Hello again, this is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. Today we’re going to be doing a how-to video on how to prepare the petition for divorce.

The county of Los Angeles says that there are two forms that you need to file in order to initiate a divorce in California. So we’re going to, in this video, just discuss the petition alone, and there’ll be future videos on the other forms as we move along here.

Now, we are a legal document preparation service. We specialize in the divorce process in all of California. And you can see we have dedicated websites throughout Los Angeles County based on your area code; and if you’re looking for specific information regarding the divorce process, specific court information in your local area, please use one of our websites you see on your screen now or give us a call for information.

In the video below we mention that we are virtual for purposes of assisting folks throughout California, however we do have offices in Santa Clarita, CA.  The text of this post is the transcript of the video.

We are a full service document preparation service that means we can help you regardless of your location in California, we do serve all the courts in California, and if you’re looking for assistance through the divorce process, get your paperwork completed, and not have to step foot into an office and do it completely online, we’re your firm.

So let’s move on. Again, this is probably our 5th or 6th video in how-to and this is for people going through the divorce process without attorneys, who are in pro per, representing themselves, we’re trying to make it easier to find this information so they can get through the process; and if not, use our service if they need an affordable way to have someone professionally prepare the paperwork.

So today we’re going to talk about just completing the petition.

If you’ll note here on the LA County website, as far as the steps you’ll see here that the petition FL-100 is one of the forms that you need to complete, so we’re gonna talk about that specifically today.

So, let’s pull up the petition here, that’s not it, okay here’s the petition, FL-100, this is one of the first forms that you’ll need to complete; and if you’re representing yourself, I’m just gonna go through this and have you follow on, you can pause the video if you’re actually doing this on your own, not a problem.

So you’ll be John Smith, and 123 Main Street, and you put your city, state, and zip here, your phone number, you just punch this in here.

If the court needs to contact you it’s important you have that in here. Your email address, you can put that in if you want; not necessary, it’s optional. Here for attorney you’re gonna say In Pro Per, or some people put Self-represented, your choice.

And, you’re going to be Superior Court of Los Angeles. For court address we can use the, let’s use our San Fernando branch, 900 Third Street, and that is the North Valley branch. Petitioner, you’re gonna put your name here if you are filling this out. This would be your spouse’s name here. And case number, you won’t have one yet, ‘cause you’re just filing the paperwork.

You were filing for dissolution of marriage, that means divorce. If you have lived as a resident of the state for the last six months you’re gonna mark this box, if your spouse has also been here for the last six months you can also mark that box as well.

Put in your date of marriage, here you’re gonna put the date of separation, and then give us a total, years and months. If you have minor children, you’ll mark this box, but if not you mark this box, but if you do, you’re gonna put in the name, date of birth, age, male or female, and you’ll also have to do another form this UCCJEA if you have minor children; we’ll discuss that in another video altogether.

Separate property: here you can identify property which you consider to be separate. We’ll talk about separate property, community property in other videos. We use some boiler point language when we professionally prepare your documents with this company; otherwise you can itemize separate property here, you can say you want it to be confirmed to yourself, so you say confirm to petitioner, and again you can put the property in here if you like.

Page 2 of the divorce Petition

Page two, you’re going to indicate your community property that property assets and debts that you accumulated during marriage. Again, you can use the boiler point language that we use if we are preparing your forms or you can indicate what that community debts are; generally speaking though, for community assets and debts there won’t be enough room here to do so; and you can use language that essentially says you’re gonna supplement your financials down the road.

You’re gonna request dissolution of marriage based on irreconcilable differences, this is generally, this is all I have done, and this is ninety-nine percent of the time it’s gonna be irreconcilable differences. The courts don’t care your reason for divorce, just that it’s irreconcilable.

Alright, so this is going to be regarding some more of you’re asking for the court, legal custody regarding the children, if you want it to be joint you mark this box, if not you can say you want legal custody, to you, physical custody to you, or you can just do joint, it’s completely up to you.

These forms, again we’ll do a videos on these forms, but these are attachments to the petition that you, some of these are for say, child custody, visitation orders, holiday schedules, and things of that nature.

You can ask the court to terminate jurisdiction and ability toward spousal support to the other spouse. You can ask for property rights to be determined. And if you’re the wife and you want your name back, you can say I want to go back to my former name and you can put that here. So this covers the petition, just make sure you date it, you sign it, and put your name here. And this is how you complete the petition.

Again, my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist, providing self-help legal services, specializing in divorce in all of California,

please give a call if you’d like your forms professionally prepared, and if not enjoy the videos and hopefully they’re helpful and representing yourself and getting these forms completed.

So please give me a call if you have any questions, you wanna find out some of our affordable pricing, schedules for preparing your forms; other than that I’d be happy to help you or simply enjoy the videos. The next video will be on the summons so keep on watching if you’re moving through the process with us and I hope you have a good day.