How To Move California Divorce Forward | Request Trial Setting Conference

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How To Move California Divorce Forward | Request Trial Setting

Hi Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

Today we’re talking about how to get your case moving, your divorce case moving in California.

So, a lot of folks will call me and let’s say they started their divorce on their own, they didn’t know I existed, they didn’t they could get expert divorce services in California and have someone take care of the paperwork for them, and they attempted to do this themselves.

Let’ say they got a certain way through the process but the other party isn’t cooperating, the other party isn’t filling out their documents, and in some cases you can simply move forward with a default.

But in cases where the other party filed a response, you cannot just file a default and push forward with your divorce. You’re going to have to get the court involved.

So what is it that we need to do to get the court involved to move your case forward, when the other party has entered the case by filing a response? So let me set this up, there are certain procedural steps to a divorce.

Number one, you filed your case and served your spouse; number two, let’s say your spouse filed a response and has now entered the case. The next step for both parties is to complete their financial disclosures. These are known as your preliminary declaration of disclosures.

Once you’ve done that, how do you compel the other party to get them to do theirs? Let’ say, they don’t do it, they’re not doing it, or they intentionally want to stall the case and that’s why they’re not moving forward with preparing their preliminary declaration of disclosure, what can you do?

Well, if you’re with a law firm, and if you’re watching this you’re probably not, what an attorney would do is start a series of letters.

We’re requesting you do your disclosures in thirty days, if not, we’re going to request, file a motion, to compel you to do this. Well that can be a lot of work. Another thing that you can do is simply get the court involved at this point.

And the way you would do that is by filing what’s called a request for trial setting  conference. And this is family law 014, the form number is FAM-014, and what you will do with this is you will file this with the court and you will let them know what the issues of the divorce are. Are they child custody? Spousal support? You want to let them know what they are. And then how long you think the trial is going to last.

So essentially what you’re going to do is you’re asking the court to step in and start setting some dates for things to get moving forward.

So here’s what you can expect to happen, you would file the form, you have to serve it on your spouse.

A couple of weeks later, or a month in some cases, you’ll get the form back from the court letting you know of a court date.

The first court date could be called a trial setting conference; it could be called a case management conference.

Essentially what it is, the courts are going to bring the parties into court and find out what’s going on and where is it at? Once you talk to the judge on that trial setting conference or case management conference, the judge is likely to make some specific orders to move the case forward. So they may say, hey what’s happening?

Well I filed this because the other party hasn’t filed their preliminary declaration of disclosure. The judge may say that well, you have thirty days to do this. And set another conference date down the road.  So what the court will then do now that you have them involved is start setting a series of dates to move this thing forward. That’s what you need to do if it’s not moving forward, if you need to get the court involved in order to complete your divorce when the other party has responded.

I hope this has been helpful on moving your case forward; this is regarding filing a request for trial set in conference for your divorce.

My name is Tim Blankenship, 661-281-0266. And get more information off our website at divorce661.com.

Thanks!

How To Prepare Divorce Fee Waiver In California

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How To Prepare Divorce Fee Waiver In California

Good morning! This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

And today we’re talking about how to fill out a fee waiver when going through divorce in California.

The fee waiver request form is an FW-001. This is going to be the main form. This is going to be your request form to fill out when you’re trying to get a fee waiver.

Now, it’s pretty self-explanatory but there are some parts of this that I wanted to address.

Number 1, 2 and 3 on this form simply is your information, your job if you have one, if you have a lawyer and what core cost are you asking to be waived. So, I’m talking about number 4, what you’re going to mark, if you’re going through divorce in California, you’re going to mark the first box: Superior Court, fees, that’s under box 4. Number 5, is why you’re asking the court to waive your fees.

So, there’s a couple of things here. The first box, is a box that says ‘I receive:’, and it’s talking about medical, food stamps, SSI, SSP, county relief, if you’re in cal-works or receiving welfare, things of that nature.

Generally speaking, if any of those items qualify on number 5A, you’ll qualify for fee waiver and you won’t even have to see the judge for permission. This is something where the court clerk, at least in my experience, has been able to approve those, right there at the window.

Now, the other option is item 5B and it says ‘My Gross Monthly Household Income is less than the amount listed below:’, and what it does is it gives you 6 scenarios of members of your family size from 1 to 6 and lets you know if your income is below those certain amounts that you automatically qualify for a fee waiver in those circumstances as well.

Now, what about if you don’t qualify under 5A which is, let’s say the food stamps, the welfare, very low income, or 5B where you don’t fall into the income levels there, and many of my clients have that happened.

For instance, if you’re a single person and you’re trying to ask for a fee waiver, you can’t make any more than $1,163.55, that’s a very, very low income to qualify for.

So, what you’re going to do, let’s say you have a lot of bills, you’re unable to meet your bills and you just flat out don’t have the money to pay the filing fee, you can attempt to mark box C, this will be 5C, it essentially says ‘I do not have enough income to pay for my household basic needs and the court fees.’.

Now, when you do this, what you’re going to have to do is fill out page 2. Page 2 is essentially a miniaturized version of an income and expense declaration. You’re going to list your income, your bills, how many people lives with you, what’s the total household income, your property, assets, debts, and so forth – monthly expenses, food clothing – and then you’re going to come down to the bottom, it’s going to have total monthly expenses, and that’s going to be compared to your actual income and household income and the judge will make a determination based on how you prepare this declaration, if you qualify for a fee waiver based on the fact of saying ‘I don’t have enough money to pay for court fees.’ Essentially ‘I have no more money. I live beyond my means.’ is essentially what you’re going to be saying.

So, that’s the third option in requesting a fee waiver. I never hurts to attempt type to get a fee waiver. You will save $400+ on the fee waiver. One other thing I want to mention, the other form you’re going to need to fill out besides the FW-001 is the FW-003. What this is is this is the actual order on court fee waiver.

So, even though its order, you’re still going to fill it out, you’re going to put in your name, your information, and you’re going to mark a box because it says it was granted. You don’t want to go in there with a box marked not granted so you only want to go in there and say the court grants you, you’re just going to mark this box, basically what you’re doing is you’re preparing this for the judge, and all they have to do is sign it, mark that the fee waiver was approved on page 1 and the rest of this is for the court to fill out.

But just make sure you fill out all the caption information, the court information here.

So if you have any questions, you give me the call.

There is a, when you go to, say, Google when you just say, fill-able request to waive court fees, that is something that there will be an information sheet on, it will walk you through it, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

If you need assistance, give me a call, Would be happy to help. My number is 661-281-0266 and I did want to mention one other thing.  You’ll notice on the request to order court fees, that if you, say you simply marked ‘unemployed’ and you have no income and you marked box B which says ‘My income is below a certain amount’, technically, pro the paper, you don’t have to fill out anything else on the financial sheet but I just sent two folks down to court to get a fee waiver, and despite the fact that they had marked box B and said that they did not have to complete page 2, the clerk still had them complete page 2, put down that they’re making no income and they did have some debts to put that down, and actually had them also write, you know, hey give me a reason why you have no income, no job and no debt. They want a brief explanation.

In both these cases, it was, “Hey I’m living with my family members, and they’re helping supporting me.” Whatever your case is, if the court, they’re not just going to let you say unemployed, no income. They’re going to want to ask “How are you supporting yourself?” “Are there people helping you?” and things of that nature.

So, that’s how to complete a fee waiver form for a California divorce. This would be for all courts in California, all divorce courts, that is.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. We specialize in divorce and you can reach me at 661-281-0266.

Thanks for reading!

Online California Divorce Document Company | Horror Story # 1

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Online California Divorce Document Company | Horror Story # 1

Hi! This is Tim Blankenship again with divorce661.com.

And today, I want to talk to you about another client of mine who, prior to calling my service, used the services of one of these online divorce document assembly services.

I’m not going to name names but you know these online divorce document companies that will sell you the forms. They’ll either send you the blank forms from anywhere from 100 to 200 dollars or they’ll send you a series of questionnaires online that you fill out and then it auto-populates your divorce forms.

I have lots of clients that I get that come through here. They’ve done one or both of those and then come to me when they realize the forms don’t work to get their divorce completed.

So, I want to discuss a little bit about why you should not have to use these services.

As an example, this gentleman came in because he used those services where he paid $200, filled out all the forms online and then they shipped all the documents to his home. He came in because he didn’t know where to start – which forms need to be filed, which ones need to be served, which ones need to be completed, and he had a lot of questions.

So, when he brought in all his documents, what we normally do is we’ll go through it in completion and show him how much of a dis-service this is. And what we discovered is he was sent about 20 forms he didn’t need; he had forms that were missing that he did need and absolutely no understanding of how to process the forms once he had them.

Not only that, but the court that they assigned him based on an address they gave was wrong, so had he filed these, he would have been in the wrong court. On top of that there was two separate types of petitions in the paperwork and had he filed the petition they send him, he would have been charged double the cost of the normal filing fee.

So, potentially that would have cost him an extra $435 had he gone this alone.

Now, unfortunately he had already paid for the services and there is nothing I could do, moving forward he said it’s a learning experience and I want to share that with you watching this video, so you don’t fall into the same circumstances.

And I get these types of clients all the time, who want to buy the forms. They are sucked in to believing that it’s easy, in fact he told me that the online company, on the website it says it only takes a few minutes to complete. Well, he spent four and a half hours on these documents. Wasted his money, wasted his time and the documents were completely wrong and then came up here to our company to have us complete all the documents for him.

Now, again I have lots of clients that end up doing this. So, I’m going to do a video every term a new client comes to my office that who used an online assembly service or purchased the forms. I want to talk about this, in the hopes of getting more stories out there.

So, folks would simply just call me. So, they don’t have to go through this and waste their money. If you have more time than money and you can’t afford my service let’s say, don’t go out and buy the forms. All these forms are free, you can do one of two things: go to your local court house and pick up the forms or go send me an email. Tell you what, send me an email and I will send you all the forms.

They’re also online, the court website. If you don’t have a computer, send me a letter. Somehow, call me and I’ll send you all the forms you need. You’re here as a free service to do this, but there’s folks out there that just don’t have the money, we understand that and we don’t want you to spend more money, fifty bucks, twenty five bucks, whatever it is for these forms. They are free, we will send them to you not a problem.

You can send me an email at info@scvlegaldocassist.com or just call me, 661-281-0266 and get more information off our website at divorce661.com, and again just be wary of these companies. There are a lot of them and they have lots of money to spend on marketing.

So, they’re out there, you’re going to find them. Use you’re a professional service like us to prepare your divorce on California. Give me a call.

Tim Blankenship, 661-281-0266.

And have a great day! Thanks for reading!

Completing Property Declaration With Default Divorce Judgment In California

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Completing Property Declaration With Default Divorce Judgment In California

Good morning! This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com

And today I’m answering the question, “Do you still need to do your financial disclosures in a default case?”

And I thought this is a good question and one that should be addressed on video.

So, quickly, a default case is where you file for divorce and your spouse has not filed a response, does not intend on filing a response and you’ve filed a request to enter default which was approved and now you are ready to move forward with your divorce case on your own and your spouse will no longer be involved with the case.

When this happens, you still need to do your financial disclosures. And these are your preliminary declaration of disclosures, which will include your schedule of assets and debts and your income and expense declaration. Then, in addition, so not only do you have to still do your financial disclosures in a default case, but you also then, once it has been granted the default, you then have to do a property declaration.

So, in essence, you’re doing it twice and this property declaration is the FL-160. You’re going to have to do that as well, because when the case is by agreement in a non-default case, both of you exchange your financial disclosures and you both know what is on the table and it’s by agreement and so the court doesn’t get involved. They don’t care what the assets and debts are, they’ll see it on the final judgment paperwork but they’re not going to have to ask you to send you this property declaration because they know you’d know the values.

In a default case, they want you to complete this property declaration FL-160 and on this property declaration you’re going to list all the property, how much is it is worth and what is owned on it and who it’s been given to.

So, what they want to do is, make sure that you’re not listing all the assets, including your husband’s or spouse’s assets rather and taking everything and giving the other party all the debt. They want to make sure there is a fair and equitable division of the assets and debts. Especially, when the other party is not involved and has not responded.

So, that’s the only time they’re going to take a look at that. So, the answer is yes, you still have to do your financial disclosures and you have to, in essence, do them twice by submitting the FL-160 – property declaration when you do a true default case.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

We specialize in divorce in Los Angeles County. Please give me a call at 661-281-0266 if you have any questions about divorce, I’d be happy to help you out.

Thanks for reading!

California Divorce Service Now On iTunes | Divorce Master Radio

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California Divorce Service Now On iTunes | Divorce Master Radio

Hi, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. We specialize in divorce in California and I want to let everyone know we are now on iTunes and Stitcher radio.

That’s right; you can now on top of over several hundred videos and thousands of blog articles and podcasts, we now have an iTunes channel and we’re also on Stitcher Radio.

So, if you use one of those two applications, please look us up. Our official show page is called Divorce Master Radio again Divorce Master Radio.

I’ll have lots of podcast going in there and what you can expect with in this podcast is a little deeper look into our business, a little deeper look into the divorce process. We want to really connect with folks who use iTunes, who listen to podcasts or on Stitcher radio, because we have lots of videos. We know some people like to watch videos, so we have tons of videos. We know some people like to read so we have lots of articles on our blogs.

And if you enjoy podcasting as I do, sometimes I’ll go and take the dog for a walk, I’ll find an interesting podcast on iTunes or Stitcher radio, put my ear buds in and go for a nice hour walk and listen to a good podcast and that’s what we were hoping you’ll do.

If you are in your car you can also get us on iTunes and on Stitcher radio and we just wanted to have a deeper connection with you so you can learn more about who we are and what we can do for you to help you with your divorce in California.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com, make sure to go to iTunes and search for Divorce Master Radio. You can also find us on Stitcher radio.

Thanks for reading!

Why You Need Our Help During Your California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Why You Need Our Help During Your California Divorce

Hi, Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. We specialize in divorce in California.

And today I just want to tell you a little story of a client who called us recently, who is very confused, very frustrated and even upset to a degree, about what was happening in her divorce.

So, a lady calls me, she had recently been served divorce paperwork and she’d actually been separated from her spouse for like twelve years, so it wasn’t like there is this huge emotion or anything  they’ve been separated for twelve years. They just never got around to do in a paperwork.

So, she was served the paperwork, received all the summons, petitions, all the financial stuff, all the proof of service, all the blank forms for her to respond. And when she first reached out to us, she essentially sent me an email off our website at divorce661.com. And the email was very long; she had all kinds of questions and I can just see by how she was writing that she was kind of frantic in what to do and trying to follow the instructions and all the paperwork was foreign and I totally get that. We get those types of calls all the time.

So, I asked her to call, which she did. And she was just completely frustrated and confused with the process. She wants to know:  “Do I have to go to the court?”, “Do I have to fill out the form?”, “How soon do I have to do it?”, “What goes in this box?”, “Do I have thirty days for this?”, “I had sixty days to do this stuff?”, “Do I need to…?” – You know those types of questions and it’s very common.

The reason I bring this up is because, after spending five or ten minutes on the phone with her, she completely relaxed, she understood exactly what needed to be done, she came into our office and hired our company to take care of everything for her and she wrote us a very nice email the following morning saying she was so glad. I think she used the word albatross to get this albatross offer back and just have someone in her corner to help her so she can go on with her life and not have to deal with the process and the paperwork and spend time figuring things out.

She has us as a resource, so now we are taking care of her response; we’re taking care of all her financial disclosures. We’re going to go down to court for filing everything, serve the paper and do everything that’s necessary for her and she is just totally relaxed now and can go on with her life.

Because when you get served divorce paperwork, it is a shock. It’s a legal proceeding and in fact, the summon says you’re being sued.  So, and you lead into things, there were boxes checked on her paperwork which I didn’t mention, that she made assumptions about because of what it said.

She thought that her husband was going after certain things and after I had her explain what it says that she is talking about. I told her, those boxes that were checked are completely boiler plate, meaning we always check those boxes. It’s nothing specific, nothing against her.

So, why do I tell you the story? You need to have someone in your corner; you need to have someone helping you with your divorce.

We specialize in divorce in California. We have flat fees. Go to our pricing page at divorce661.com. We have fixed fee pricing. You can figure out how much your cost is going to be just by looking at our site.

We have a description of if you fall on to this category; this is what your cost is going to be.

Not to mention if you start with us, we can get you to the divorce process for a one filing fee.  Normally there are two if you are going through a divorce in California, so, we can actually save you some money.

So, I just want to get this out to folks to, the sooner you can get someone in your corner the sooner you can find us online and call us, we can discuss what we can do for you, you’re going to feel much more comfortable going through the process. And that’s what I really want to talk about today.

Divorce661.com. You’ve been looking at the blue bar here probably this entire video. Give us a call, go to our website and look us up. Tons of great information. We’ll be happy to help.

Talk to you soon!

How We Started Providing Affordable California Divorce Services

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How We Started Providing Affordable California Divorce Services

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com, we specialize in California divorce. We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm and divorce is all we do.

And if you’ve been watching our videos, you’ll notice that, we probably, we have now I would say, four, five maybe six hundred (600) videos, ‘how to’ videos, tutorials, videos about divorce, explain processes, things we’ve come across, things like that, just to get the information out about divorce in California.

Today, we’re going to talk about, a little bit about our company, where we come from, who I am as a person and so forth, just so you can get a little bit of background on who we are.

So, I started off in a military right out of high school, went in them Marine Corps for a couple of years, came out of them Marine Corps into Law Enforcement, actually started working for LAPD, which I did for 12 years and I enjoyed that very deeply.

I left LAPD only to strike it rich in the Real Estate if you remember in the mid-2000s, 2005, 2006, Real Estate was doing really well in California and I think just about everywhere.

So I left the department to start a real estate business and again did very well. And when that kind of tapped out, and the market dropped, decided to retool and go back to school, got my degree in the legal industry and started working for the Los Angeles Superior Court, where I completed a long term internship, actually I still have my foot in the door there, it’s been now, I think, three years that I’ve been with the Superior Court working with the judges and the divorce courts and so forth, San Fernando and Los Angeles, downtown court.

Then I started working for a law firm, one of  the largest law firms here in Santa Clarita, did that for two years and then discovered that there is a very under served market when it comes to legal services, specifically divorce, because that’s where my experience was.

And that people couldn’t afford the services of attorneys, and in many cases, didn’t even really need an attorney to handle their case, it was just that there were no other options.

Enter divorce661.com. We started up since, let’s see we are in 2013 – end of 2013 now. We’ll be entering our third year in business and business, I had to say, has been done really well this first year.

People are glad that there is a service that is flat fee, fixed cost service, that’s a full service process, where we take care of everything from start to finish – filling out the forms, serving them, taking them down to court, making all the copies, I mean, literally everything so you can go on with your life.

And statistics tell us that 90% of divorce cases don’t need an attorney, but that you do need some type of legal assistance, or help with the paperwork because it is a very complex process. So that’s us in a nutshell.

We’ve grown in the last, well, it’s been, two years now because we’re going into our third. This year, we’ve added five (5) employees. We have a second office here in Valencia. We have plans of expanding offices into the San Fernando Valley into Antelope Valley Valley, Ventura area. We service those areas currently, we just don’t have written more locations there yet. We’re just kind of waiting until the right time.

For that, well, we have plenty of plans. All throughout Los Angeles county, other counties – San Bernardino, in fact all of California we’ve probably handled cases in every county at this point because there really isn’t the type of level of service that we offer out there.

So, that’s it! Just want to let you guys know that.

Please call me, love to help you with your divorce. If we can’t help you for whatever reason because you are one of those few that need an attorney, I’ll be happy to refer you out! We know all the attorneys out there, all the good attorneys; I should say, so I’d be happy to refer you.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Please spread the word about us. If you don’t need us, maybe a friend or a family member does, with the divorce rate being so high.

I’m sure you know someone that’s going through the process, we’d be glad to get a referral from you.

Divorce661.com is the website. Youtube.com/divorce661, about 400 or 500 videos as I said are on there. We’re also on iTunes at Divorce Master Radio. We do a weekly podcast where we go a little bit deeper into the process of divorce, and so lots of resources for you.

I’d be happy to help you, 661-281-0266 and thanks for reading!

 

California Divorce Default With Agreement vs Default Without Agreement

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce Default With Agreement vs Default Without Agreement

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. We’re licensed and bonded legal document preparation service specializing in divorce in California.

Today we’re talking about the difference between a default with agreement and a default without agreement.

So, when you do a default, you may have heard of a default case. A default simply means that the other party did not file a response. That’s all what a default means, it means they’re defaulting and there is a method of going through a divorce process where you file a default.

Now, there is two types of default cases; there is a default with agreement divorce and there is a default without agreement divorce. A default without agreement is also known as a true default case. A default with agreement is also known as a hybrid.

So, I want to talk to you about these two because there are a lot of people doing default without agreement cases because they don’t know that default with agreement exists.

So, let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of this.

Number 1: A default with agreement means the other party didn’t respond but they are going to do everything they would normally do if they’re going to be involved and do the paperwork just as they would if they did respond but they’re not going to have to pay a filing fee.

So, obviously there is an advantage to that. You have one filing fee, they can be involved in the case, all the same and you get the same finished product.

You will get the divorce they will be involve, they’ll sign the agreement and another benefit to that is when you are in agreement, the distribution of your assets and debts, your community property. You can decide how that’s to be divided. It can be lopsided, one person can get more assets, and one person can get more debts.

The court does not get involved with the actual distribution of your community assets and debts if it’s by agreement. In fact, they won’t even look at the values all they know is you’re getting X, Y, Z account. This person’s getting X, Y, Z car. No values are indicated.

They don’t care if it’s a lopsided; all they know is you guys have come to an agreement, they don’t care that one person got more or less, they know that you’ve made this decision in your best interest because both parties are involved.

Now, let’s talk about the default without agreement. When you do not have agreement, no response and the other party is not going to be involved, the court does not allow you to make those types of decisions when it comes to your community property. This community property is property you had or obtained asset or debt wise during the marriage. Okay, that’s what we’re talking about here.

The court will not allow you to have an unequal division of community assets or debts. They’re going to require that you literally cut it down the middle.

There are very few exceptions to this. In fact, if you want to get an exception from the court, you have to petition the court, and you have to go to a hearing and tell them why it’s in best interest to do it this way.

But right off the bat they’re going to reject any judgment you put forth on a default without agreement where you did not divide the assets and debts right down the middle.

And we have several cases like this where people would come to us after attempting doing the divorce on their own and doing a default without agreement and not being able to get the judgment approved because they have assets and debts, let’s say you have five assets each worth ten thousand dollars each. So, fifty thousand dollars on assets, but because of something that happened in the marriage or some agreement you have with your spouse, you’re going to keep more, let’s say thirty thousand of the assets and your spouse is only going to get twenty thousand.

On a default without agreement, that is not allowed. They will reject that time and time again. We’ve seen it happen with clients who have come to us. Their judgments get rejected and the court is enforcing the fact that the want them to literally divide the assets right down the middle even if it’s not fair, because they don’t know what’s fair other than to say it needs to be divided evenly because that’s community property.

We have another example, just called me yesterday; they’re doing a default without agreement but the other party is there and willing to do the paperwork they just didn’t want to pay the filing fee and they are having so much problems trying to file their default, their true default, no agreement, because the wife was going to keep her pension.

It was a community property pension. They’ve been married for a long time over twenty years but the husband didn’t want to have anything to do with the pension. He’s going to allow her to keep it but she had her judgment rejected twice because she is trying to keep the community property pension and the court won’t allow it.

So, she was trying to call, jump through all these hoops and get him to sign something to tell the court they doesn’t want it but the court won’t have anything to do with it. I told her: “Why don’t you just do a default with agreement? He’s here, he’s willing to sign paperwork, just get him to sign the paperwork and do a default with agreement.”

She was blown away. She had no idea this existed, she doesn’t have any idea this is possible. She’s coming in today for us to do the paperwork for her and its, it’s just getting him to sign a few forms. It’s still a default. It will still enter the default, but he’s just going to sign, the spouse is going to sign a couple of forms. They’re not going to look anything at the assets at that point. They know the parties have signed, they have been present and they’re doing things in their best interest and they are going to allow it.

So, this will be a simple fix for them and she is very happy to come in and get that done.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. We specialize in divorce in California. You can find us on YouTube we have hundreds of videos now, videos likes this that are helpful tutorials and so forth at YouTube.com/divorce661.

Feel free to call me. I’d be happy to help you with your California divorce. 661-281-0266.

Again my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

Thanks for reading!

California Default Divorce How Community Property Is Treated

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Default Divorce How Community Property Is Treated

Hi my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com and we specialize in divorce in California.

We’re doing a lot of videos this week talking about California default divorce case.

A default simply is you file, you served the other party and they’re not going to be involved. And I want to talk specifically about community property as it pertains to a default case, again the default is you filed, the party was served, they didn’t respond. They are not going to be involved at all; they’re not going to sign a thing and how true default case and how community property plays a part in that.

Now, community property is property that you obtained, asset or debt, during the marriage. So, that’s the type of property we are looking at.

On a true default case, the court will require you, with very limited exception, to divide the property, the community property (assets and debts) one hundred percent evenly. They do not allow you to take more assets than the other party. They don’t allow you to give the other party more debts. It has to be cut down right down the middle.

Now, there are times where that’s fine. It is going to be split right down the middle, but most times, most of the time it’s not going to be fair, even though it seems fair to the court that you split all the community assets down the middle, fifty fifty.

A lot of times this community property is property that you want to keep on your own and it’s still fair even when your spouse says “Yeah, I want him or her to have that community asset”, even though the distribution would be fair, It would appear to be unfair to the court.

But when you do a true default case, the court doesn’t give you any leniency on that even if it is. So they’re essentially going to force you to divide property right down the middle, whether or not it’s truly fair to you or not or fair to the other party or not.

Now, true default cases where the other party is not involved at all, sometimes those cases are the only way to go, because the other party is not going to participate, you’re not on friendly terms, they are not cooperative and that’s your only option is to do a true default case.

However, we’re finding that a lot of people will do a true default case simply to save money on the fees.

In the normal course of a divorce, you would file, pay the filing fee, the other person will respond to get involved and pay another filing fee. And people would say “Well I don’t want to pay another filing fee just to get involved, we’ll just do a default.” But then you ran into this problem with community property.

So, what we suggest that you do what’s called a hybrid. A hybrid is a default with agreement. So you can have a default but you can enter into an agreement with your spouse and when you do that, you can divide up the assets and debts as you choose and the court will not get involved in how you divide up your property.

Call me if you have any questions on that, we do specialize in divorce in California.

Tim Blankenship is my name. 661-281-0266, and we’ll be happy to help you with your divorce in California whether you’re just getting started, somewhere on the middle or you are at the end of the paperwork turning in that has been rejected and you’re at wits end and frustrated with the process. We can fix everything, go back to day one and fix everything for you so please give me a call. We’d be happy to help.

You can also read this article on our Google+ Page

Van Nuys Divorce Self Help Legal Center

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Van Nuys Divorce Self Help Legal Center

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com and today we are talking about the self-help center at the Van Nuys Court House and the services they provide and I just wanted to let you know what you’re kind of looking at when you go down there.

So, there are some folks that should go down there and should use these types of services.

If you are low income, if you have more time than you do money, then the self-help center is probably a good place for you to go. The reason I say that is, it is free.

Now, you’re going to wait in line for a long time. It’s going to take you at least ten to fifteen trips, you know, full days spending at the court house over a period of time, maybe six months to a year. Going down there, wait in line each time you go because it’s first come first serve, they don’t work off appointments and they’re very busy.

So, if you have more time, let’s say you’re unemployed, maybe you’re part time and you don’t have money to come to a service like ours to help you prepare your divorce, then that’s going to be your best option.

But let me tell you who it’s not for. If you are working full time and you cannot afford to leave work for ten to fifteen times, you know, over period of six months to a year, going down there and getting help and wait in line and spending your time away from work and so forth, it’s not for you.

I know, I have worked at the San Fernando self-help center and the Van Nuys self-help center and I can tell you its extremely busy. It’s not a place you necessarily want to spend your time and there’s a lot of other things you can do to be productive.

So, that said, if you have more time than money, that’s the place for you. If you’re employed, give us a call and use a professional service to get your divorce completed. We can save you money; we can save you lots of time and a ton of frustration.

If you use our service, we can help you; we’ll do everything for you. You can go on with your life. We’ll take care of preparing the forms, filing the forms, serving them and going down the court for you.

We have all the court’s software; we have everything the attorneys have. We can get you through the process.

We operate on a flat fee basis and we can get you through the process on a single filing fee which means, not only are we going to be less expensive than you doing it on your own because of saving you that filing fee, but you’re going to save time, frustration and you can go on with your life.

Give me a call, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661. We are located in Santa Clarita, CA; you don’t have to come to our office if you don’t want to. We do a lot of this right over the phone. We have clients throughout Los Angeles County and have lots of divorce cases at the Van Nuys Court.

Please feel free to give me a call. 661-281-0266 or feel free to visit our website at divorce661.com, we have tons of videos, podcasts and you can even find us on iTunes at Divorce Master Radio.

Look forward to helping you with your divorce, Tim Blankenship. 661-281-0266.

Thanks!