Can You Trust Your Divorce Paralegal Company | Santa Clarita Divorce

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Can You Trust Your Divorce Paralegal Company | Santa Clarita Divorce

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist.

We’re licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in divorce.

And today I want to talk to you about the importance of working with a licensed and bonded company when you’re going through the divorce process.

Essentially you want to work with a company that you can trust. When you go through divorce, a large portion of the process is going to be going through your assets and debts.  That means, providing account statements, bank statements, credit card statements, pension information, where you work, financial statements and in some cases tax returns.

So, imagine giving these information to a company that cannot be trusted, perhaps a company who is providing a service illegally who is not licensed and not bonded.

You’re giving up so much financial information; there is a high risk and degree that fraud can occur years down the road.

So, when choosing a company to help you with your divorce you need to think about that, you need to think about the amount of information you’re providing them and if they are not licensed and bonded, is it someone you can really trust?

When you use our company, we use a great deal of confidentiality. Not only are all your documents shredded at the completion of your divorce, but we don’t keep copies of anything. Once we make the copies and their file is served with the court, you get everything back. We don’t want to have anything in our possession that could risk potential fraud down the road.

So, this was just a brief comment on making sure you use a company you can trust with your financial document because you will be providing us everything in your life from before marriage, during marriage and after separation of a financial aspect.

Again my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. You can reach me direct at 661-281-0266.

 

 

How To File Divorce Court Papers | Filing At San Fernando Court

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How To File Divorce Court Papers | Filing At San Fernando Court

So, today we’re talking about the process of actually filing papers in court for those folks who will be filing their divorce in the San Fernando Courthouse.

Let’s talk about filing the initial divorce paperwork and let’s just keep it simple, let’s talk about the summons and the petition.

When you go to file your papers, now I’m actually talking about when you walked into court and file your papers.

Now let’s talk specifically about the San Fernando branch, where you go for your Family Law case.

When you walk in to San Fernando court house after you go to the metal detectors, you’re going to make a right hand turn and you’re going to go to the Family Law window.

When you go to file your forms, the clerk is not there to help you organize your forms, put them together for you, they’re going to expect them to be put together correctly and you need to have the right amount of copies of your forms and you have to have your papers especially hole-punched, or they will not accept it.

They might, sometimes they’re nice, sometimes the clerk down there is nice and they’ll punch your form with a special hole-maker, but it’s very important that you get this right.

On your screen, you can see I have the court’s website up, so you can see what they’re telling you to have.

The first thing you want to do, is you want to have, and what I’ve done is I’ve prepared a sample here for you, is when you file your papers , you want to punch these holes in here.

So you can see, I have the two holes punched in the top and this would be your original set. So you’re going to have an original, and two copies. So when you file your forms, let’s say, you just have a summon to petition, you’re going to have your summons, and then you’re going to have two copies of the summons behind it, stapled.

Now you’re not going to hole-punch the other two copies because they’re coming back to you. Then you’re going to have your petition, you’re going to hole-punch it the exact same way, staple it and then put your two copies behind it.

And you hand them to the clerk; you’re going to give them everything. You’re going to give the summon and the petition, the original which will be hole-punched, will be on the top, that’s going to have your original signatures and two copies underneath of each of those forms.

Now, the reason you want two copies is, the clerk is going to issue you a case number, and they’re going to put that right here. And, they’re going to give you two copies; one copy is for your records, the other copy is for you to serve on your spouse. So make sure you have an original and two copies.

And if you walk into the clerk, totally prepared like that, they’re going to feel like you’re totally prepared.

If you have any questions about the divorce process or would like to talk to us about having a professional company preparing your divorce for you, please give us a call and you can reach us at 661-281-0266.

And again my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist, and we specialize in preparing your divorce paperwork.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

California Hybrid Divorce Judgment Checklist

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California Hybrid Divorce Judgment Checklist

Hi there! This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com

In these series of videos, we’re currently doing a video on the judgment checklist, what forms are necessary to submit when you turn your judgment to the court when going through divorce in California, and this video is going to talk about the Hybrid Dissolution Judgment.

The court’s put out a judgment checklist for all the different types of judgment you would enter and the judgment that we’re talking about today is a hybrid. It’s not a well-known type of judgment but is one on that we use exclusively here at divorce661.com. There are a lot of benefits and you can check other videos on why.

But you’re going to use a Hybrid Dissolution Judgment when a response was not filed, the case is not proceeding by default, and the parties have a written agreement.

So just briefly, a hybrid is exactly that. There is no response filed but you’re going to enter into a written agreement. And this is different from say, a true default case where there is no response and no written agreement, just so you know the difference.

If you’ve have no written agreement and there’s been no response filed, you’re going to want to use the true default divorce paperwork, and we’ll be talking about that in subsequent videos.

So let me go over briefly about the forms, I’m going to put a link at the bottom of this YouTube video to my blog, where we will have a PDF version of this, so you can print this out and have this.

As I tell folks, if you’re going to do this on your own, even – put your name at the top of this, check these off as you do the forms, and make sure the court knows that: “Hey, this is what we’re turning in, and this is the type of judgment, and these are the forms we have included.” It’ll help them, it’ll help you increase your chances of getting your judgment through and not rejected.

Alright, so just briefly, you’re going to need a FL-115, your proof of service of summon to prove to the court that you actually served your spouse, request to enter default FL-165. Don’t forget to include two (2) self-addressed stamped envelopes so they can mail that back to you.

Children involved or any FL-105, you’re going to need a declaration regarding service of declaration of disclosure or FL-141. They’re going to need your stipulation and waiver of final declaration of disclosure FL-144, your FL-170 declaration for default, FL-180 the judgment form, and notice of entry of judgment FL-190.

That’s going to be the basics, the essentials, of your case.  If you have child support, or child custody or spousal support or a property order, you’re going to need to attach all of those as well.

We also did a video on the proper order of so many of your judgment package. Make sure to take a look at that one too. Once you have this together, it’ll discuss exactly what order to put these documents in.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. You can reach us direct at 661-281-0266 and today we talked about the forms necessary for the Hybrid Dissolution Judgment.

Changing Spousal Support In Santa Clarita During Divorce

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Changing Spousal Support In Santa Clarita

Hi. This is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist; Licensed and Bonded Legal Document Preparation Service specializing in Divorce.

And today I want to talk to you about how to change a spousal support order and this can be either during your divorce process, it can be post judgment, after the divorce has been finalized –it doesn’t matter.

What I wanted to talk to you about is  what the court is going to look at as a reason why you can make a request to change spousal support or modify spousal support, as the court calls it.

The court says here: “Depending on the situation, either spouse might need to change the amount of spousal partner support that has to be paid. As for a change in the support amount, there needs to be a change in circumstances.”

So this is what you’re keying in on here – ‘change in circumstances’, and what they’re referring to is that something significant has changed since the spousal support order was made.

They say here that maybe “The spouse or partner was getting support and no longer needs it or the person paying support has had a significant drop in income and can no longer afford the amount of support”. Sometimes, the support, the spouse gaining support is not making great effort to become self-supporting so the paying spouse can ask the court to change or end the support order based on this.”

So, just to recap that, there has to be a change in circumstances and this is generally regarding money. Did one spouse lose a job, and is now making no money? Did one spouse get a significant raise or a new job and is therefore making more money? And that could be either spouse, or either one, receiving support and you receive the job and are earning more income.

Your spouse may file for modification for reduced support based on her new income and the same can apply to them if you’re receiving the support and your spouse gets an increase in her job then you can go back to court and request for modification to increase a support.

So you can modify it up, you can modify it down, the court’s going to look for change in circumstances and of course, this would be done on a request for order, previously known as an ‘Order Show Cause FL-300’ and there are some more forms you need here during this post-judgment as you see on your screen that it says a ‘Form FL-157’. It basically uses a number of factors to help the court determine if they should grant the request for modification of support

If you’re repressing yourself and you’re looking for an affordable way to get this change in spousal support then that is a service that we offer here, we can help you prepare it, the request for order, we can help you prepare any supplemental forms that are required including your income expense declaration which is always required when you make some request regarding or with regards to money.

My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist, please give us a call if we could be helpful in changing your spousal support and filing emotion on your behalf, or even responding to a motion in which spouses filed a request for modification of support and you need to respond –we can certainly help you with that as well.

Please give us a call for any questions, again my name is Tim – 661 281 0266, and have a great day!

Should I File For Divorce First | Santa Clarita

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Should I File For Divorce First | Santa Clarita

Today we’re answering the question “Does it matter if I file for divorce first or is there a disadvantage to my spouse filing for divorce and me being the respondent?”.

I get that question all the time, parties calling me saying “oh I think my wife is going to file for divorce, should I file first? Is there any advantage?”

So, because I’m not an attorney I cannot technically give you legal advice but I can point you in the right direction of where to find this information. So what I will do is direct you to the court’s website and they’ve answered the question here for us.

What it says here is ‘Am I at a disadvantage if my spouse or domestic partner files for divorce first?’

  1. Normally, it does not matter who is the first to file the divorce papers. The court does not give any preference to the first person to file (the petitioner), or any disadvantage to the person who is the respondent.

So, there you have it folks. It doesn’t matter if you file it first. In fact, I had this question just come up yesterday— one of the spouses called me and he was getting ready to file and he said that he’s advised by his spouse that he is going to run out and file first and I said “That’s fine, let her do it”. According to the courts, they don’t give a preference either way. The paperwork is going to be the same. You’ll just be the respondent instead of the petitioner.

Again, this is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We do provide affordable divorce document preparation services. We can get you all the way through the divorce process at an affordable price.

California Divorce Default Prove Up For True Default Cases

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California Divorce Default Prove Up For True Default Cases

Today we’re talking about the Default Prove Up when going through a divorce in California.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in divorce in California. And we handle lots of divorce cases and we like to report when we see something going on or something new with the courts and things of that nature.

Today we are talking about the California Divorce Default Prove Up.

So, first let’s talk about what a default is because it’s not going to matter to you unless you have a default style of case.

So, a default in California divorce is when one party files and serves the other party and that party does not respond and is not involved and, in fact, are not involved at all. So, it’s what is called a true default case in California.

If you have this type of divorce, you may have to go to court for this default prove up.

So, a Default Prove Up simply is a short trial where the court wants you to come in because they have some questions about your judgment because in a default you are submitting a judgment without the other party’s agreement or participation in the divorce.

Sometimes the courts will have questions regarding, say the distribution of assets and debts, they may have some questions about the child custody and child visitation, child support, things of that nature that they want to have some testimony.

You know, have you go up and give some testimony. They will probably ask you some questions. Sometimes it’s very basic meaning they want to make sure because a lot of these cases are people who are representing themselves.

They may want to make sure you followed proper procedure, then ask you things like: “Did you properly serve the spouse?” “Who did you have serve your spouse?” “When were they served?” “When did you do this, when did you do that?” Because they want to make sure you followed proper procedure to make sure that it is a default and that your spouse is aware that there is a divorce going on and they decided not to participate versus they were unaware that the divorce was even happening.

Now, another way you may get a trial for a default prove up is per your request. There is a form, it’s called FAM031 and it is a request for default setting. Now, this is a form where you can intentionally ask the court to set a Prove Up hearing on your behalf, on your request for specific reasons.

Now, some of them are these:

  • Request to terminate spousal support in a marriage over ten years
  • Request for no visitation or supervised visitation
  • Request for specific amount of spousal support
  • Request child’s support other than guideline

So, these are things that are outside the normal default divorce processes, meaning, those things would have to be specially requested. They are not normally allowed in a default.

Another reason we’re using this form frequently is for what is called unequal division of assets and debts. In normal default cases you have to literally to the dollar, split the assets and debts of community property evenly or the court will reject your judgment potentially.

So, in a default prove up, you can request that they have you come in instead of just out right returning your judgment and rejecting it, to come in and explain why it’s in the best interest to have this unequal division of assets and debts.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. We specialize in divorce in California, and we can help you anywhere with any of the courts in California. So please feel free to give us a call. We are a full service firm. 661-281-0266 and you can go to our website at divorce661.com.

 

California True Default Cases with Marriage Over 10 Years

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California True Default Cases with Marriage Over 10 Years

This week we’ve been talking about true default cases when going through divorce in California.

And I want to talk specifically about true default cases when you have a marriage of longer than ten years.

So, let’s first talk about that when you have a marriage of over ten years, the California courts consider that a long term marriage. Now, we are not attorneys or a law firm here are not able to give legal advice, but if you go online you can find this information readily available.

So, in the long term marriages over ten years, the court will generally retain jurisdiction indefinitely over the issue of spousal support.

But what if you are filing a default case (and a default case is where you filed and the other party did not respond and are not participating at all) but you want to terminate the jurisdiction over spouse support and you have a ten year marriage?

Generally speaking that is not allowed by the courts. If you are filing a default and you have a marriage more than ten years, it is customary and standard that you have to mark the boxes that jurisdiction will remain for both petitioner and respondent.

So, in a default case, if you’re going to ask something out of the norm, you may have to ask for a hearing which is called a Prove Up hearing, and there is a form where if you want to terminate jurisdiction over spousal support for a long term marriages in a default case, I know that’s very specific.

You’re going to want to use form FAM031 and check the box that says “Request to terminate spousal support and marriage over ten years”. The reason you need to do this is because if you submit a default judgment and you have a ten year or longer marriage and you ask the court to terminate jurisdiction, they are going to reject your judgment. We have seen it a thousand times.

If you submit this form they will set a prove up hearing. You have to make an appearance in court. It’ll just be you and the court is going to ask you why it is in the best interest of you and your spouse to terminate jurisdiction over spouse support and then they will make a decision whether or not to do that or if they will not allow it and have you go the normal process of having jurisdiction retained for purposes of spousal support.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. We specialize in divorce in California. We can help you anywhere in the state of California with your divorce.

Please give us a call, we will be happy to help you out. 661-281-0266. For more information of our website at divorce661.com.

You can also tune in to our podcast on itunes at divorce master radio. Thanks for watching!

Online California Divorce Service Now Offered

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Online California Divorce Service Now Offered

We’re licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in divorce in California and we’re going to start talking a lot about the online divorce process, online divorce services, they are also known as automated document assembly services.

In California there is no truly online divorce. Uou can’t log in to the court website fill out your form submit them and do everything online. When we say online divorce related to California divorce, we’re talking about using a software system where you can enter in your information and it can fill out the forms automatically for you.

The reason we’re bringing this up is we now have that software, there is hundreds of companies that have this. We now also have the software where people who are going through the divorce process who have a difficult time filling out the forms, what forms to use, what goes in the boxes.

Our software will basically go through the system of questions and answers. You answer the question and your answers are automatically populated into the divorce form for you so you don’t have to worry about what to fill out and what forms do you even need, the software takes care of that.

Now, we hope you find our service online and use our online automated divorce software and we used to talk negatively about companies that offered the service because we see people in the past who have difficulty getting the product, getting their divorce completed properly because filling out the form is one thing, following the process and procedure of the court is another thing altogether

But now we are offering the service. The reason we feel good about it now is because we are offering a one hundred percent guarantee that your divorce will be completed.

If you are not able to do it on your own through the software, you can upgrade to our full service at any time and we will give you complete credit for the money you spent on the online forms and we’ll simply upgrade you to the full divorce service.

We are a full service divorce firm in California and we’ll simply take over from there and we will, we’ll take care of the divorce process entirely for you at that point.

Why Use Our Online California Divorce Software? Because We Are The Best

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Why Use Our Online California Divorce Software? Because We Are The Best

Hi, Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com and today we’re talking about our online divorce software system that we now have available for use.

We want to talk to you about if you are considering using an online divorce service, we’re talking about where you go in, pay a fee, and you get the software where you can log in and complete your divorce forms online. We now have that service.

We want to talk to you about how we are a better service when it comes to that. Now, no doubt if you’re looking online, you’ll find hundreds of online divorce software services out there. But the issue is they don’t have anyone there to help you if you get stuck or have questions about procedures or things of that nature.

When you use our service, we are a full service divorce firm now offering the online divorce service as an entry level product. So if you get stuck in using the online, using the forms, or with the process or procedure, we’re here to assist you.  And you can always upgrade to our full service process at any time.

Now the forms are available for anywhere in California and we also offer our full service process to everyone in California as well. We can work with all the courts throughout California.

So if you’re looking for an online divorce service in California, please use our service and if you have trouble and the reason we bring this up is, most people who try online divorce services, they’re out there, again there’s hundreds of them, they have difficulty getting their divorce finalized.

How do we know that? Because we have people come in that want us to clean up the mess and that’s one reason we never offered an online divorce solution.

But the reason we’re doing it now, is because we are guaranteeing that if you have difficulty, the software will do its job, but the problem becomes, how to file, how to serve and how to do all the steps of getting your divorce finalized, you can simply upgrade to our full service, and we’ll pick up and take care of the process for you.

And, if you want to continue with the online service, you have a full client support center where you can ask us questions, such as secure portals, and you also have access to an over 300 video tutorial library that we’ve created.  So we really want to make it easy for you to be successful in completing your divorce online in California.

I Have A Pension | What Is A QDRO Qualified Domestic Relations Order | Santa Clarita Divorce

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I Have A Pension | What Is A QDRO Qualified Domestic Relations Order | Santa Clarita Divorce

Hi! I’m Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist.

Today, we are answering the question of what is a QDRO.

QDRO stands for Qualified Domestic Relations Order. QDRO are the legal instrument which divides up a pension and this is done by a specialized attorney called the QDRO attorney.

They are essentially an actuary who will go through and determine what percentage of the pension as community property belongs to your spouse or your spouse has an interest in.

If you have a pension and this is going to be divided, this is going to be a necessary process that you go through with the QDRO attorney.

As legal document assistants, we do not prepare QDROs. Even if you were to use an attorney to go through your divorce, that attorney most likely, is not a QDRO attorney, it is a specialty and law firms always refer that out to another attorney to prepare the QDRO. And this is how it works essentially, you have the divorce going on on one hand and you have a pension that needs to be divided on the other.

The QDRO is an instrument that will be drafted by the QDRO attorney and will be included with the judgment. It can either go and be filed along with the judgment at the time it’s filed or it can be indicated in the judgment that it will be divided by a QDRO attorney and who that attorney is. And then later when that QDRO is completed, it can then be filed with the court even after the judgment has been submitted. Don’t forget that that QDRO needs to be certified by the court and filed with the pension so they’d know, at the time of distribution, who is getting what.

If you have questions about QDRO or if you would like a referral, I’d be happy to give you the name and number of the attorney we utilize for our clients when they’re going through our affordable divorce process.

I’ll be happy to give you a name and number so you have a referral of a QDRO attorney out here in Santa Clarita.

My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm. We specialize in divorce and all of Los Angeles County can reach me direct at 661-281-0266 or on our website at divorce661.com.

Thanks!