This week we’ve been talking about true default cases when going through divorce in California.

And I want to talk specifically about true default cases when you have a marriage of longer than ten years.

So, let’s first talk about that when you have a marriage of over ten years, the California courts consider that a long term marriage. Now, we are not attorneys or a law firm here are not able to give legal advice, but if you go online you can find this information readily available.

So, in the long term marriages over ten years, the court will generally retain jurisdiction indefinitely over the issue of spousal support.

But what if you are filing a default case (and a default case is where you filed and the other party did not respond and are not participating at all) but you want to terminate the jurisdiction over spouse support and you have a ten year marriage?

Generally speaking that is not allowed by the courts. If you are filing a default and you have a marriage more than ten years, it is customary and standard that you have to mark the boxes that jurisdiction will remain for both petitioner and respondent.

So, in a default case, if you’re going to ask something out of the norm, you may have to ask for a hearing which is called a Prove Up hearing, and there is a form where if you want to terminate jurisdiction over spousal support for a long term marriages in a default case, I know that’s very specific.

You’re going to want to use form FAM031 and check the box that says “Request to terminate spousal support and marriage over ten years”. The reason you need to do this is because if you submit a default judgment and you have a ten year or longer marriage and you ask the court to terminate jurisdiction, they are going to reject your judgment. We have seen it a thousand times.

If you submit this form they will set a prove up hearing. You have to make an appearance in court. It’ll just be you and the court is going to ask you why it is in the best interest of you and your spouse to terminate jurisdiction over spouse support and then they will make a decision whether or not to do that or if they will not allow it and have you go the normal process of having jurisdiction retained for purposes of spousal support.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. We specialize in divorce in California. We can help you anywhere in the state of California with your divorce.

Please give us a call, we will be happy to help you out. 661-281-0266. For more information of our website at divorce661.com.

You can also tune in to our podcast on itunes at divorce master radio. Thanks for watching!

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