California Divorce Use The Same Name On All Divorce Forms
Today we’re talking about the importance of having the information on your forms identical throughout the divorce process.
As you’re filling out your divorce forms, it’s important that your name specifically, on how you list your name in the summons and the petition remain the same all the way through.
We had recently some clients that came to us who were attempting to do their own divorce. They’re having some difficulty, they had their paperwork rejected multiple times and one of the reasons was the name throughout the process, because this is over a period of several months and almost a year.
They started changing their name, meaning they left out their middle name or instead of William they used Bill and things like that.
What you want to do is when you start your divorce and on the summons and petition, whatever name you start with you’ll going to want to use that throughout the divorce. So, if my name is Tim S. Blankenship, I would want to use exactly that on all summons and petition.
You’re going to want to use that at the top of all your forms and where you name the petitioner and respondent on the summons and petition. You’re going to want to make sure that that’s the same all the way through.
Now, when you use our service this is never an issue because we use some courts software that once we set up the account it’s transferred over to all the forms. That’s never an issue for us.
But if you’re out there trying to do your own divorce and you’re doing this a bit at a time and you’re getting the forms off the internet or you’re filling them out by hand with pen, there is a chance that as the weeks and months goes by that you start to change things. That you put a different name, maybe leave out an initial which is all it takes to have this problem.
So, this particular case, they were trying to file a default case and when they submitted the request to enter default, it was rejected and it says ”names of petitioner and respondent do not match the names on the petition”.
When we looked at the paperwork, what they had done is on the petition they had first, middle and last. And then when they filled out their notice to enter default they just had first and last and because the names no longer match, they rejected it solely on that.
Just keep in mind if you’re doing your own divorce, make sure you use the same name. If it’s first, middle, last or first, middle initial, last, whatever it is, make sure it’s the same at the top of the forms where you’re listing your name and address and where you list your name as a petitioner and as a respondent.
This is something you can really foul up your divorce, whether it gets caught at the nose of request to enter default stage or when you submit your judgment. if that is in the wrong name or different name than the petition, the judgment will be rejected for that issue alone.
Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Feel free to give me a call. The number is 661-281-0266. I’d be happy to help you with your divorce whether you’re just getting started or you’re somewhere in between or you’ve taken it all the way to judgment and had it rejected multiple times.
Give us a call, we can pick up where you left off, we’d be happy to help.