California Divorce Judgment Checklist & Instructions

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce Judgment Checklist & Instructions

Today we’re talking about the judgment checklist for dissolution for divorce in California.

I had a client come in recently and they’re trying to do their own divorce and they finally threw in the towel, which we find a lot – it’s not as simple as they make it sound.

But anyway they’ve gotten pretty far into the divorce. They had filed the divorce papers, done some of the financial disclosures; we had to clean up a lot of what they’ve previously done.

But they went in to have to enter their judgment, and prepare the judgment forms and the self-help center gave them a big fifty-page judgment package to complete and I’m going to discuss that in another video.

But today, in this article, we’re talking about the actual judgment checklist and what the court actually expects you to do.

So you can see that the judgment checklist is three pages long and if you notice closely, it just gives you the forms that you need to use.

It doesn’t give any instruction whatsoever on how to fill out the forms. And that is the biggest problem when trying to do your own divorce.

So you have here default without agreement, it gives you the forms that are needed which is great, so you can use this as a checklist to the forms you need, but then you have to get the forms, you’re going to have to fill them out. It doesn’t tell you how to file them, it doesn’t tell you how to fill them out, and it doesn’t tell you how to serve them.

And some of these forms are quite complicated.

Now we’ve done a self-help video on most of these. We’ll probably try and get to all of these at some point but there are so many forms when it comes to completing your divorce it’s really hard to become an expert on all those things, especially for you, if you’re trying to do this on your own.

So, just kind of want to give you that kind of heads up on what you’re looking at doing, this is again just the final step, this is not going to court multiple times filing, serving, doing the disclosures, the financial stuff and all that.

This is just the final step – three pages checklist – just to submit your paperwork and over fifty pages of judgment forms that you have to complete for your final step in your case.

We also recommend you use our professional service for your divorce such as us and this comes at different times for everybody.

It may be at the very beginning, you say: “Forget it, I don’t want to deal with this!” or it maybe halfway in the middle where it occurs a lot or at the end when people get thrown a stack of fifty pages to deal with to finish their divorce – they’ll call us then.

Whatever that time is, we’ll pick up where you left off and wrap up your divorce. We can help you anywhere in California.

So make sure to give us a call – 661-281-0266 or go to our website at divorce661.com. Thanks!

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!

California Hybrid Divorce Judgment Checklist

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

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.