How To Establish Paternity During California Divorce

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How To Establish Paternity During California Divorce

Today we are talking about establishing paternity during the divorce process in California.

Okay, what is paternity?

You have to establish paternity in your divorce case if you are filing for divorce and you have a child with your spouse and that child was born prior to the marriage.

So, anytime the child was born prior to the marriage, you need to establish paternity through your divorce filing.

Now, this is the case whether or not you have a birth certificate with a father’s name on it or if the father has filed the declaration paternity, the form you’ll fill out in the hospital. You still need to have this paternity established during the divorce.

And in order to do this, it’s very simple. Obviously we’re assuming that there is no contest regarding who is the father. So that would be number one.

What you’re going to do to do this again, it’s simple. All you need to do on the petition, this is the FL-100 is on box 7D on page two. It’s a very small line, it’s very easy to miss and many people do. You need to check that box 7D on page two of the petition, FL-100. You’re going to check that box if you have a child born prior to the marriage.

If you don’t do that and you file it and if you happen to miss it, you don’t catch it. Many people forget to check this box because they assume that it’s the father but you need to establish that through the court if file that and it’s not checked and you have a child born before the marriage and you serve it. It will end up rejecting your entire case.

You would need to re-file and a minute petition and correct that and mark that box 7D to establish paternity.

I hope that’s helpful.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com for more information or feel free to call me, 661-281-0266. We’d be happy to help you with your divorce in California.

California Default Divorce With Agreement | CA Divorce

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California Default Divorce With Agreement | CA Divorce

Today we are talking about the California divorce process called default with agreement.

This should be one of the most talked about styles of divorce but it’s not.

What it is briefly is a divorce with agreement but is a default case. Trying to give you a little background on this.

A true default case is one where you file or your spouse files and the other party does not respond and doesn’t do anything. They don’t fill out any financial forms, disclosures. They don’t enter into a written agreement, nothing.

That’s what is called a true default. And we’re finding that people are doing that strategically so they don’t have to pay a filing fee and that’s fine. But there is a better way.

This is called a default with agreement. What this allows you to do is, one party files and the other party does not respond, you both do all your same financial disclosures, incoming expense and schedule of assets and debts and then you enter into a written agreement. This is called a default with agreement.

So it can still be a default case because no response was filed but you’re going to file a request to enter default form with the judgment and that’s the difference.

Now, why do I suggest this? Because it saves you money. You can enter into a written agreement with you and your spouse and get the courts approval with no response fee.

You won’t have to pay a fee for the response, because as you know, if you file for a divorce you pay a filing fee. If your spouse response, they pay a filing fee.

So this is a way to get through the entire case with a single filing fee.

Of course, this is only going to be useful if you have an amicable, uncontested case where you guys trust each other and are working on coming to an agreement on things.

Default with agreement is also known as a hybrid. I talk about this quite a bit, 95% of our cases are filed this way. Purely to save people money.

Now, we can help you save money up to this point $435. Now, you have some money to use our service to prepare your divorce documents for you.

We are licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm. We specialize in California divorce. We can help you anywhere you are in California.

Please feel free to give us a call. We’d be happy to get your divorce completed for you. We do work on affordable flat rates. You’ll find more information about us at divorce661.com or feel free to give me a call at 661-281-0266.

You can click the link below, it will take you right to the article related to this video so you can learn more about the default with agreement divorce in California.

California Divorce | Do You Need To File Response When Divorce Is Amicable?

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California Divorce | Do You Need To File Response When Divorce Is Amicable?

Today I want to talk to you about filing for divorce in California and if you need to file a response if your divorce is amicable.

If everything is pretty hunky-dory and you think you’re going to get through your divorce and it’s not going to be contested and you’re not going to end up in court. Meaning, it’s amicable, the question is should you file a response.

If you take a look at the summons, it’ll say that you have to file a response and if you don’t file a response, the court can make decisions without you and a lot of that stuff can happen to you. And that’s true.

However, if you have an amicable divorce and you and your spouse are working together to complete your case together and that’s how we do 95% of our cases. Both parties are working together. We don’t have them file a response.

It’s not necessary to complete your judgment. You don’t have to file a response to complete your judgment if you have an amicable divorce. You can still complete your divorce, do all the financial paperwork. All the same things you would do as if you responded and including entering into a written agreement with your spouse.

This is what’s called a hybrid. It’s also called a default with agreement. Totally allowed by the courts. They don’t advertise it because they’d rather get two filing fees if they could.

And if you have questions on this, make sure to call me. You can also research on our YouTube channel, default agreement with default divorce with agreement.

We’ve done a video on that as well so you can get more information on that. Just to do homework and see if that will work for you.

The reason we wanted to get this information out there is because the filing fees in California are $435 currently. You would be beneficial if you could save that money and file a hybrid or a default with agreement divorce case and save $435.

If you want more information on this, call me and I’d be happy to prepare your divorce in this manner. Save you that $435 and then that would help you afford our fees for preparing your divorce and you don’t have to do it on your own.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. 661-281-0266. We do handle divorce cases all throughout California.

Look forward to helping you and of course you can always get more information off our website or feel free to give me a call, we’d be happy to help you.

Why You Should Not Do Your Own California Divorce

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Why You Should Not Do Your Own California Divorce

I wanted to talk to you today about why you don’t want to do your own divorce in California.

I’ve written plenty of articles on the fact that you can do your own divorce, which you can. But this video is going to tell you about the pitfalls of trying to do your own divorce in California.

Now, the reason I say trying is because a lot of people a lot of people try and a lot of people fail and I want to let you know what you’re up against and some of the things you’re going to find.

Again, yes you can do your own divorce technically. Doing your own divorce and actually completing successfully are two entirely different things.

Let’s talk about some of the down sides. Number one, you’re not an industry. You’re not in the business of doing divorce. I’m sure you have a career, something you do very well at, something that I don’t know how to do and I wouldn’t attempt to do your job so you shouldn’t attempt to do mine.

Number two and these are in no particular order. The divorce forms are tricky it kinds of go back to number one. You’re not going to understand the process. You’re not going to understand the forms. You’re not going to understand the procedure.

Some of it is easy to understand but most of it is very difficult and the forms only get harder. Meaning, you may be able to file your summons and petitions. The initial paperwork. It’s not that difficult.

You may serve it correctly. You may do your financial forms correctly but if you get through all that you have your final judgment and agreement to prepare and that’s where people have the most trouble.

Most people have their judgment rejected multiple, multiple times. We’re talking about 3, 4, 5, 6 times and I noticed because people come to us after attempted to do their divorce on their own and they just can’t get it through the system.

And they’ve spent years, months, of frustration. Thinking they’ve save themselves money, where really what they’ve done is spent probably more time working on their case when they could have earn additional income to their business. Maybe they spent time in the evenings on the weekend or after work or in the self-help centers trying to complete their divorce and to no avail, ultimately just having to hire us. Had they hired us from the beginning, their case would have been finalized long ago.

Those are the main reasons why we don’t suggest you file your own divorce or attempt to do your own case in California.

Give us a call. We can get your case completed quick, painless and affordabe. We work on a flat fee basis. You can go to divorce661.com. Go to our pricing page. Take a look there at our affordable pricing it’s all fix fees. It’s all based on the amount of work we’re going to have to do.

Everything is upfront as far as the cost, there’s no hidden fees and we take care of everything. Preparing your documents, take them to court, filing them, serving them, financial disclosures. Preparing your final judgment which is everything.

We’re talking about parenting plan, custody, visitation, child support, spousal support, property order, who’s getting what. We can help you with all of that.

Now, you may ask how do we file it with court if we’re in Los Angeles let’s say, and you are in Sacramento. Not a problem, we have cases all over California. We can help you file your case. We do a lot of it over the phone and fax, we do not use questionnaires.

If you look around online, you’ll find that people use questionnaires, make you do all the work. That’s not what we do.

We’ll fill out all the forms. We’ll use a phone appointment to get the documents done. Email them to you if you’re out of the area. You can sign them. Send it back to us and we’ll file them with the court by mail.

We have the process very streamlined. Again, it’s very affordable.

Please go to our website, the link is below. Feel free to click on that. You can get more information about an article I wrote on if you should do your own divorce. More of the positive side.

And then you can be on our blog and get all the additional resources and information on how we can help you prepare your divorce.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. We handle divorce cases all throughout California. Call me direct, 661-281-0266 and we look forward on helping you with your divorce.

How To File For Divorce In Palmdale | Lancaster California

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How To File For Divorce In Palmdale | Lancaster California

In this video we want to talk to you about the couple of ways you have to file your divorce in Palmdale and Lancaster.

Number one, if you have more time than money, the Lancaster court, the Michael Antonovich Court House in Lancaster does have a self-help clinic.

If you have more time than money, meaning you’re unemployed and you don’t have funds available to hire a service like ours to prepare your divorce. You can always go to the self-help clinic at the Lancaster court house.

And just too so you’ve been made aware, the free service is worth every penny.

What I mean by that is, it is free, you’re going to spend a lot of time there. It’s going to take you at least twenty trips before you finish your divorce and most people do not succeed with them so you have to be very patient. They’re not the nicest folks up there from what I hear.

But I do want to let you know that if you are unemployed and you don’t have funds or resources to hire a professional service and that’s really your choice. It is there and available for you.

Number two, to file your divorce in Palmdale and Lancaster is you could do it yourself. You do not need to hire an attorney. You could go online, you can get the forms. You can attempt to do it your own. You could watch more than 200 of our videos on how to prepare your own divorce.

It is possible. I had people call me and say thanks Tim, I’ve prepared my entire divorce using your videos. But again, like the self-help center, very time consuming. You’re going to spend a lot of hours of your own time doing this on your own.

The third way, and of course we prefer you do it this way is to hire a professional service such as ours. Our cost are very low, are affordable. We work on flat fee basis. And if you’re not working and you do have a little extra money lying around. We can even prepare a fee waiver for you and get your court fees waived.

What we’ll do for you is, we will take everything out of your hands. We will prepare all the forms, file with the court, we’ll actually take them up there for you. You don’t have to go to court at all.

We’ll serve them on your spouse. We’ll do all the financial disclosures and then we’ll prepare your judgment as you dictate, meaning what you want as far as assets and debts, who’s getting what, child support, parenting plan, custody, visitation, the whole shot.

We’ll it take at your hands. Do everything for you for a flat fee. You can go to divorce661.com and go to our pricing page. You can see where you fit in and again, we’ll take care of the fee waiver at no extra cost.

If you’re looking for a service, so you need help anywhere in the process. Meaning, you started your divorce and you got stuck, because honestly it’s just getting trickier as you go.

Please give me a call. 661-281-0266.

We serve all of the Los Angeles County and again, you can get more information off our website at divorce661.com.

I’ll include that link in this video. Talk to you soon and I hope this video was helpful.

How To File California Divorce Request To Enter Default

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How To File California Divorce Request To Enter Default

Today we are talking to you about the request to enter default form.

This is form FL-165. There’s been a lot of confusion on when and how to file it so we’re going to discuss that here.

We play this video and is also embedded into our blogs, so if you’re reading this on our blog you can watch the video and you can also follow up on reading the article that we have in this video embedded in.

The request to enter default. We should talk a little bit about what this is for.

When you file for divorce and the other party is served, that date that your spouse is served marks kind of a line in the sand as far as the jurisdiction on when your case starts. If your, today is November 4th 2013, so if your spouse is served today. Two things.

Number one is your divorced can’t be finalized for six months. That day the six month mark starts the day your spouse is served.

The other thing that starts on the day your spouse is served is the date which you can file the request to enter default.

Now, a default will be filed in two particular cases.

Number one, a true default case and also what’s called a hybrid or default with agreement.

Now, we’re going to like talk about the true default today because that’s really where the thirty day period comes in. Let’s get into this a bit.

The request to enter default form cannot be filed with the court until thirty days have passed from the day your spouse has been served. In fact, it cannot even be one day before that. So, I’d even say wait for thirty one days, wait thirty two days before you submit it and here’s the trick.

Do not date the form prior to that thirty day mark. It’s not when you submit it, it’s when you date the form.

Let me give you a scenario.

We had some clients who came to us for a service after they attempted to do their own divorce and they had tried to submit the request to enter default.

What they did was, they prepared the summons and petitions and a lot of the forms all in the same day. They filed the case, they got their spouse served but the date they put on the request to enter default was the same date that they filed the divorce paperwork. Obviously, not thirty days had elapsed.

It means you cannot prepare this form in advance, if you want to just don’t date it. The courts are now looking at the dates on your request to enter default. So, what I’m saying is even if you have submitted your request to enter default thirty days after the service where everything is good to go and you get it right, if you dated it sooner than thirty days, they will reject it just because the date on your form.

And the reason this is, is because a request to enter default has to get approved by the judicial assistant or the court clerk and it doesn’t get to them right away. So, when they get it, they don’t know when they received that form. All they do is look at the date on the request to enter default and if that date is under thirty days they’re going to reject it. So, just keep that in mind.

Real quick, I know I’ve said this when we’re talking about true default but we did this video pretty quick.

When you do the other style case, where you’re going to use a request to enter default that’s on a hybrid or that default with agreement. You’re not going to have to submit the request to enter default at that thirty day mark.

You’re going to submit the request to enter default with your judgment.

Hope that makes sense, my name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. My number is 661-281-0266. Give us a call if you’d like to hire us to complete your divorce for you.

And the link below in the video if you’re not already on our blog page. Talk to you soon!

California Divorce | We Work With Both Spouses During Divorce

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California Divorce | We Work With Both Spouses During Divorce

Today we are talking to you about how we are able to work with both spouses during the divorce process.

We are what’s called a neutral third party. We do not represent either side when you use our divorce service.

It doesn’t matter if you hire us or your spouse hires us, we can and often do work with both spouses. And the reason we’re able to do that is because we are not a law firm and we’re not attorneys. We are here simply to facilitate the divorce process in any way we can.

And if that means working with both spouses to get all the paperwork completed as required to complete your divorce. We’re willing to do that and we do that for the same price.

We don’t charge a double fee if we’re working with both spouses. We treat it as a single fee working with both parties to facilitate getting the process done.

You have a couple of options when it comes to doing that.

Some folks come in to our office together, both husband and wife come in and meet with us on the first occasion and we get to know each other and we complete the initial documents and we can get started that way.

But that’s not required. We only need the party filing for divorce to come in for the initial appointment to get the ball rolling, to complete the initial paperwork.

And then moving forward, it’s up to you if you want your spouse to come in later to meet with us or if you want to be the one that we kind of coordinate everything through.

Again, it really just comes down to what works best for you. Again, anyway we can facilitate the process in coordinating and moving things forward with you is what we’re here for.

If that means working with each of you independently, working with you together or working through one of you who will facilitate the process and moving things forward. And we have a pretty good idea of which way that’s going to go once we meet with you the first time.

We want to get this video message out there because when parties do hire us from the get go, sometimes they think that we’re here just to represent them, which isn’t the case. We don’t represent either side. We are a neutral third party. We’re here to facilitate the process and get the paperwork done and just get you guys divorced so you can move on with your lives.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com is our website.

Feel free to give me a call, 661-281-0266. We can handle divorce cases anywhere in California and we look forward to working with you.

Santa Clarita Divorce Mediation

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Santa Clarita Divorce Mediation

Today I wanted to talk to you about mediation and what it is and how it applies to divorce cases.

But first I want to give you a couple of facts.

More than 90% of divorce cases are going through the divorce system without ever having an attorney or needing any type of mediation services at all.

Our company can prepare your divorce case from start to finish. We generally will help people with amicable divorces or uncontested cases, anywhere where the parties are talking and working through their divorce on their own and don’t feel the need of hiring an attorney. They don’t have any legal issues, they don’t need legal advice and they probably will not end up in court.

And statistics tell us that only 10% of cases actually end up in court and actually need an attorney.

Generally speaking, we can handle 90% of the divorce cases here in Santa Clarita.

Now, as far as mediation services go, sometimes that is a necessity. Where the parties don’t agree, where you can’t come to an agreement. Where you have difficulty coming to an agreement. Mediation services are something you might want to take a look at utilizing.

We have client that start with us and think everything is fine and then they hit a little road bump and it’s usually about money.

So, we are talking about the issues with the kids and child support or with the other spouse and spousal support or something along those lines.

If you have trouble coming to an agreement going through your divorce and you’re using our service or if you’re not using our service. You may want to attempt using mediation prior to going out and hiring attorneys.

As obvious cost benefit here, when you use a mediation service it’s going to be a neutral third party. A party who’s going to sit down with both of you. They’ll never meet alone with you and they’ll discuss with you the issues, help you work through the process and come ultimately to an agreement. That’s the goal of mediation.

We refer out cases that end up needing mediation, where parties get stuck. Where they thought that everything is going to be fine and get stuck. We refer them out to mediation. They’ll mediate and they’ll come back.

Now, there are two types of mediation.

You have professional paid mediation and you have the court mediators.

If you go to a paid mediation, I generally recommend that because these are people you’re paying for. They’re going to spend the time it takes, quality time in helping you get through the issues in your divorce.

Mediation through the court is usually an hour. They don’t spend a lot of time with you. They’re hoping you’ll come to an agreement but they’re not going to work with you to come to an agreement.

We’re talking about paid mediation services, if you need a referral for a mediation service here in Santa Clarita. Feel free to give me a call.

We have a great service that we’d be happy to refer you to. We’ve send out several cases, happy clients have comeback and got their settlements in place and then we’ll wrap their divorce case for them.

Please call me if you think you may need mediation. But keep in mind that there’s a very small chance that you’ll need an attorney or mediation to get your divorce completed.

Please feel free to give us a call. I’d be happy to talk more about our service and how we can help you get through your divorce without attorneys, without mediation and make everything cost efficient for you.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. You can call me at 661-281-0266 or you can click the link below to visit our website at divorce661.com.

How To Prepare California Divorce Papers (With Kids) *First Steps*

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How To Prepare California Divorce Papers (With Kids) *First Steps*

Today we are talking about how to prepare your California divorce when you have kids and this is specifically the first step.

This is the paperwork you’ll need to file in order to get the documents stamp by the court so you can get your spouse served. This will handle the first step of filing your California divorce when you have kids.

This is going to include the summons, the petition, the case cover sheet or nose of assignment if you have those forms for your court. It’s a little bit different each county.

Give us a call if you have any questions on that. And when you have kids, you have to fill another form called a UCCJEA.

Now, the great thing about this video is we’re going to put a link in the bottom where you can get the self-help forms off of a slide share that we created that has the instructions.

We are a full service divorce document preparation firm in California. We’d love to prepare your forms for you and walk you through the process and do all the work for you.

However, we know that there are clients out there that don’t have the money to hire us. They have more time than money perhaps and they want to attempt to do this on their own, so we are providing these documents online with arrows and directions and instructions on exactly how to fill out the forms.

For those of you, who want to use our service please give us a call at 661-281-0266 or click the link below. They’ll take you directly to our website for more information on pricing and so forth.

But, I wanted to get this information out there for folks who are having trouble getting information offline or online or with your local court. A lot of times it’s hard to find out the forms you need and the steps and even if you get the forms it’s basically comes down to how do you fill them out.

So, these forms are pretty helpful, they are right from the self-help clinics for Los Angeles County. I’ve gone over them, they are pretty thorough.

Again, we provide this as a full service. We’d be happy to take care of all these for you but for those folks who are going to do that on their own or at least attempt this first phase of things. Please use these forms, they are very helpful.

You can click over to the slide share. I’m going to put a link directly to the slide share below so you can find our blog below, divorce661.com.

Also, I have the link to the slide share with instructions on how to fill out the forms.

I hope that’s helpful. Please call us if you like to use our full service process. We do serve all of California. Our number here is 661-281-0266.

Why You Don’t Want To Use LegalZoom For Your Santa Clarita Divorce

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Why You Don’t Want To Use LegalZoom For Your Santa Clarita Divorce

Today I’m talking to you about the pros and cons of using LegalZoom for your Santa Clarita divorce.

I just stepped into the office and return the phone call I received over the weekend for the client in Santa Clarita saying they have a simple divorce, no cases, no property and by the time I returned their call, he mentioned he had already used another service.

I asked him who you end up using, and he said that he is using LegalZoom.

And there’s really a lot of cons, I should say. Negatives to using LegalZoom and I want to talk to you about that a little bit.

The first thing is, you have to do everything yourself. They’re going to give you a form, questionnaire that you pay for. I think its $299. And you’re going to have to fill out all the questions on this questionnaire online.

Then what happens is they’ll print out the documents for you and basically what it does is it’ll take the information you plug into the questionnaire and place it into the forms.

The bad part about that is nobody is going to review your documentation. It’s all computerized.

I had a client that used LegalZoom and they filled out the forms incorrectly, printed them, they were delivered to their home, couple of days or weeks later. And they received some of the forms blank, some of the forms are wrong.

But it’s all because the information they plug in there was incorrect or in the wrong spots so you have to be careful for that.

Probably, the worst thing about using any of these types of services, LegalZoom or any of these document assembly services is that you have to do all the leg work and you’re going to have twice the fees so let’s talk about that.

When you use these types of services, you’re going to have to do the leg work.

You’re going to have to go down the court. You’re going to have to follow the procedures of court. You’re going to file your form, serve your forms, file all the documentations. Do all your financial disclosures and do the same for your spouse as well.

Where people get hung up is on the procedure. Filing of the forms is done correctly but the procedure can be done wrong and this includes the judgment which is your final agreement which can be very difficult to complete.

When that happens, you want to make sure you’re using a service, someone you can call like us. Who can take care of that.

The leg work is all going to be on you.

Now, another issue with these document assembly service like this is that you’re going to have to pay twice the amount of fees. When you file for a divorce in California, when you file you have to pay a filing fee and when your spouse files a response, she has to pay a filing fee.

When you use these online service providers, their directions require you to file the fees twice. You have a response fee and you’re going to have a fee for the petition.

Now, you’re going to have to pay, that’s almost $900 in fees for court services because LegalZoom can’t tell you that there is a process in LA County where you can get away with only one filing fee.

So, it’s going to be twice as expensive from the court fee perspective.

You’re going to do all the leg work and at the end of the day when you use our service, even though we have a higher cost for doing it. You are going to be out the door a lot less money than you would be using these online service providers.

Now, quickly what we do is we’ll prepare, file and serve all your documents. We go down the court. We do all the leg work. And you only have to pay one filing fee.

When you use our service, and because you only have one filing fee, our higher costs are absorbed by that lack of not having to pay that filing fee.

Therefore, the costs are the same or less when you use our service as supposed to one of these online services and we’re doing all the work for you.

I just wanted to get that across to you, if you’re in Santa Clarita thinking of using one of these online services, please give us a call. We’d be happy to go down and show you how our pricing are less and how we can do all the work for you.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

Give me a call. 661-281-0266 or visit our website at divorce661.com for more information.