Start Your Santa Clarita Divorce With Us Even If You Need An Attorney

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Start Your Santa Clarita Divorce With Us Even If You Need An Attorney

Hey! Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com in Santa Clarita, California. We specialize in divorce document preparation in all of Los Angeles County.

And today I’m going to make a bold statement. I’m going to suggest that regardless if you know you will need an attorney for your divorce case, that you at least start with us.

Start with us to get your initial documents served, filed, processed and completed before you have to go out and hire an attorney.

Now, we’re not saying don’t speak to an attorney first. It’s always a good idea to speak to an attorney if you have legal questions. But once you’ve done that, do you necessarily want to go out and retain them to prepare your initial filing documents, your summons, your petition, all these forms or check boxes?

The next step is doing your financial disclosures, again, forms that you can use our expert services to complete for you and a fraction of the cost of an attorney.

So what we suggest is, spare your checkbooks, spare your bank account, use us for the initial few steps of your divorce and that is getting the legal documents prepared, get them filed, get them served, get that process done and then go hire an attorney.

Then let them do what they do best, let them represent you in court if that’s what you used to happen, let them appear in court, let them give you legal advice, but why do they need to prepare the legal documents in  $200, $300 or $400 an hour? That doesn’t make sense to us.

So what I’m saying today is, come to us to start your divorce. Whether, if you know, hey this is going to be a battle, we’re going to go to court. I know it. There’s nothing that’s going to keep us out of the court. There’s no sense in having an attorney preparing those initial documents.

Their check boxes, we can take care of that for you and we’ll let you know when it’s time to move on from our service and go speak to an attorney or have attorney represent you.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Give me a call if you have questions – 661-281-0266 and thanks for reading!

Why You Should Watch Our Santa Clarita Divorce Videos

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Why You Should Watch Our Santa Clarita Divorce Videos

Hi, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

And this is officially our 100th video upload to YouTube.

And we do lots of videos as you know, if you’ve watch our videos. We cover a broad array of issues related to divorce and today I was reminded why I do all the videos I do.

A client just left my office and he was fully aware of the divorce process and how we work and everything to do with divorce as far as what he’d seen off our videos. Everything he learned was off our videos.

I’m guessing he probably watched twenty or thirty of our videos. Because when he called us originally, he said, he knew what we want to do. He want to do a particular style of divorce because he thought one thing and then he asked, he thought maybe he should do another but after watching our videos he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

He has watched the videos on how to prepare the forms, He was kind of deciding, should I try and do this myself. Because we have so many videos, you can literally complete your entire divorce process on your own.

But after watching the videos, he decided, he’d rather just pay someone to do it professionally and take care of everything for him in the end.

The benefit to us is, we have very informed clients. By the time they come into our office they have already decided to use our service. It’s not a meet-and-greet-and-tell-me-how-the-process-works.

We either had a long conversation on the phone after they’ve watched our videos and read our blogs or both. We’ve talked to them, we’ve directed them to our blogs; watch some videos, get informed. We really want you to understand the process of our divorce because at the end of the day you’re the one technically filling out the forms. We don’t exist, we’re just doing this for you and you’re representing yourself.

So, we adjusted, recopied. We’re glad we put these videos out there. It does help us. We do find clients this way, by getting this information out there but at the same time, folks who wanted to do their own divorce can completely do all the forms, all the filing and we cover everything from A to Z on how to do it.

So, we’re helping the community, but at the same time people wanted to help themselves by working with us. They’re free to do that as well and of course we’d love to help you with our divorce service.

So, make sure you watch our videos, get informed, go to divorce661.com website, go to our YouTube channel which is: youtube/divorce661 and you can, again there’s over a hundred of videos as of now where you can learn about the divorce process and everything there is to know about it.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

Please give me a call if you have any questions, we would like to get it started. 661-281-0266.

Thanks for reading!

California Uncontested Divorce Judgment Checklist

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Uncontested Divorce Judgment Checklist

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

And today we’re going to talk about the checklist you can use for the uncontested divorce judgment in California.

I’ve been getting a lot of calls from folks who are asking me, folks who want to do these themselves of course, if there is a checklist online or what checklist do we use that you can use to submit your judgment make sure you have all the forms necessary.

So, I’m going to go over this step by step in this video, go over what the uncontested dissolution judgment checklist has on it.

There is one thing that is missing. They’ve updated the judgment forms for Los Angeles County anyways, actually it is going to be for California and so I want to go over everything that is on here and I’m also going to put a link in this video. If you just go down to the text below, I’ll put a link in the text and it’ll take you to my blog. And I will have this PDF available for your viewing.

I’d recommend you just print it out and actually what I do is I write the client’s name at the top, I highlight uncontested dissolution judgment or whatever the case is. I’m going to be doing another video on all the different types of judgments you can submit, because each of them is different, all the forms are different and I’m letting the court know when they get the judgment package, “Hey, this is the type of judgment we are submitting. So, these are the forms you’re going to be looking for.” – Just to kind of help them understand what we’re doing so they don’t think we missed a form when we didn’t.

So, on the uncontested dissolution judgment, here’s the list of forms you’re going to need.

And just so you know an uncontested dissolution is defined as this: a petition was filed, a response was filed and the parties have a written agreement.

So, this is what you’d use when you file for divorce, your spouse filed a response and you’re entering into a written agreement. You have to have an appearance stipulation and waiver, the FL-130. If children are involved, you need a declaration of uniform child custody and jurisdiction act FL-105.

Now, just as a note, you would have already done this when you first filed for divorce, this UCCJEA. You would have done that already, you only need to update that if there have been some changes.

You’re going to need a declaration regarding service of preliminary declaration of disclosure. You’ve already done this after you filed your petition and your spouse would have done it after they filed their response. It’s the declaration of disclosure. It’s the form you filed that said you’ve prepared all your financial disclosures and served them. Make sure that’s filed before you submit your judgment.

The declaration regarding service of final declaration of disclosure, you probably won’t need that. I’ve never had to complete that form, we always are using the next one on the list, the stipulation and waiver of final declaration of disclosure.

So, whatever the case may be, just include the proper form. The declaration for default or uncontested dissolution, it’s FL-170 and you need a judgment form, the FL180 which will be essentially your cover sheet.

Notice of entry of judgment, FL-190. And if there is child support you’re going to need the stipulation to establish or modify child support, FL-350. Or you can use the child support and order attachment, FL-342.

I know these are a lot of forms, I would just suggest you go down and click, if this is something that you need, you know it’s uncontested, you know that a petition was filed, a response was filed, and you have a written agreement.

Just click the link below and you can get this PDF off our blog.

If you have child support, you may want to include the dissomaster, income withholding in order, all those are necessary.

Just remember, if you have child support, you’re going to need the FL-341 attachment. If you have spousal support, you’re going to have a 343 attachment and what’s not on this form is the FL-345, which is a property order attachment. It’s a new form, what the courts are trying to do is get away from the written narrative in the judgment and everything is an attachment, a form attachment to the FL-180.

So, hope that helped. We do provide the service where we can submit your judgment for you and take care of this for you if you like. Otherwise, feel free to use this judgment and take a shot in getting it submitted.

If you have any question, feel free to give me a call. My name is Time Blankenship with divorce661.com.

You can reach me at 661-281-0266.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Proper Order When Submitting Divorce Judgment Forms In California

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Proper Order When Submitting Divorce Judgment Forms In California

Today we’re talking about how to prepare the divorce judgment in California and specifically this is going to be in regards to what order they need to go in.

I’m seeing a lot of clients having trouble with filing their divorce judgment and half of it is doing the wrong forms and the wrong check boxes. But the folks that get that part right are not getting the order correct and not collating the divorce judgment package correctly and not attaching the right forms to the documents that needed to be enclosed in the divorce.

So, I’m going to go over that and this is going to be about the order that you need to essentially staple your documents together.

So, if you’ve had your divorce case rejected and it says it wasn’t in the right order or it says the FL180 was not the top form or you’re getting ready to submit your judgment. This is the video for you just to see if have this in the right order.

So, what I want you to do is take out your FL-180. The FL-180 on the second page is going to discuss several areas: children, parentage, child support, spousal support, property division and attorney’s fees and cost. This are items J through N on page two of the FL-180, the judgment form which is essentially the cover sheet for your judgment.

So, what you are going to do is, you are going to use that as your guide for the order you are going to submit your judgment.

So, let’s assume you have all of these that apply to you.  You have child custody and visitation which is on line J, you have child support on K, you have spousal support on I, or I’m sorry in L, and property division on M. So, that’s going to be the order that you submit these.

So, let’s talk specifically about the order.

So, let’s say you have child custody. So, the first thing you are going to have in there is not on this form but it’s the FL-190. It’s regarding the children; it’s kind of a notice regarding responsibility for children. So, don’t forget that form.

The next thing you’ll have in there will be your child custody visitation attachment and that’s going to be the FL-341, that’ll be your first attachment, and behind that, you’re going to have your child support order, the FL-342, behind that, you’re going to have spousal support, that’s the FL-343. And then behind that you’ll have property division which is FL-345.

None of the other forms, well let me make it back up. So that’s what’s going to consist of your actual judgment package. So you have the judgment, you have all the attachments behind it and that’s going to be its own attachment, and you’re going to staple that together.

Everything else that’s part of the judgment package is going to be submitted individually. They are not going to be attached to this package with the judgment FL-180 on top.

If it’s a default case or a hybrid case, you’re going to have a request to enter default, you’re going to have a notice of entry judgment, you’re going to have a stipulation waiver, a final declaration of disclosure and you’re going to have the declaration for default and uncontested dissolution or legal separation.

All of these will be submitted with the package but individually, so, each of these will be stapled with three copies of everything behind them, this one, all of these will be separate from the actual judgment package.

So, if you got it rejected it’s probably because you got of these all stapled together and the court didn’t want to take the time to unstaple it and put it in the correct order. So, just keep that in mind.

We’ll be talking a lot about the judgment packages, we’re seeing a lot of clients get this rejected. People that are doing this on their own. So, we’re going to try and cover all the items of rejection that are covered on the three page rejection sheet that the LA County Courts have. And you’ll find that, even if you are anywhere in California that you’re going to find a lot of these rejections to be very similar wherever you are at in California.

I hope this was helpful, if you have any questions about submitting your judgment or your looking for a service to help you prepare your judgment or any part of your divorce case please give me a call.

My name is Tim Blankenship. You can reach me direct at: 661-281-0266. And of course you can always get more information off our website at divorce661.com.

Thanks for reading!

How To Save Money On Your California Divorce | California Divorce Secrets

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Save Money On Your California Divorce | California Divorce Secrets

Today I want to talk to you about how to save money on your divorce in California.

You may have heard the term hybrid divorce and then again you may not have heard the term hybrid divorce.

That’s because not many people talk about the hybrid divorce process. What the hybrid divorce process is a situation where you can go through a divorce and have an agreement with your spouse, so, your spouse can be entered in the case and not have to file a response.

So, let’s back up a bit, in a normal divorce proceeding, one spouse will file a petition and the other spouse will file a response. Normally that’s necessary in order for the other spouse, who’s responding, to get involved with the case.  The response lets the court know that they are involved In the case, that they are going to be participating in the case and doing their disclosures and signing the written agreement at some point.

Now, the alternative to that is what’s called a default or a true default case and that’s the extreme opposite. That’s where the other spouse doesn’t participate, doesn’t file a response and is not going to enter into a written agreement.

With the hybrid, the other spouse doesn’t have to respond yet and can still do their disclosures and can still enter into a written agreement.

So, essentially, whether or not your spouse responds, here she can still be involved in the case as long as she is willing to comply with completing their preliminary declaration of disclosure and ultimately will sign a written agreement, written judgment at the end of the case.

Technically there is no difference between a hybrid divorce, again, we will cover that again, which is an agreement and no response and here she signed a final judgment and the case where you did file a response and you’re going to have to do the exact same things. The only difference is by not filing a response you save that $435.

What folks don’t know is when you file a petition, you have to pay, in LA County anyways, its $435. If your spouse responds they are going to also have to pay $435.

So, the question is what do you do if you want to enter in a written agreement but you don’t want to pay that other $435. Well, the answer is the hybrid divorce which I’m the only one that I know of that’s talking about this and it’s a hybrid because it’s a cross between an agreement and a default case.

I’ve written a lot on my blogs about this. I have just about every one of my clients go through a hybrid process because it saves them $435.

If you have questions about the hybrid and how it works and if it’s right for your particular situation, please give me a call: 661-281-0266.

We’re headquartered in Los Angeles County but we do and can help you all throughout California. Please give me a call 661-281-0266. So you can get more information of our website at divorce661.com.

Thanks for reading!

Is Your Spouse Avoiding Being Served Divorce Papers In Los Angeles

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Is Your Spouse Avoiding Being Served Divorce Papers In Los Angeles

Hi, this is Tim Blankenship again with divorce661.com, 661-281-0266. We specialize in divorce in Los Angeles County.

Now that I got that out of the way, I want to talk about a portion of the divorce process, one of the first things that will happen when you’re going through divorce and that is the process of service.

And specifically I want to talk about the issue of being served and specifically avoiding service. We’ve had two cases in the last month where one of the spouses has attempted to avoid being served.

Now, for you to get to that point, obviously it’s not as amicable as we thought it was going to be when we first started because initially whenever I work with some spouses that are getting divorce is to make it as amicable as possible and not hire a process server if necessary.

What we generally will do is submit and mail a copy of the divorce papers, initial divorce papers to the other spouse and all they have to do is simply sign a document saying I received it and mail back to me. It’s very civil, very simple, very cost effective; it doesn’t cost anything to do that.

In some cases the spouse just won’t do it. Says they will and won’t, refuse to and then we have to hire a process server. It just frustrates the process. We have to have our clients spend more money on a process server and spend the time getting that done.

At the end of the day the same thing occurs as if that person just signed the form so as far as I am concern it’s very silly to do, it’s very juvenile to do but this is emotional thing for some people and that’s just what some folks do.

So, I don’t understand why anyone would want to avoid being served. It is going to happen eventually. Make it easy on your spouse. It’s just setting this whole divorce process up to be even more complicated. You’re setting the stage to make it more difficult just cooperate in the beginning, I know it’s an emotional thing you’re going through but just realize that it’s going to happen regardless, let’s make it as civil as possible, let’s avoid hiring a process server and let’s not have the extra costs and frustrations of a process server simply just sign the document that we send you and we can get the ball rolling on your divorce.

We had a couple cases as I mentioned this month where people simply were not only refusing to sign the paper but were refusing to accept service from the process server and is going as far as trying to elude the process server by watching out their window for the process server if they are there. They wouldn’t come outside, won’t come to the door and it’s just silly. It takes more time of the process server, and then it costs your spouse more money to have them sit around, waiting for you and watch if you either come out of the house and all the things they do.

So, anyways, I just wanted to let you know if you are going to be served or if you have been contacted by our company because your spouse is working with us, we’re not here on their side to, we’re just here to get process done, help you guys get through the paperwork and being served is one of those steps. If you avoid signing the document that says you received the paperwork, then we have no choice but to hire a process server.

This is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

If you have any questions about the process of service and what constitute good service, please give me a call: 661-281-0266 and thanks for reading!

Was Your California Divorce Judgment Rejected | Los Angeles Divorce Rejection

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Was Your California Divorce Judgment Rejected | Los Angeles Divorce Rejection

Today I want to talk to you more about judgments, divorce judgments, how to submit them and issues that we’re seeing with judgments being rejected.

We’ve talked a lot in the past about how to get your judgments through, that we offer a judgment processing service, where, if you’ve gotten up to that part of your divorce and you’re going to have to submit your judgment.

That’s a very complex and difficult process and there is a high chance that your judgment will be rejected and we will help you take care of that.

We’re now finding that the court has found another reason to reject the judgments. So, in the past, probably three weeks, we have had two cases get rejected and these are the judgments we are talking about and this is for new reasons that we have not seen in the past so we wanted to let everyone know.

Especially those of you who are doing this on your own, that there is a new reason for them to reject your judgment.

Not only is there a three page reject sheet with check boxes on here for missing documents, wrong language, and all of that. I mean, it is pretty extensive judgment reject sheet. And there always has been an “other” box, but now what we are seeing and this was the same in both cases. It says: judgment packet were not submitted in correct order, all attachments must be attached to judgment in the proper order.

So, here is a judgment package, you can see it’s very thick; it’s a lot of work, there’s three copies of the judgment, everything is in here. This was submitted to the court two months ago and it came back. Why? Because it’s not in the proper order.

Everything in here is correct, we’re assuming. It’s all here. All they had to do is literally collate it and put that in the order they desired, but instead, they decided to fill this reject sheet out, which probably took as much time to actually just put it in the correct order and reject it.

Now, the issue with that is, the wording they say is put it in the correct order.

Well, I’ll ask you, what is the correct order? Only the courts know, we know, but they have never required it to be in a particular order. We will just submit it with all the attachments, all the copies and they would put it in the order that they like, get it signed and get it stapled all together but apparently that’s too much work for them now.

So, make sure you do that and the problem is you don’t know what order that is.

Perhaps in another video we will go through, step by step, what the correct order of the judgment is and how to put that together so you can avoid having them rejected and we will be doing that as well.

If you’ve had your judgment rejected, we do offer a service where we can go through all the reject sheet, clean it up, go through everything else, make sure it’s correct and resubmit it and now put it in the correct order. And help you out through the process.

If you have any questions about divorce rejects and some of the issues you may have found, if it’s something simple, we’d be happy just to help you over the phone.

If you need us to go through your entire case, of course we would do that for a fee. But in any case, just watch out to make sure you put it in the proper order. Check back for our video. I think I will do a video on the proper order of submitting your judgment so folks can get this through and not spend time with the courts and getting this rejected.

So, give me a call 661-281-0266.

Again, Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com, we specialize in divorce document preparation in Los Angeles County.

Talk to you soon. Thanks for reading!

Did You Use LegalZoom And Have Your Divorce Rejected By Court?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Did You Use LegalZoom And Have Your Divorce Rejected By Court?

Hi! Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com

Today I just received a call from a gentleman who had used LegalZoom and submitted his forms, all his judgment forms, everything that LegalZoom had prepared for him and guess what? It was completely rejected by the court. Big surprise.

Actually I’m not; I get so much business from folks who have spent their money on LegalZoom to prepare their divorce documents. I can’t tell you, I mean, I should actually thank LegalZoom for messing up the forms so bad so people have to come to me but that wouldn’t be very nice to people who spent their hard earned money on LegalZoom forms.

The gentlemen I just spoke to spent $280 on his divorce forms to have them filled out by LegalZoom. He submitted everything, thought he did everything right, waited several months for his judgment to comeback and what he got in the mail, a big, fat rejection letter from the court.

So, he just called me, wanted to know if I would help him prepare his judgment forms and paperwork correctly. Of course I will, like as I said I get lots of people that come in to my office, drop a big pile of LegalZoom documents on my desk and saying: “I’ve had it. I’ve had my judgment rejected once, twice even three times.” – and they give up.

The sad part about this is, as this gentleman did spent almost $300 to complete the paperwork and now he’s facing spending additional money with me. Of course, I always give a discount, feeling bad of the people who have already spent money but this guy spent almost three hundred bucks with LegalZoom.

My fee starts at $700 for divorce, so, for another $400 you can have someone professionally prepare the divorce and not spend the time in frustration and your free time on the weekends trying to figure out the divorce process and the court procedure ultimately ending up in a big, fat rejection of your paperwork.

So, consider that.

Hopefully, I’m trying to get this out there so people realize that there is an alternative to LegalZoom. If you’re going to spend just a few extra bucks, you can get it done right at the first time and not have all the headaches in dealing with this yourself.

Again my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. Please give me a call; you can reach me direct at 661-281-0266.

Have a great day!

Questions To Ask Before Hiring A Divorce Paralegal Firm In California

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Questions To Ask Before Hiring A Divorce Paralegal Firm In California

Hi! This is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in Divorce in California.

But today, I want to talk to you about the importance of doing a good job in investigating the company that you’re considering hiring to help you with your divorce, whether it be an attorney or paralegal firm or someone like us who is a licensed and bonded legal document preparation company.

I had a new client call from the San Diego area, and she was really asking some good questions, tough questions. Questions I appreciate her asking, as far as: “Are we licensed?”, “Are we bonded?”, “How long have we been doing this?”

She really wanted to know before she handed over her money by making sure that we are a legitimate company and going to get the job done and not going to take her money and run. And I told her that very, very few people do that and I wish more people did.

There are numerous companies out there in the LA area who are providing divorce services or document prep calling themselves Paralegals, who should not be in the business, they are conducting their business illegally.

They are not doing a good job; in fact, much of my business comes from people who paid money to a company who said they would provide a document preparation service for them for their divorce, and, you know, completely screwed it up, or just dropped the ball and left them entirely hanging, started the process and then went out of business.

So, I much prefer that people don’t get taken advantage of. Do your homework. Do the reviews. I wrote an article in our blog on divorce661.com that you can read about some suggestions in looking up the company you’re going to hire.

I personally know that we’re the only licensed and bonded legal document assistance company in Santa Clarita. I know we’re the only one that specializes in divorce in all of Los Angeles County. No one knows this business better than we do.

So, if you’re working with someone else, chances are, it’s not going to be a legitimate company, so you really need to do your homework on them. Some of these companies don’t even have physical addresses. They’re doing this at their home – things of that nature.

So, here are the suggestions that I gave on my blog about what you can do: Google the name of the person who owns the company and see what comes up. My name is Tim Blankenship. I’m in Santa Clarita. You put those two terms together and you can see all of the articles I wrote. You can find reviews, things people said about us..

Google the company name. Our business name is SCV Legal Doc Assist and you’ll see reviews, I think Yelp comes up first. You can see all the different articles about our company. Check third party review sites like I just mentioned: Yelp!

Those are good sites because these are folks that have gone in after doing business with us. Have their review on us to say if we did good, bad or indifferent. You know, these are folks that took the time to write an article.

Fortunately, we have very happy clients; we have all five stars on Yelp!. So, just do your due diligence before hiring a company and giving your money away. I really hate to find people that call me after getting taken.

I guess you can say from another company you’re wasting your money before coming to us and really kind of put a dark shadow on this industry in general and I have to deal with the aftermath because there are people out there that shouldn’t be doing this and are taking advantage of folks.

So, be very careful before you hire someone. Call, ask the tough questions. Do a lot of research, read our blog, read articles. Every blog post, every video and everything I talk about is based on experience. I’m not making any of this up; it’s either based on client experience, my experience on the courts, law firms and self-help centers.

If you have any questions, if you want to ask me about a company you might decide to use or share your stories with me, I’m talking to people all the time with, we’ll take you by your company and had a bad experience. Unfortunately, I get a lot of my business after they have been taken by some other company.

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