Just Found Out My California Divorce Was Never Finalized

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

It is happening way to often where people are calling me for help after finding out that their California divorce was never finalized.  Usually this is after a significant period of time.

Yesterdays caller told me it had been 10 years since they filed for divorce.  The oldest case I had to help someone finish up had been filed 18 years ago.  In the worst situations, some people had already remarried!

So why is this happening so much?  It boils down to clients attempting to complete their divorce case on their own.  In all these cases, the parties were attempting to do their own divorce and represent themselves having no idea how the divorce process works.  In all these cases, there was nobody to blame but themselves.

So how can you tell when your divorce is totally over?  It is when you get a final judgment in your divorce case which handles all issues of your divorce and is signed by the judge.  The form will say “Judgment” and you will receive a “Notice of Entry of Judgment” that lets you know that the divorce judgment has been entered.

Until you receive these documents, your California divorce is not finalized.

Lets say you go to Court for a hearing about custody or spousal support or something like that and the Judge makes orders at the hearing.  This is not your final judgment.  These are just temporary orders until final judgment is entered.

I had this happen just the other day.  A client of ours went to a hearing where his wife was requesting spousal support.  At the end of the hearing, he called me to say everything was settled.  I asked him what did he mean?  He said he went to court and the Judge made orders and they were done.

I had to inform him that these were just temporary orders and that he still had to complete the majority of the divorce process.  All that had been done was that he filed and his wife responded and they had a hearing on spousal support.

They had not completed their financial disclosures or completed their final divorce judgment.

Just remember that your California divorce is not final until judgment is entered and your receive it back from the court signed by the Judge.

If you find yourself reading this article and have realized that your California divorce is not finalized we can help.  Make sure to locate your case number and give us a call.  We can look up your case summary and see what has been filed and what is left to do complete your California divorce.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm that specializes in California divorce. We can help you finalize your California divorce. Call us today or download the free report of the top 10 reasons your divorce was not finalized.

 

Don’t Plan Wedding Until California Divorce Finalized

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I have two current clients that have planned their next wedding and their California divorce is not finalized yet.  If the issues of this are not obvious enough, I will discuss in detail why this is not a good idea.

But first, lets talk a little bit about why they ended up in this predicament.  Both of these clients had long been separated from their current spouses.  They just never got around to going through the divorce process and making their divorce official.

They both met new people, started dating which lead to getting engaged.  They both even set a wedding date.

Now they have to get their divorce completed and in a hurry. The problems this causes are many, and we wanted to address a few of them.

The first problem is that you cannot predict when your divorce will be finalized.  Everyone thinks that divorce takes 6 months when in fact  the 6 month figure is the SOONEST your divorce can be finalized.  It does not mean that your divorce will be finalized.  And if you live in California it is pretty much guaranteed that your divorce will take much longer than 6 months.

This is due to the layoffs and Court closures in California.  The Courts are severely impacted with tons of divorce cases and they just can’t get through them fast enough.

We are seeing divorce cases in Los Angeles County routinely take 8 to 10 months to complete.  And we are talking about 8 to 10 months from the time the final judgment or stipulation is filed with the court.

Okay, so we know the courts are slow.  So unless your wedding date is 2 years out, I would just not do it.

Make it a priority to get your existing marriage ended by filing for divorce right away so you don’t have to worry about these issues.  One of my clients I have has a wedding date in 3 weeks and the judgment has still not been signed off by the court and there is nothing you can do to speed up the process.  They are worried about hoping their divorce gets finalized and not on the their wedding.

Here is another issue.  Sometimes you will be required to prove that you are not married or if you were married have to prove that you are divorced by providing a court approved divorce judgment or decree.  They will not issue a marriage license in some cases, until you provide this proof.

One of my clients has told me that the church he wished to get married in will not even schedule their wedding until they their prior marriage is over.

So what is the moral of this story.  If you are one of those folks that has long been separated from your spouse and never finalized it, you should really consider getting it done.

And if you are  dating someone else, you better really make getting your divorce finalized a priority before things get serious.  You won’t want to find yourself in the same shoes as my current clients.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in California divorce.  We are headquartered in Los Angeles, CA and can help you with your divorce anywhere in California.

California Divorce | Not Filing Response To Save Money

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce | Not Filing Response To Save Money

If you are filing for divorce in California and your plan is to save money by not filing a Response to divorce and file a default case, you will want to read this.

There is a better way to file your California divorce if you are trying to save money by not filing a Response.  Let me explain.

I have had a few clients come to our office who had started the divorce process on their own.  They said they plan on filing a default type divorce because they don’t want the extra cost of having to pay the filing fee for filing the Response.

I ask them if they filing a default because their spouse is not cooperating or does not want to participate.  Their answer was, “No”.  They said their spouse is in agreement with the terms of the divorce and the only reason they are filing a default divorce is to save the money on the filing fees.

So these folks are using a default divorce as more of a strategy to save money, but not for the real reason the default divorce is there for.  It does work to save money, but there are some downsides to the default divorce.  Especially if you and your spouse are in agreement.

First, let me tell you about this better way to save money on the filing fees when you are in agreement on your California divorce.   It is called a California default divorce with agreement. We have written a complete article on that which you can read by clicking on the previous link.

With the California Default Divorce with agreement you will still be filing the Request To Enter Default, but you will be doing so not after 30 days, but along with the written agreement.  This way you and your spouse and file for divorce, save money by not paying a response fee and still enter into a written agreement.

The benefits to this are that divorce by agreement are much less scrutinized by the Courts and you can split up your assets pretty much however you decide.  If you file a true default case, the Court is going to require that you evenly distribute your assets and debts, even if is not a fair and equitable division.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in California divorce.  We can help complete your divorce case anywhere in California.

Please feel free to give us a call.

 

 

Have You Asked A Divorce Question On AVVO.com

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you are ever doing research or looking for information about divorce in California, you may come across a website called Avvo (dot) com.  I have found this site to be nothing more than lead generation tool for attorneys and not a resource for valuable information.

They say they are an expert only question and answer forum where people can ask legal questions of lawyers for free.  It is true that you can ask questions for free.  And attorneys will even answer the questions….  Or will they?

I read the answers that the divorce attorneys give and they are laughable.  I say this because their answers are so generic that they lack any real value.

It seems that the only reason that the attorneys are part of Avvo is so they can get their name in front of people looking for advice so they can hopefully get their business.  Attorneys are afraid that if they give the answer, the client will never need them.

This is so far from the truth.

I give out information all the time on how to complete the divorce process.  Some of the people use me and others are so grateful for the information, they end up using my service.

I have to admit that some of the questions asked by folks are not clear and therefore they do not get a clear answer, but I did a little test of my own.

I posted a very specific question that would require a very specific answer.

The answers not only did not give any helpful advice, but the attorneys that did answer ended their reply with “I suggest that you speak to an attorney for assistance”.

What you will notice throughout avvo is that all the attorneys will say you need to speak to an attorney.  So it appears that there is no real help to be obtained here, rather just a trap to get attorneys in front of you.

I am sure the divorce attorneys are paying a pretty penny to be a part of the forums being promised they can get clients from responding to potential clients needs.  I have a feeling nobody is getting what they thought they were getting.

We are a licensed and bonded divorce document preparation service that specializes in divorce.  If you have a question about divorce, feel free to call us.  You can find lots of information on this blog or by watching our videos.

We are headquartered in Santa Clarita, California and can help you with your divorce anywhere in California.

Completing California Divorce Property Judgment Correctly

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you are representing yourself in your divorce in California and are now working on your divorce judgment package, make sure to read this article.

You will soon find (or have found) that the divorce judgment package is the most difficult part of the divorce paperwork.  People routinely have their divorce judgment packages rejected 2, 3 and even 4 times adding years to the day they finalize their divorce.

This article is specifically about the property order portion of the divorce judgment.  This is the part where you are listing your property and who is getting what.  It is divided up by community property and separate property.

Lately the courts have been getting very particular about how you identify your property on the judgment.  We used to be able to identify the property very basically, but now they want specific account numbers, licensed plates of vehicles, etc.

You can no longer simply say “Chase Checking Account”  You now have to list the account numbers.

Here is a list of how to properly describe your property.

  • For vehicles – Year, Make Model and License Number – If you leave out the license number of just one vehicle you risk having your judgment rejected.
  • For bank accounts, credit cards, investments, loans – List the name of the bank and the last 4 digits of the account number. You don’t want to put the full account number because technically it is public record.
  • For Homes- You need to put the full legal description of all properties.  The home address alone will not suffice.  You can get the legal description off your deed.

The above areas is where we find folks representing themselves having trouble with the judgment when submitting their divorce case.  Using the the information above will increase the odds of having your divorce judgment approved.

We have written many articles on the difficulty of getting your California divorce judgment approved by the courts.

If you have had your California divorce judgment rejected, we have a judgment review service where we can review your entire case and make sure it is correct and resubmit it for you.

If you have not completed your divorce judgment yet, this is a good time to get our assistance in preparing your divorce judgment.  We have a lot of clients that come to us for this service.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in California divorce.  We can help you anywhere in California with your divorce case.

Default California Divorce Judgment | Can You Terminate Spousal Support

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

This is a follow up article to our discussion on how to terminate spousal support on long term marriages in California.  That article spoke about how and if you can terminate spousal by agreement in your divorce.

This article will discuss how and if you can terminate spousal support when you have a long term marriage and you are filing your divorce by default.

By default, simply means that your spouse did not file a response.

The Court says that if you have a marriage over 10 years that jurisdiction for spousal support will be indefinite.  We have filed many default divorce judgments in California and the filing party wanted to terminate spousal support despite it being a long term marriage.

At first we tried to submit default judgments per the clients request, knowing that it would get rejected by the court, but sometimes that is the only way you can prove your right.

When this happened, folks going through divorce were stuck having indefinite jurisdiction on spousal support with no other options.

But you do have one last option you can use if you really want to terminate the Courts jurisdiction on spousal support on your long term marriage in California.

There is a form called “Request For Default Setting” and is form FAM-031.  This form is used when you have filed or are filing concurrently a Request To Enter Default.

If you look at the form, you will notice that you can set a default hearing if you are seeking to obtain a judgment based on the fact that you a requesting to terminate spousal support in a marriage over 10 years.

We have begun filing many of these Request For Default Settings lately because our clients don’t want to be stuck with indefinite jurisdiction over spousal support simply because their spouse did not respond.

We have not had any default hearings set yet, but we will report back when our clients begin to go to these hearings and let you now what the Court is asking in order to approve the termination of spousal support on a long term marriage default divorce judgments.

Terminating Spousal Support On Long Term Marriage | California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We handle a lot of divorce cases in California every month an so come across a lot of different issues.

If you do your homework, you will learn that California considers any marriage over 10 years to be of long term.  As this pertains to spousal support, the Courts say that long term marriages have indefinite jurisdiction over spousal support.

What this means is that the Court will have the jurisdiction to award Spousal Support indefinitely when the marriage is over 10 years.

So here is the question.

  1. How do you terminate spousal support on long term marriages when the parties agree that they want to do so?

First, I must state that we are not a law office and not attorneys.  We just process a high volume of divorce cases in California. We cannot recite the law or give advice, we are simply explaining what we have come across and how we have handled it.

So for the first question.  How to terminate spousal support on long term marriages when the parties agree.  What we have done is to have both the parties sign a waiver. This is a waiver we drafted and include it in the judgment on the spousal support order part of the judgment.

We simply make sure to cover the reasons spousal support can normally be requested or modified.  We say the parties agree to terminate spousal support and that the order terminating spousal support is non-modifiable by either party for any reason and that regardless of future needs of spousal support or ability to pay spousal support, the court cannot make orders for spousal support.

If the parties stipulate to terminate spousal support on long term marriages, the courts will generally sign off on this.

Depending on the Court, they may reject the judgment.  We have had some Judges state that they will not approve agreements that violate the law.  They have told us that in long term marriages, the Court will retain jurisdiction indefinitely, you remarry or die.

So it appears it will depend on the Judge if you can get them to approve the judgment terminating spousal support on your long term marriage.

If you find your judgment getting rejected for this reason, one last thing you can do is file a motion (Request For Order) to enter judgment.  In the motion you can request the court grant your judgment to terminate spousal support.  You and your spouse can attend the hearing and explain to the court that you are willingly giving up this right.

We would love to hear any feedback from folks who have done this or attorneys who have had other successes.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm that specializes in divorce.  We are headquartered in Los Angeles, CA and serve all the Courts in California.

Van Nuys Divorce Motions Now 90 Days Until Hearing

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We just learned that Van Nuys divorce motions are taking 90 days to get a hearing.  This means from the time you file a Request For Order (RFO) it will be at least 90 days until you will see the judge.

(By the way, we can help you prepare a motion (request for order) if you are looking to file a motion or respond to one.)

This is bad news for those who are filing a motion with the court to modify child support or spousal support or need any type of orders for that matter.

We had previously written in the past on this topic where we reported that divorce motions were taking up to 60 days, which at the time was up from 45 days.

It appears the the service we can expect from the Los Angeles Divorce Courts are getting worse.  This is, by far, the longest time frames we have seen recently.  I spoke to our attorney service who files all our court documents everyday and they said that the Van Nuys divorce court is by far the worst when it comes to getting a hearing.

I don’t know if it is because it is October and the court has a lot of day of coming up that the court will be closed due to holidays and Judges out due to vacation or not, but we could only hope.  Because if this is a consistent issue, we will not likely see any improvements.

You have to keep this in mind when you are going to file a motion.  If you need an order right away, you are going to want to file a motion as soon as possible.  Today is September 30, 2013 and I was told by Van Nuys Court that they are already scheduling motions and hearing into January.

Let me give you a little reality on what this means.  Lets say you need to file a motion for child support or spousal support.  You are filing because your spouse won’t agree out of court to pay any support.

Obviously there is a need for support and you need money.  So you file your motion and you have to wait 90 days.  This is 90 days until the hearing only.  It is not like you are going to get a check from you spouse at the hearing!

Sometimes, after the hearing, the person who filed the motion will be asked to prepare an order after hearing that both parties would have to sign.  This process can add at least another month. Once you get that signed, you need to submit it to the court for the judge to sign.  Yes, you got it!  Another month indeed.

So now you are looking at almost 5 months before your request for spousal support or any order you request to take effect.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in divorce in California.  We provide a flat fee pricing schedule to make divorce affordable.

 

California Divorce | Is It Okay To Live With Spouse During Divorce?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you are considering getting divorced in California, you may be wondering if it is okay to live with your spouse while your are going through the divorce process.

This really depends upon the reason you are asking.  First, it may be by pure necessity that you continue to live with your spouse during the divorce process.

We are a licensed divorce document preparation firm that specializes in affordable California divorces and many of our clients continue to live with their spouses for financial reasons.  They just don’t have the ability to live separately until they get the divorce finanlized.  These couples will generally just maintain the status quo until their California divorce is completed.

If you are asking this question from a legal sense, we are not really going to address this.  If you are asking the question this way, you are probably wondering if  by living with your spouse, it will void the date of separation for purposes of community and separate property.  We are not going to address the legality of it from that viewpoint.

What you should know is that you can live together and still be separated.  You do not have to be living in separate homes to be considered separated.  There are some states that requires that but in California there is no requirement that you actually move out into separate homes.  It could just be that one of you sleeps on the couch or in another bedroom.

Because we are  not a law firm, most of our clients are attempting to work through their divorce as amicable as possible.  Most of them still live together out of necessity and will are working towards a resolution on how they are going to make it financially when they actually separate and their divorce is concluded.

So the answer is yes, it is okay to live with your spouse when you are getting divorced.  I have even had some clients complete their divorce and still live together.  Probably not the ideal scene, but I think you get the point.

We are a licensed divorce document preparation firm that specialized in California divorce.  Please give us a call to learn more about our fixed fee divorce pricing.

Are You Frustrated By California Divorce Process

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you are frustrated by the California Divorce process, you are not alone.  Tens of thousands of people attempt to complete their own divorce every year and most will fail.

They do not fail for lack of trying or intellect.  They fail because they do not have the time to commit fully to understanding the California divorce process.

Most have busy families and of course are working a full time job.  They just don’t have the time to commit to fully learning the process, thus do a half-ass job on the divorce paperwork.  These are legal forms that have to be done exactly.  Make one mistake and you not only have to redo the divorce form, but now have to re-file and re-serve.  A process that frustrates many.

Most of the people we have spoke to have admitted trying to complete their California divorce forms after they have come home form work, spent time with the family, made dinner and put the kids to bed.

It is now 11 pm, your exhausted and the last thing you need to do is try to sit down at your computer and attempt to fill out complex legal forms and read complex instructions on how to complete your divorce.  Trust me when I say we hear this all the time.

Instead of becoming frustrated by the process, why not instead use a professional divorce service that can take the stress away from you.  We are a full service California divorce document preparation firm.

This means that we will prepare all your divorce forms, file them with the court and prepare your final divorce agreement and judgment.

Our divorce service works off a flat fee basis, so you know what your costs are going to be right from the beginning.

Don’t get frustrated trying to prepare your California Divorce. Instead, give us a call and let the professionals handle your California Divorce for you.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in California divorce and are headquartered in Santa Clarita, CA.