paperwork. We can help you anywhere in California. We are essentially located in Los Angeles, California to be exact.

We are in Santa Clarita which is in northern LA County, but if you need help with the divorce process at any point, just give us a call. We’d be happy to finish things up for you.

We have people call from all over California that simply either scan us or mail us their documents and their rejection letter; or just let us know where they’re at; and we can finish it up for you, get your case submitted, and let you know what’s left to be done, and finish up, wrap up the divorce for you.

Tim Blankenship, our website is divorce661.com. Please give me a call direct at 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

Your Divorce Process Does Not Start Until Spouse Served | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Your Divorce Process Does Not Start Until Spouse Served | Santa Clarita Divorce

Today I wanted to talk to you about an issue, and a question that a lot of people have, and that it keeps coming up.

So I want to do another video and maybe hit it from a different angle so maybe it makes more sense.

The question is, when does the divorce process actually start?

Many people feel that the divorce process starts when they file their paperwork. You fill out the forms; you take it down to court. The clerk stamps it, you have these conformed stamped copies, and you think “Great, I’ve started my divorce, and in six months I’ll be done.”

That is a common misconception that I’m going to attempt to clear up again, and advise you as to when the actual process starts.

So, you have your filed papers. The divorce process officially starts, that six-month waiting period starts when you served your spouse. This can be, doing it by mail, and notice of acknowledgment of receipt, or when you have someone personally serve your spouse.

That is the official kick-off of the divorce process.

Now, there are several things that hinge of off that service date, that six-month window, or that start date when your spouse is served.

For instance, if you’re going to do a default filing, meaning, the other party is not going to respond for thirty days. Look at your summons if you’re wondering what I’m talking about says the other party at thirty days. Those thirty days is after your spouse is served.

It’s not after the date you filed; after your spouse is served. So you cannot file the default and tell your spouse is served. The six-month window starts as of the date your spouse is served. So if you file your divorce papers, and hang on to it for two months, nothing, the clock has not started ticking.

So, when your divorce can be finalized – is going to be six months from the day your spouse is served.

Heed that in mind that nothing, everything hinges off that date of service, that notice of filing that you serve on your spouse. That’s when everything kicks off. You can’t file a default, your six-month window doesn’t start ticking.

I want you to be aware of that. Keep in mind though, that if you don’t file or, I’m sorry, if you don’t serve your papers, and this is kind of something that started last year, the middle of the year of 2013.

Once you file, you’re going to want to serve your spouse within sixty days or you can anticipate the court setting a hearing.

You’re going to receive a notice in the mail that’s saying ‘hey, you filed for divorce, you haven’t served your spouse, you have to do so by this date or we’re going to dismiss the case.’ So I just wanted to throw that in as an added bonus to this video.

And this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. You can reach us direct at 661-281-0266, or more on our website at divorce661.com. Thanks!

Divorce Judgment Most Difficult Part of Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Divorce Judgment Most Difficult Part of Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Today I wanted to talk to you about the divorce paperwork that you’re probably going to have the biggest challenges on.

This is not only for our firm, or for attorneys, but also for folks who are trying to do their own divorce or if you’re considering doing your own divorce.

I kind of want to give you a head start as to where you’re going to have the most trouble.

So initially when you, when you file your initial documents, to file your case, you’re going to find that it’s not too difficult.

You can probably figure it out, get some help online, and probably work your way through it. You may make some mistakes. In fact, we find people do make a lot of mistakes but what we find is that is the easier of the paperwork so it is a little bit of a, it’s kind of setting you up for failure when you get those initial forms.

You think that they might be somewhat easy and you’ll be able to get through them because it only gets harder as you go. After that second set you have to do financial disclosures, there’s processes of service that have to be done in a certain way.

Some have to be mailed served; some have to be served in person.

There are a lot of complications you can run into in your divorce paperwork and the divorce process but you’re not going to really hit a real difficult challenge until you get to that final judgment paperwork.

This is where most people have the majority of problems. This is where we get a lot of calls from.

People get to this point, they either are getting ready to submit their final judgment and they can’t figure it out, or they’ve attempted to submit it, and they had it rejected for multiple reasons.

So regardless of, if you decide to go through the process on your own, just be aware that you’re going to run into trouble when you get to that final judgment phase.

There is checklist you can use online but even with those we’re finding that people who are self-preparing their judgments are having them rejected routinely and often. Meaning, one, two, three, four times they’re being rejected before they finally will call for assistance so we can complete them correctly and get them submitted to the court so you can get your divorce finalized.

Give us a call if you’re having trouble with your judgment, we’d be happy to sit down and do a judgment review and submit your final documents, so we can get this completed for you.

Again, Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. 661-281-0266, thanks!

Information You Need To Start California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Information You Need To Start California Divorce

Today I wanted to talk to you about what you need to have to get started, to get your divorce process started.

Many people call me and they’re telling me that they’re going to hold off on starting their divorce because they’re still trying to figure everything out.

They’re trying to come to agreements on, on, money, and support, and children, and custody, and parenting plans, and everything regarding their divorce, and they’re having trouble coming to agreements and so they’re not filing the paperwork.

What I tell these folks is they’re kind of putting the cart before the horse. None of those things need to be determined prior to filing for divorce.

If you’ve looked online, and looked at the divorce process, it may appear that you need to turn in everything at once but it’s actually a process.

The initial forms you need to complete are very straight forward and the information you need is very minimal, and to be honest with you what I tell folks is to get the ball rolling, to get the case started. All you need to know is your name, your spouse’s name, your kids’ names, their date of birth, your date of marriage, date of separation, where you live, and where the other party lives, and a basic general idea, if you have children as to custody and visitation.

Meaning, general, like, do you want it to be joint? Or do you want to have primary? Or do you want the other party to have primary? That’s it.

We don’t need to know, you know, if you’re going to have them on Saturdays from three to five. That doesn’t matter at the initial filing.

It’s just a very general blanket statement regarding custody, and that applies to spouse support, do you want it or not? Yes or no.

It doesn’t have to be how much or when or frequency or anything like that.

Child support –yes or no? I mean, they’re very general basic information that you need to know to file for divorce. And so that’s what we recommend.

Don’t try and put the cart before the horse, and figure it all out.

Because how are you going to decide what is an even distribution of assets and debts when you haven’t yet done your financial disclosures which is kind of the second step of the process.

Need to get all of that laid out, do the disclosures. Let each other know what’s on the table. Here are all the assets and debts of the marriage, and then you can start working on that final agreement in what you’re going to decide.

Who’s going to get what, what’s support going to be, what’s custody visitation going to be, and that’s why we break it down into those steps.

File for divorce, do your disclosures, now you know what property and debts on the table.

Then you can work towards an agreement, and that’s how we recommend you do the divorce whether you’re doing it with us or trying to do it on your own.

And this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. Please call me with any questions, 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

Should I Complete My California Divorce On My Own

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Should I Complete My California Divorce On My Own

Today I want to answer the question, of whether or not you should do your own divorce or not.

So let me first start by saying it’s completely possible for you to do your divorce on your own.

It’s just going to come down to a couple of factors. Do you have the time to invest to attempt to learn the process of filling out all the forms, all the nuances as far as what forms need to be filed and served, and including preparing the filed judgment, which can be twenty-five to thirty pages long?

So really you have to just take into consideration if you have the time to invest in doing that and I get this all the time have people call and they’ll say “Tim, I just don’t have the money to pay your fee.” and I’ll say “Okay, well, you have an option: Do you have more time than money or more money than time?”

– And that’s going to be the first question you should ask yourself.

If you’re not working or you’re unemployed you obviously have more time than money. So you’re probably going to want to do this on your own in most cases because you have the time to invest to sit at a computer, go down to the court self-help centers, and spend several hours in there for a couple of days trying to get this  paperwork done.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to be tough, it’s going to be confusing, you’re not going to like it, but that may be your option if you don’t have the funds to get professional services such as ours to help with the divorce.

The next thing you want to consider is how far in the process are you going to get before you ask for help?

The divorce process starts off pretty easy. There are only a couple of forms you need to fill out to file and get a case number.

The summons, the petition, the case cover sheet, if you have children then you need a declaration regarding children you have to complete, and you can get a case number, and those aren’t too tough to fill out; but then it gets tougher as you go.

The next step is doing your financial disclosures, and people have lots of questions on how to complete those, and they have trouble completing those, and even if you get through that, the third and hardest part, and I break this into phases, that’s why I say, one, two, and three.

This third part is completing your judgment which wraps up all the agreements of your divorce.  That can be twenty-five pages long. And there’s lots of check boxes; and fill-in the blanks; and the information you have to include; and property declarations; and checklists to watch out for; and people make mistakes on that.

So if you have the money, we recommend you, use our services right from the get-go.

Because what we find are people that have started the process, and got to the process to a certain degree.

We always have to go back and fix things, and amend certain forms.

In addition, when you come to us, you’ve wasted so much time trying to fill out the initial paperwork, to your disclosures.

I have some people that have gone all the way through as to have made the judgment. Had it rejected and then came to us, and unfortunately there is so much, there is actually more work to do cause we had to correct forms, amend documents, refill out forms, some form hadn’t been done in a while so we had to redo it for them.

So they didn’t save any money by trying to get through the process.

‘Cause it was just as much work or more to work to complete for them. Even though they have done so much of the paperwork, and spend so much of their time.

My recommendation is if you have more time than money. Of course, you’re going to have to do it yourself, but if you have the money, we recommend you start with us right from the beginning.

Don’t attempt to do this yourself, because it’s going to cost you the same regardless of where you’re at in the process when you come to us.

‘Cause we’re going to have to fix the documents that you did. Not because you don’t know what you’re doing, well, yes, it is because you don’t know what you’re doing.

What I wanted to say is not because you’re not smart enough to do it. It’s just that it’s very confusing to do.

So please give us a call, we’d love to help you out with your divorce and if you’re in California – 661-281-0266.

We’re headquartered in Santa Clarita which is northern Los Angeles County, and we do serve all the courts in California.

I’m looking forward to talking to you 661-281-0266. Our main website has tons of information and that is divorce661.com.

Thanks!

Should You Use A Divorce Self Help Book | California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Should You Use A Divorce Self Help Book | California Divorce

Today I want to talk to you about whether or not it’s a good idea to use a divorce self-help book.

I recently went to the library and I wanted to see what these publishers were putting out there and what I found out it they’re all pretty much the same thing.

There’s, you know, different publishers, different attorneys, or group of attorneys writing about divorce, and this is what you can find in a self-help book and this is why I think divorce self-help books are pretty much worthless.

So when you open up the books, you’re going to get maybe a chapter or two of general law and things related to divorce and after that it’s going to go into how to prepare your actual forms.

Now it’s kind of laughable.

I’ve been into this divorce service for several years now, and I know the ins and outs of all the forms and so forth.

And I was confused in looking at the different pages that showed say a summons and basically what it had is it had the page over here with all the instructions and then over here it had a copy of the divorce form.

Let’s say it’s the petition for instance, and it had arrows going to each line and back-and-forth, it looked like a geometry math problem with lines going back-and-forth if this then that, go back to C if you checked, marked box D, then skip E through F.

I mean it was really confusing; and I didn’t get a whole lot out of it; and I really believed that these books are not necessarily there to help you.

I mean, of course, if you took the time and went through it you could probably fill out some of your divorce forms, they’re probably not going to be accurate because the one thing that they don’t do is they don’t let you know about the local forms.

So you can certainly get a California self-help divorce book but it’s not going to know if you’re in LA County, or San Bernardino County or where in California you are.

And there are always local forms that you need to be aware of and the process is a little bit different from each county, and you also need to be aware of that.

So what I really feel these books are designed to do are to thoroughly confuse you cause that’s what it did to me.

And I’m in the business and they are hoping that you will call them each book lets you know that they’re an attorney or a group of attorneys and there’s help you could get by calling them.

So what they’re, I think, they’re trying to achieve is having you call them and then turn you into an actual client for their law firm by confusing you through the divorce book.

I wrote a blog on this and I’m going to insert this video in the blog and you can learn more about a better way of getting through a divorce.

I’ve done over a hundred and thirty or hundred and fifty videos so far about divorce; I’ve written over a thousand different articles on divorce.

I think that’s a much better way of getting through the divorce process, if you’re intending to do it completely on your own without assistance.

Of course, if you would like some assistance in California we’d be happy to help you out, but you can watch a video, you can watch, listen to podcasts we have done, you can read our blogs.

I think that’s a much better way of learning how to complete the divorce process than reading any book that is probably out-dated by the time it actually hits the bookshelves.

This is Tim with divorce661.com. If you have any questions, please give me a call at 661-281-0266, and you can always get more information off our website at divorce661.com.

Thanks!

Filed For Divorce But Now Reconciling | What To Do | California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Filed For Divorce But Now Reconciling | What To Do | California Divorce

Today, I wanted to talk to you about your options if you filed for divorce and then later you want to reconcile your divorce or you want to take a little extra time to work things out and see if maybe you filed for divorce a little too soon.

So, I had two clients, probably in the last month, where this has happened to.

The first one you know had a rough week and came in filed for divorce, we filed the paperwork, and then essentially they wanted to hold off and see if things would work out.

So they spent a couple of weeks, maybe a month, waiting to serve their paperwork before doing so just to give it some time, and that’s certainly one option.

Once the paperwork has been filed, you can just hold it, you don’t have to serve it right away.

Just know, that if you’re in Los Angeles County, what the courts have started doing is if you have not served the paperwork within about sixty days they will set a hearing and have you come into court to explain what’s going on.

Now here is the problem with that, if you filed for divorce and didn’t serve your spouse, and then they mail something to your house from the courts saying, you haven’t served your divorce paperwork yet.

You can see how that could be a problem, your spouse getting something like that in the mail, unknowingly to you, that they got the mail and find out from the court that you had filed for divorce.

So you have to watch out for that.

The second option, and this really depends, is to just not serve the paperwork right away but have them sign a notice of acknowledgement of receipt.

What you can do is, and this is what happened in the second case. We filed for divorce, I mailed the paperwork out to a spouse, and then they said “You know what? We want to kind of hold off and see if we can work things out.” –which is great.

Of course that’s why there’s that six-month cooling off period, the courts want you to take that time to possibly reconcile your divorce or your marriage rather.

So what I advise this family is for them to not fill out any of the paperwork just hold on to it and you know you can always serve it later.

The other option is to just back-date the day the paperwork was received and just not sign it yet.

So what that means, is they can use the notes of acknowledgement receipt, sign it and date it for the day it is received so it’s back dated to that six-month date.

And they can hold it and if the court sets a hearing.

Then all they have to do is file that notice of acknowledgement and receipt with the proof of service and they won’t have to go to court for that case management conference; or they can go to the hearing and simply ask for the case to be dismissed if they’re going to continue on with their marriage.

Just keep in mind if you do dismiss the case and the divorce and you need to later re-file, you’re going to have to repay the filing fee.

So if you’re not a hundred percent sure, go ahead and have the person served, and then just wait.

There’s not going to be a rush to complete any paperwork after that point in most cases, and then later, six months, eight months down the road you can always dismiss the case then.

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to give me a call.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

You can reach me direct at 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

How To Combine Divorce Cases By Stipulation | Los Angeles County Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Combine Divorce Cases By Stipulation | Los Angeles County Divorce

We’re talking about how to complete a stipulation when two petitions are filed in a divorce case.

I just did a video on what happens when two petitions are filed, and the answer was you have to treat one as the response.

Well, you have to complete a stipulation and file that with the courts, so that second petition is counted as the response.

So let me just back-up briefly, both of you filed a petition within days of each other, let’s say you have two open cases, you need to choose one as a lead case.

Generally speaking, you’re going to chase the first case that was opened, and you’re going to ask the court to use case B, the second case that was filed, as the, and treat that petition in that second case as the actual response to the first case, that way you have a single case in your situation.

So that said, what you need to do is draw up a stipulation and submit that to the court.

The stipulation, essentially, will say, we request the court, allow case A that was filed on this date to be the lead case and that case B that was filed on this date, this petition be treated as the response to case A.

Both of you will sign it, you’ll submit it to the court and wait for the judge to sign it, and therefore your second petition will be counted as a response.

Now the reason that’s been official, is because if you filed a petition, you pay the filing fee, both of you did.

If you file another response to a case that doesn’t have a response filed, you’re going to have to pay a filing fee again. That’s why you need to complete the stipulation, to have your second, your petition, to, not the lead case, you have the lead case, leave it alone.

Have your petition in the secondary case be treated as a response that way the filing fee and the petition you filed can be treated as a response.

If you have any questions about that, please feel free to give me a call, 661-281-0266.

You can always get more information from our website at divorce661.com.

We handle divorce cases in all of Los Angeles County.

Thanks!

Both Parties Filed For Divorce | What Do You Do | California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Both Parties Filed For Divorce | What Do You Do | California Divorce

Today I’m going to talk to you about what to do if there are two petitions filed in your case.

Meaning, you filed for divorce, and your spouse filed for divorce, separately, several days, weeks, months apart, how to correct that; and number two, what to do if neither party has been served.

I’m going to explain the situation of the caller that I just hung up the phone with.

So here’s the situation, over a year ago, the parties had attorneys, they both filed for divorce, so they both filed a petition within days of each other, and what happened was now this is a year later, neither party was ever served the petition because they both filed petitions.

Obviously the attorneys thought that one would be considered a response, but that’s not how it works.

If you want to, if both parties file a petition, what needs to happen to correct that is you need to draw up a stipulation that says case A is going to be the lead case and case B is going to be, please consider case B as the response to case A, and then you submit that to the court, the judge would sign it, and there you have a response and that response would count as the date of service.

The other way that you can correct this, now in this particular circumstance the problem here was that a year has gone by, they’d been to court, they’d been to hearings but because no one was ever sure, because there was never a response filed in either of the cases, the courts have not retained jurisdiction over them as far as filing the judgments.

We’re talking about that six-month waiting period has not even started even though this has been going on for over a year.

So to fix this, the fastest way would be to get one of the parties served. What I’d recommend is, whoever filed the case first, take that case, have that filed on your spouse.

Fill out a proof of service. Of course you need to follow the rules of proof of service; I’ve done a video on that so you can look for that video next.

Have that person served file the proof of service with the court. That will start the six-month clock, even though years already gone by, you need to start that clock.

The next thing you need to do is complete the stipulation regarding having case B as the response to case A if you need assistance with that, I’ve done another video on that as well: How To Draw Up A Stipulation To Have The Second Case Be The Response To The First Case.

So watch out for that, make sure that the proof of service has been filed; make sure the clock has started ticking.

What’s going to happen to these folks is even though they walked into court thinking everything was ready to go to finish their case and file the judgment, they found out that literally they had to start from day one as far as the six-month clock is concerned.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

For more information, please give me a call, 661-281-0266.

We handle divorce cases all throughout Los Angeles County. I look forward to helping you if you need our assistance.

Talk to you soon!

Beware of Legal Services at San Fernando Courthouse

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Beware of Legal Services at San Fernando Courthouse

Today I wanted to talk about some interesting things that are happening down at the San Fernando courthouse.

This is in regards to legal services standing around the courthouse and offering their services to folks that are representing themselves.

I kind of found out about this accidentally but I found out that a couple of clients call me that I sent down to, you know, to a hearing perhaps or to talk to a facilitator, coordinately we prepared their divorce paper for them and they had to go down there for some specific reason.

Generally, that’s not the case but these folks going down there, each of them started calling me and this started happening this week, called me and said, “Tim, this is very helpful paralegal outside the court.”.

Also said that she would be happy to review our paper work and then they kind of shuttled them over to an office nearby the courthouse.

And they called me after they had met with these folks and what they’re doing is essentially a legal services company, out there, as, I guess, a business model, out there standing on the sidewalk and trying to secure business for their legal services business, and helping prepare their paperwork.

I guess that’s not necessarily an illegal thing, they are on a public sidewalk, I don’t know if it’s a very professional way of obtaining business but the interesting thing is that if you’re one of my clients and you’re approached by one of these folks, what I’m hearing them say is that the paperwork is wrong.

That seems to be their tactic, is they’ll approach you, they’ll say “Oh, we’re happy to take a look at your paperwork”. They’ll look at it and they’ll try and point out some things that are wrong.

Now, I know they’re not wrong when they are my client because I professionally prepared their paperwork.

What they’re doing is they’re making things up to say ‘oh that’s wrong’, ‘that’s incorrect, we need to fix that, step into our office and for a small fee we’ll take care of that for you’.

So just beware if you are representing yourself. Your paperwork may not be wrong. Just know that these folks that are out there soliciting for business are telling you that you have things wrong with your paperwork even when it’s not.

I’ve had my clients approached and told that their paper is wrong when it’s not. So just beware of that; when being approached by these legal services companies.

I don’t know if it’s one or many that are doing these but they are out there.

In fact, I have an attorney that works in the same building as me and brought me a business card from one these legal services and said even he was approached and spoke to someone and again the same thing, asking if he was representing himself and if he needed assistance and so forth, and a free review of their paperwork. Interesting tactic!

The reason that I wanted to get this out there is if you’re my client, your paperwork is not wrong.

I had several people call me concerned because they said a paralegal is out there by the court is telling them their paperwork is all wrong. It’s causing a little bit of issues for me.

So I want to get this out there to you folks. Your paperwork is correct if I prepared it. It’s totally fine, ignore these folks and go on into the court.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.  661-281-0266.

Have a great day!