California Divorce Never Completed | How To Finish Divorce Process | Los Angeles | Santa Clarita

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. We are licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in California divorce.

And today I wanted to talk to you about some issues that we’ve been having or I should say issues other people have been having that has come up frequently this week and if you watch our videos, you know we like to discuss common issues.

So, this week we’ve been getting a lot of people calling who have started their divorce case in the past, months, years, decades ago and never finished them. Either they found out they didn’t finish or knowingly they didn’t complete the process.

So, I want to let you know what to do. This person I spoke to yesterday, they said he had filed in 2008, so what, almost six years ago and never served their spouse. You know, what can he do? Can he get copies, does he have to start over, does he have to re-file?

So, let’s talk about that. What we are finding is a lot of people are starting the process, trying to do it on their own and then later realize that they did not complete the process or they didn’t do it correctly and it was rejected.

We’ve even had cases where people have called us and have already been remarried, and then found out that their divorce were not finalized. So certainly, you don’t want that to happen to you.

But here’s what you can do, here’s what we can do for you, if you need assistance completing your old divorce case that you filed.

Okay, 2008, he filed the papers, never served the wife. So what the court sometimes will do is they’ll dismiss the case if the case you filed has never been served. They’ll just dismiss it, usually they’ll wait 5 years.

Fortunately, the courts are overwhelmed and they’re not doing that right now. So what we’ll find, we’ll have to do that this person, or the first thing you would want to do, if you’re going to attempt to correct it in your own, find your case number. To do that, if you don’t know it, if you don’t have conformed copies which doesn’t sound like this person does. You’ll have to go down to the court house where you filed. Those are the only computers that have public access where you can search by name.

Online from your home or from my office we can only punch the case number in. So, if we don’t have the case number you have to go down to the court house you filed in.

If you are in Los Angeles County, you can go to any of the branches in San Fernando, Lancaster. In the clerk’s office they do have a computer where you can search by name to find out your case number, then once you have the case number you can find out how to proceed.

So, in this case, if you have filed let’s say and you either never served or you served and then didn’t move forward. What you need to do is figure out where you are at and then how to move forward.

So, let’s talk about this particular old case and what we will advise him to do and what we will probably end up doing for him.

Again, first we need to get the case number, once we have the case number we can what has been done. If there is a filed case and it hasn’t been cancelled. We can get copies from the clerk. Once we have copies, we just have to pick up where we left off. The first order of business would be to get her served, and then move forward with the process from there. Complete the financial disclosures, preliminary declaration disclosure and coming expense, schedule of assets and debts and then complete the final judgment.

We can assume in these older cases that there probably was no children perhaps, no request for spousal support, usually it’s a no assets, no debts. You know, short term marriages that usually fall into these categories.

Another case we had, it was an old, old case, it was over eighteen years old. This person hired us to complete the case and again they had filed and only served the documents and nothing else had been done and they thought that they had completed their case. We’re going to pick up from there and this will be an interesting case because she did have copies of her paperwork but it was very, very old, seventeen years ago. They didn’t even have computer records back then. It was kept in this large green books of the file document.

So, if you have questions about California divorce, if you need assistance completing your old case. We can help you anywhere in California. Just let us know the case number. If you don’t have it, we can obtain it for you, we can let you know what steps need to be taken next and we can wrap things up for you.

So, please give me a call.

My name is Tim Blankenship. We’d be happy to help you with your old case.

Direct number is 661-281-0266. We specialize in California divorce and you can learn more off our website at divorce661.com.

Thanks for reading!