San Fernando Divorce Self Help Center

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

San Fernando Divorce Self Help Center

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

Today I want to talk to you about the San Fernando court self-help divorce services.

At the San Fernando court at most of the divorce court branches, you know, Van Nuys, Lancaster, and so forth. They have within them a self-help service. I actually worked at this self-help center many years ago to get experience before starting this business.

So I wanted to give you a little insight into that, if you’re watching this video, you’re obviously searching for the San Fernando court divorce self-help center.

So I just wanted to let you know what you’re in for, the up side the down side, and then kind of offer my services all on this video.

So, what’s the upside? What’s the plus? The plus is that it’s free. You can walk-in, you can get some free services, and they have people that will sit down with you. Assist you, hand you a packet that you can work on at your own pace, and honestly that’s about it, it’s free, and you can get help, and that’s about all the plusses I can pull out of it.

Here are the cons, here’s the negative of this self-help center. They are extremely busy, when I worked there, four, five years ago. The court opens at 8:30, the doors open up at 8, and people would line up around 7am just to get into the self-help center. When we opened the self-help clinic, it would immediately get full, and then people would basically wait and some people would wait there all day, and never be seen.

And they’re just told to come back the next day, its first come first serve, they don’t get a number. There are no appointments, you can’t call them. So aside from being free, it’s a very difficult process with the self-help center.

That’s why I believe our business is been so successful, we got a lot of people that attempted to go to the self-help clinic because a friend or a relative told them that you can do your divorce on your own which you can. But by getting through the process, the actual filling out the forms, and filing; and serving, pose as a huge problem for people. I’m not talking about your everyday people, all people are having trouble getting through the process, it’s very difficult, the court makes it difficult, the forms are confusing, you think you’ve done it right, and you run into problems.

So, if you’ve been to this self-help center or you’re thinking of going, just be aware of the pitfalls, and think of using a service such as mine.

We basically are a self-help service, we prepare your documents as you indicate, we have all the forms here. You don’t have to fill out anything on your own, you come in, we type everything up for you. We serve everything, we prepare it, we’ll take you down to court.

If you’ve been to the self-help center, make it your last time. If you haven’t gone there, maybe you should, just to see what you’re in for. The packet of paper they hand you, and all the work they’re going to make you do.

Our fees are very low, we work on a flat fee basis. If you’re going to do this without an attorney which 90-95% are self-represented meaning no attorney involved, you just need a little help.

We can help prepare all your forms, serve them, file them, go to court for you, help you with modifications; we can help you get established spousal support, child support, numbers. We have all the court software.

So, give us a call, we have free consultations, we’d be happy to talk to you, 661-281-0266. We are headquartered in Santa Clarita but we do work all of Los Angeles County, so if you’re in Van Nuys, San Fernando, Los Angeles, Lancaster, Long Beach, Torrance, downtown, it doesn’t matter, we can help you.

661-281-0266; give me a call, and we’d love to help you.

Thanks a lot for reading!

Online Santa Clarita Divorce Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Online Santa Clarita Divorce Service

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com here in Santa Clarita.

Today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about online divorce companies and some of the advantages and disadvantages of using them.

I assume if you’re watching this, you’re searching online, looking at maybe doing an online divorce.

So let’s talk about that a little bit. First of all let me introduce who we are.

My name is Tim Blankenship; we’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm we specialize only in divorce here in Santa Clarita, we’re a local company, we have local offices, in Valencia, and we also can also prepare your divorce completely online.

So let’s get into and talk a bit about online divorce companies. Sadly, we get a lot of business from people here in Santa Clarita who attempted to use one of these online divorce document preparation services, form builders, if you will.

And I’ve talked about them a lot on my blogs and on video and now we have an ad on Google specifically targeting folks that are looking for online divorce to hopefully shift their focus from a company, say, in Georgia, doing this completely online, and having you come over and work with us.

The benefit to working with us as opposed to the online divorce companies is in reality, we’re going to end up costing you less money than these online divorce companies do.

The reason for that is when you use an online divorce company, they are not familiar with the California divorce rules of court, they assume the rules are the same throughout all the states.

And many of these online companies use or do rather, online divorce documents for every state, so they’re not familiar with the actual divorce process.

When you use these online divorce services, what you do is answering a lengthy online questionnaire, they take those answers, plug them into the forms automatically and then you’re able to print them.

The bad part about that is number one; the forms they use are outdated. In California, we have two updates per year and these online divorce forms are over two years old and they’re now being rejected by the court, that’s the first issue.

Number two, is no one’s really viewing your answer; you could have misspellings, wrong information; misunderstand what you’re supposed to put in there, and you’re going to print those forms and you’re going to get them exactly as you type them up. There’s no one looking at what you’ve done and make sure they’re correct. Down the road, that’ll run you into trouble, and end up in it being rejected.

Another reason is you’ll have to do all the work. What are you going to do once you’ve printed out all these forms and now you have a stack of hundred sheets of paper, they need to be filed, they need to be served, some have to be served by mail, some have to be personally served, which documents have to be filed at the court?

It’s a mess, and as I said in the beginning, sadly we get a little a lot people coming from various online services coming to us with a bag stack of paper, completely confused, twenty pages of instructions, and it just doesn’t work out for them.

So then they have to end up using our service which has now cost them more money.

So if you want to save money on your divorce and I only assume that when you are looking for online divorce forms, that’s the idea, you want to save some money.

You’re going to want to listen to this: our service here in Santa Clarita is a full service process, we’re going to do everything for you, we’re going to fill it out the forms, we’re going to process the forms, we’re going to  go down to court for you. Figure everything out, help you along the way.

We’re literally going to do everything for you it includes helping you with mediation as far as child custody and visitation, we’re going to help set that up in the judgment, we’re going to help you determine what child support, and spouse support is.

All of these things are factors and you need to know what the rules are and we can help you with that.

So how are we going to do this, how are we going to provide a full service, do all the work for you, and be cheaper than an online company.

Well here’s how, when you use an online company, their instructions indicate that you need to file your divorce papers, file the petition, pay a $435 fee. Serve your spouse, and then your spouse needs to file a response, this is what they’re telling you, and this is the normal course in a divorce in California but not when its uncontested and not when you’re in agreement.

They’re going to tell you that you need to file a response that your spouse needs to file a response, now you’re going to have to pay another $435. So now you’ve paid $300 – $400 for your online divorce papers, you have to do all the work, you’ve filed things wrong, maybe you’ve spent several months doing this, you’ve paid a filing fee, your spouse is paying the filing fee, and if you’re like my customers, or my clients, usually there’s one person paying for the whole thing. So that’s coming right out of your pocket.

The way we’re able to save you money, is we are able to put you through a process in LA County called a hybrid divorce, and when you’re done with this video, I’ve talked a lot about it, because it’s a way of saving people money.

In a hybrid, both of you and your spouse could enter into a written agreement on your divorce, without a response being filed, so we’re going to save you that $435, so what you’re looking at that is having us do the whole set of paperwork. We charge a flat fee for doing that, our pricing is on our website at divorce661.com. It’s very reasonable for what we’ll do for you. Basically, take everything out of your hands, file, prep, serve, go down to court, do all that, and you have one filing fee so that $435 is going to be saved.

If you’re here in Santa Clarita and you’ve come across this video. I was purposely targeting you admittedly; I want to convert you from using these online divorce companies. I want to warn you against using them for the reasons indicated in this video and just call us and we’ll walk you through and discuss how our service can work with you, save you money, save you time, save you frustration, and help you complete your divorce the first time.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com is our website. Feel free to be giving me a call; we do have free consultations here, 661-281-0266.

Thanks for reading!

Cheap Santa Clarita Divorce Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Cheap Santa Clarita Divorce Service

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

If you’re watching this video you’re obviously looking an affordable cheap alternative to getting a divorce in Santa Clarita.

Well, you’re not alone in that process. Divorce cost have risen over the years, it’s estimated that if you use an attorney you’re divorce is going to cost you anywhere from $10,000 – $15,000 per person. It’s just an outrageous fee.

We’ve been providing our flat fee legal service in Santa Clarita for some time now, and as the word gets out, our business is continually picking up.

So I want to talk to you a little bit about our service and what we can do for you.

We’re a full service legal document preparation firm, paralegal if you will; and we provide a full service process. What that means is we’re going to run your divorce case exactly like it would be done at a law firm except for we don’t give legal advice and don’t represent you in court.

Our service includes providing you with preparation of your forms. We don’t use any questionnaires; we will file all the forms for you. We’ll go down to court and file them for you, we’ll serve the documents, this could be by process server or by mail, depending on the circumstances, and complete all the financial disclosures including your final judgment.

Because we are full service, this means you won’t be filling out any questionnaires.

If you look online you’ll find some other cheap online services or solutions that will have you typing up all of your answers into a document, they’ll send them to you, and you’ll have to go and do all the filing, serving, processing, and all of that.

We take care of all that for you. When you come into our office you’ll either meet with myself, or one of my staff. We’ll get your initial documents completed, work on your financial disclosures, and we do this for one flat affordable rate.

We charge a fee starting at $599. Of course, you will have your court fees but we’d be happy to discuss with you how we can get those waived and how we can save you from having to pay that second filing fee.

Many people that use our servers realize that they’ve saved a lot of money when they come to us even in comparison to some of the online document preparation solutions.

So please give me a call, we offer free consultations over the phone to see if you’d be a good fit for our service.

Give me a call, my name is Tim Blankenship 661-281-0266, you can also learn more about our affordable divorce service at divorce661.com

Santa Clarita Uncontested Divorce Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Santa Clarita Uncontested Divorce Service

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

If you’re watching this video you’re probably trying to learn more about an uncontested divorce in Santa Clarita, thank you for watching this video and for landing on our webpage here.

I want to talk to you a little bit about the service we provide in preparing uncontested divorce cases in Santa Clarita.

We are a full service licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm. What this means is we do not have attorneys in our office; we are not required to have an attorney to be supervised because of our license and bond, and our training and experience, the county allows us to work directly with the public to provide an affordable divorce alternative.

We’re a full service firm, what that means is we’re going to take care of everything from start to finish. We’re going to fill out your forms, we’re going to file them with the court, we’re going to serve them, and we’re going to complete your judgment.

Our flat fee divorce service includes everything, so we’re talking about if you’d need assistance determining child support, spousal support, a parenting plan, custody, visitation; all of that is taken cared of with our process.

When we fill up the forms, we don’t use questionnaires, if you were to call other services or online document preparation services, you have to fill out a lengthy twenty, thirty page questionnaire. We don’t do that here, we operate our firm exactly like a law firm does in the preparation of your case, the only difference is we don’t give legal advice and we don’t represent you in court.

When it comes down to contested divorce cases in Santa Clarita, you should be aware that it’s a complicated process. Many people call us at various stages in the process, somewhere in the beginning, in the middle, or if their judgment has been rejected what we recommend is that you call us from the outset and let us get started for you right away.

We do not have a family law department in the Santa Clarita court so just be advised that if you are going to attempt this on your own, you’re going to have to make numerous trips to the San Fernando court house which is our office that we would be filing in.

Please give me a call, my name is Tim Blankenship, you would be working directly with me, my number is 661-281-0266. We’re located right here in Santa Clarita.

And we look forward to helping you with your uncontested divorce in Santa Clarita.

Thanks for reading!

Cheap California Divorce Service | Divorce Paralegal Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Cheap California Divorce Service | Divorce Paralegal Service

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com, we specialize in the California divorce process we’re licensed and bonded legal document preparation assistance.

And today I want to talk to you about, looking for that cheap divorce in California.

I get a lot of calls every day, from all throughout California, of course price is important, the economy is still in the dumper a little bit, price is important when you’re going through divorce, and trying to select a service.

But I want to talk to you, kind of a warning if you will, about looking for that low cost service.

If you’re searching for cheap online divorce, you may have come across this video, and you’re going to find hundreds of other companies offering their cheap divorce service, cheap paralegal service, in fact, the name of their website may even be something related to cheap divorce or cheap California divorce or something along those lines.

What I want you to be aware of is you need to make sure what you’re paying for and what you’re getting.

I get lots of business from people who’ve used online companies, they’ve used a cheap divorce service, and only to come to me to correct it because it was wrong or they misrepresented the services that they offered.

So let me give you an example of what you’re going to find out there when you’re looking for a cheap divorce service.

First of all, you’re going to pay anywhere from four to five hundred dollars to have your documents prepared for you. When that’s done, they’re going to mail those documents to you and then you’re going to have to do everything else. You’re going to have to file them with the court, you’re going to have to serve them, you’re going to have to fill out all the proof of services, go down to court and do all that work.

They’re going to give you a twenty-page or so checklist of what to do.

Step one, do this, file, serve the papers, etcetera, etcetera. So you’re going to do all the work, you’re going to pay $400 to $500  for that, you’re going to have to pay your filing fee, and then they’re going to tell you that you need to file a response, that your spouse needs to file a response which is completely inaccurate if you’re going through an uncontested case.

So let me explain to you what our service is and how we’re a little bit different from that. We don’t use automated software; we don’t send you a fifty page questionnaire. Everything we do for you, we will fill out personally for you; we’ll type up the documents for you.

Even if you’re not local, we have clients all over California, we do a lot right over the phone, via e-mail, and again, not through questionnaire but by talking to you and writing up the questions as if you’re sitting in our office.

On top of that, we file all the documents, we serve all the documents; we take everything down to court for you so you don’t have to. We help you establish a parenting plan, we help you determine spouse support numbers, child support numbers; all of that. And we can help you along the process.

You can have 100% assistance throughout it, we’re doing everything for you, and our fees start as low as $699. So we’re just a hundred or so dollars more than these online cheap companies who have you do everything and for about a hundred dollars more we’ll do everything for you.

And so that is the biggest difference between what we do and what other cheap online divorce services are providing.

So give us a call, you know, call these other companies, find out what they’ll do for you.

Then give us a call, we do get a lot of business that attempted to go to these locations or these services and then couldn’t get a hold of them. They had to dispute the charge on their card.

So just be wary, we can take care of any divorce case in California. We’ll handle it personally, you’ll speak to me directly; we’re not a huge conglomerate, it’s for a small company that handles just divorce cases in California.

My name is Tim Bankenship, give me a call, love to help you with your divorce in California, our website is divorce661.com, or you can reach me direct at 661-281-0266. Thanks for reading!

California Divorce | You Must Pay Filing Fee For Response Filing

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce | You Must Pay Filing Fee For Response Filing

Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com and today I had an interesting call I wanted to share with you.

Call from a client or potential client rather. That had a misunderstanding on the filing fees when you file a response.

So, if you file for divorce, you’re going to file summons and petition, you’re going to pay a filing fee. If the other party is going to file a response, they also have to pay a fee. This is common knowledge but I figure if one person had this misunderstanding, others do.

I have heard of occurrences where people have mailed in responses to the court and assumed it was filed and there was no fee attached so the court just throws it in the trash, literally. They don’t know what to do with it.

So when your spouse files for divorce, they have not paid for the entire divorce, they have paid their half of the filing fee. If you’re going to file a response, you’re also going to have to pay that $435 for instance, to file a response.

So just make sure if you are going to respond, you either need to pay the fee, or you need to request a fee waiver.

There’s very strict guidelines qualifying for fee waivers, but there is a fee to file a response and participate in the case, I think this person, the words he said was well, my wife already paid for the divorce. And that’s not the case, she paid for her filling only, and not for the response.

Now, we do have a method that’s called hybrid dissolution.

What that means is you purposely will not file a response but you can still enter the case by doing your financial disclosures and signing the written agreement. This is what we do 90% of the time because it saves you guys $435, or at least the other party, $435.

And if you guys are doing this together you can simply split the initial filing fee. It’s called a hybrid dissolution, it’s where one party files the other party doesn’t respond, the case is going to proceed by default but it’s going to be default with agreement.

If you want more information on this particular type of judgment it’s a divorce like any other, you get the same result, it just saves you money. Stay on my YouTube channel and search for hybrid dissolution judgment or hybrid divorce judgment checklist, I’ve done a couple of videos on it.

Go ahead and take a look at that and it goes over the checklist and why you can save $435. File a response, pay a fee or fee waiver, do a hybrid and don’t worry about having to pay a fee, and you can still enter into a stipulated judgment with your spouse without paying the fee.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce66.com1 is our website. Give me a call, 661-281-0266, we specialize in California divorce; look forward to working with you.

Thanks for reading!

California Divorce Never Completed | How To Finish Divorce Process | Los Angeles | Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce Never Completed | How To Finish Divorce Process | Los Angeles | Santa Clarita

Hi! My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. We are licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in California divorce.

And today I wanted to talk to you about some issues that we’ve been having or I should say issues other people have been having that has come up frequently this week and if you watch our videos, you know we like to discuss common issues.

So, this week we’ve been getting a lot of people calling who have started their divorce case in the past, months, years, decades ago and never finished them. Either they found out they didn’t finish or knowingly they didn’t complete the process.

So, I want to let you know what to do. This person I spoke to yesterday, they said he had filed in 2008, so what, almost six years ago and never served their spouse. You know, what can he do? Can he get copies, does he have to start over, does he have to re-file?

So, let’s talk about that. What we are finding is a lot of people are starting the process, trying to do it on their own and then later realize that they did not complete the process or they didn’t do it correctly and it was rejected.

We’ve even had cases where people have called us and have already been remarried, and then found out that their divorce were not finalized. So certainly, you don’t want that to happen to you.

But here’s what you can do, here’s what we can do for you, if you need assistance completing your old divorce case that you filed.

Okay, 2008, he filed the papers, never served the wife. So what the court sometimes will do is they’ll dismiss the case if the case you filed has never been served. They’ll just dismiss it, usually they’ll wait 5 years.

Fortunately, the courts are overwhelmed and they’re not doing that right now. So what we’ll find, we’ll have to do that this person, or the first thing you would want to do, if you’re going to attempt to correct it in your own, find your case number. To do that, if you don’t know it, if you don’t have conformed copies which doesn’t sound like this person does. You’ll have to go down to the court house where you filed. Those are the only computers that have public access where you can search by name.

Online from your home or from my office we can only punch the case number in. So, if we don’t have the case number you have to go down to the court house you filed in.

If you are in Los Angeles County, you can go to any of the branches in San Fernando, Lancaster. In the clerk’s office they do have a computer where you can search by name to find out your case number, then once you have the case number you can find out how to proceed.

So, in this case, if you have filed let’s say and you either never served or you served and then didn’t move forward. What you need to do is figure out where you are at and then how to move forward.

So, let’s talk about this particular old case and what we will advise him to do and what we will probably end up doing for him.

Again, first we need to get the case number, once we have the case number we can what has been done. If there is a filed case and it hasn’t been cancelled. We can get copies from the clerk. Once we have copies, we just have to pick up where we left off. The first order of business would be to get her served, and then move forward with the process from there. Complete the financial disclosures, preliminary declaration disclosure and coming expense, schedule of assets and debts and then complete the final judgment.

We can assume in these older cases that there probably was no children perhaps, no request for spousal support, usually it’s a no assets, no debts. You know, short term marriages that usually fall into these categories.

Another case we had, it was an old, old case, it was over eighteen years old. This person hired us to complete the case and again they had filed and only served the documents and nothing else had been done and they thought that they had completed their case. We’re going to pick up from there and this will be an interesting case because she did have copies of her paperwork but it was very, very old, seventeen years ago. They didn’t even have computer records back then. It was kept in this large green books of the file document.

So, if you have questions about California divorce, if you need assistance completing your old case. We can help you anywhere in California. Just let us know the case number. If you don’t have it, we can obtain it for you, we can let you know what steps need to be taken next and we can wrap things up for you.

So, please give me a call.

My name is Tim Blankenship. We’d be happy to help you with your old case.

Direct number is 661-281-0266. We specialize in California divorce and you can learn more off our website at divorce661.com.

Thanks for reading!

California Divorce Costs | Attorney vs. Legal Document Assistant

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce Costs | Attorney vs. Legal Document Assistant

Hi! This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

Today we are doing another live broadcast. We’re also having this transcribed at the same time so we can embed this into our blog and uploading this to an audio file. I just hope my computer can keep up with it.

So, today we’re talking about the divorce cost and specifically I want to talk about the difference between the cost of hiring an attorney to do your California divorce or hiring someone like my firm which we are legal document assistance.

First off, let me tell you what a legal document assistant is. We are licensed and bonded to prepare legal documents and we just happen to specialize in the divorce process in California. We are able to work without an attorney in our office and that’s why we are able to provide a more affordable service.

So, let’s get into the divorce cost. Attorney vs. legal document assistant.

So, obviously attorney’s do a much different job than we do.

Mostly, divorce process is completing paperwork. There are occasions where you may need an attorney and that’s if you need legal advice or if you need to be represented in court. Those are the two things that we are unable to do, our license does not allow us to do that and that’s because we are not an attorneys.

So, if you feel that you will need legal advice or you will need to go to court to be represented, then you probably will need an attorney for that.

Let’s back up just a bit and talk about the beginning of the divorce process in California.

The California divorce process is mostly made up of paperwork. You have your initial documents that need to be completed followed by doing your financial disclosures. None of that requires an attorney, in fact, the divorce process in California can be completed entirely by a legal document preparation firm such as ours without any attorney supervision or without you ever needing to speak with an attorney.

Now, we do have clients that start with us and they know they may need an attorney down the road but they wanted to get as much as the paperwork done as possible before going out and hiring an attorney.

So, let’s talk about the cost a little bit. The average cost to have your divorce completed by an attorney and this is some research I’ve done online, you will as well, if you’re to look for it, Is about $20,000 and that is $20,000 per person not just $20,000 total.

We have clients who call us who have spoken with attorneys and they are just shocked by the amount of money that they are going to charge them for their divorce. After the have talked to an attorney, they generally will call our company to find out if there’s another affordable options for their divorce case.

So, when we talk to them, you know, we explained to them the difference. We want people to understand that there is a difference between what attorneys do and what we do. But at the end of the day we can help clients to get through the entire divorce process from start to finish without any attorney supervision and without you ever needing to speak to an attorney.

Now, if we run into trouble and you do need a legal advice, not a problem, we can always refer you to an attorney in your area and you can get legal advice, a consultation if you need be and then we can get right back to work for you if they get to tell you to do something, we can always just do that for you and you don’t have to hire the attorney to do that for you.

My name is Tim Blankenship. We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service specializing in divorce.

When you use our services, we work on a flat fee basis. We do not use a retainer fee. We will quote you a flat fee for the divorce and that will be the total cost from start to finish. We do everything for you from filing the initial paperwork, we prepare all the forms, we take them down to court for you, and this is a complete service from start to finish, meaning from initial forms, to service, to judgment – all for a flat fee.

You can go to our website at divorce661.com and we have some pricing packages you can see based upon the amount of work that needs to be done. If you have children, if you have property that needs to be separated – those are all the determining factors on the total cost of your divorce.

So feel free to look at our pricing page for more information.

Going back to retainers and how those work. Many people tell us that they spoke to an attorney and they told them the cost would be say $3500 or $4000. Now, what that is, is that’s just a retainer. That’s not the total cost of your divorce. The total cost of your divorce is going to be whatever it takes at that attorney’s hourly rate to get the case finished.

So, if they’re asking for $3500 or $4000 or $5000, that number doesn’t really matter. Because they’re going to bill at their hourly rate. So, if it’s $300, $400, $500 an hour. They’re going to bill you at that hourly rate until that money is extinguished. And if your divorce case isn’t finish, you’re on the hook for the difference.

So, that’s how divorce cases can end up in the 10, $20,000 range based on the high attorney hourly rates.

So, if you’re looking for more affordable service to get your divorce completed. If your case is mostly amicable in nature, even if it’s not amicable, even if you know you’re going to need an attorney but you want to save some upfront cost on the document preparation. We could really help you save some money by using our service

So, feel free to give me a call.

My name is Tim Blankenship. Website is divorce661.com.

My direct number is 661-281-0266.

I hope you found this video and audio helpful and please give us a call if you’d like more information about our service. We’d be happy to take your call.

Thanks for reading!

California Divorce Resources Tips & Help

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce Resources Tips & Help

Hi! This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

Today we are talking about the California divorce resources tips and help that we have on our website, on our blog actually.

Today we are not only recording live on Google+, we’re also recording on Audacity, so we can upload to our podcast and we are also having this transcribed so we can have this placed into our blogs.

We’ll see if they’re computered and handle all the systems running at the same time.

My name is Tim Blankenship. I am a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service. We do specialize in divorce in California.

And today, simply we’re just going to talk about some of the helpful tips and tricks and resources that we have on our website.

So, if you’re looking to get information about divorce in California, the best way is to go to our divorce661.com – blog and you can go to our resources tab and find lots of helpful information.

What we have found is that, while there are resources online from the courts and so forth, there isn’t an easy way to find the information and if you do find the information it is difficult to understand.

So, what we have done is taken the information from the court’s website, information we know, and we started putting that out on audio, on our podcast, we put it out on video and we also write about it.

So, what we’re attempting to do is make it easier to understand as far as divorce is concerned in California.

So, let’s talk a little bit about some of the resources that we have on our site here. We have several items that you can utilize to get information such as, our resources page. You can find information regarding the California rules of court. And I’m looking at my site right now, just so we can kind of get a reference here.

We have the Los Angeles County family law rules. We have the California Family Law codes. We also have helpful links to a superior court websites, the mediator sites, where you can find case summaries. We have the county law libraries as well on our site. You can get that information there as well.

We have the case law database, we have free online legal resources and lots of other information that you can find on the site. You also find that we have a tab that goes to our YouTube channel and that is at youtube.com/divorce661, and on that site we have probably now an over of 150 videos that you can watch, tutorials, helpful tips, how to fill out certain forms, forms that you need for divorce, etc.

We have a lot of that information out there. Now we also have our podcast, if you prefer to listen to the information. You can listen to our podcasts. We do use soundcloud.com. So, you’ll see in our blog down there it’ll say Tim talks about divorce.

We have probably, I don’t know, maybe a hundred podcasts that we’ve uploaded to that site and if you are a blog talk radio listener, we also have a Wednesday evening show at 6PM that you can watch. We talk about various items related to California divorce and we will take callers and answer questions. People can call and get some free information from us.

So, lots of good information, again the website is divorce661.com.

When people calls us for assistance or to use our service, we often hear that they’ve watch numerous videos, read many articles and before they even calling us and how helpful it has been for them.

So we do recommend that you go to our site, it’s probably the most resourceful, informational website for California divorce out there. All the content is published by me, including the blog, the podcast, the videos everything is coming at my hand.

So, if you have more questions rather, and you like to talk to me direct about our paid service. We do specialize in preparing divorce documents in California. We’d be happy to take care of that for you.

Until then, fell free to cruise our website and get all the information that you need and all the help that you can find and then just give us a call if you’re ready to get started or if you need some assistance with your divorce.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

Thanks for watching! If you are on Google+.

Thanks for listening! If you are on our podcast, and we will talk to you soon.

How To Request Attorney Fees During Divorce | California Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Request Attorney Fees During Divorce | California Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Good morning! This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

And today we are talking about how to request attorney’s fees and why you may want to request attorney’s fees when going through divorce.

So, many times we’ll handle divorce cases here with our firm that are amicable and no need for an attorney, sometimes these cases may become “un-amicable” at some point, if that’s the word.

And you may need to get an attorney for one reason another.

Other times people start with me to get as much paperwork done as possible at a lower cost before going out and hire an attorney.

Either case, if you fall into any of those circumstances and you need to get attorney’s fees, this is how you’re going to do it and why you may need it.

I’ve had several cases where one of the spouses hasn’t had no access to money. Either because they never had access to the accounts or in this particular circumstances, as soon as they knew that there was going to be a divorce filed, the working spouse either close the accounts or remove all the money from the account so the spouse has no money to hire an attorney if she even or he even wanted to.

Going as far as even changing the direct deposit account that the money is going into and leaving some of these clients with no access to money whatsoever.

So, of course, they get scrapped some money together to get started with me, so we can the case filed for divorce. But then, then what? Then they need to get an attorney especially if the other party gets one themselves.

So, what you’d want to do in this case is file a motion, you can either file an ex-party motion for attorney’s fees or you can go in on a regular motion and set a court date out 45 to 60 days from the day of file, but many cases you’re going to need to go on ex-party because you’re going to need to get money as soon as possible or ask the court to make an order for attorney’s fees as fast as possible so you can have access to legal representation, again this is if you need to go the attorney route.

So, this would be done on a request for order, prior known as a order to show cost. This is the FL-300, request for order.

And on the second page there is a box where you can request attorney’s fees and cost.

Now, what are the requirements and guidelines and when will this be ordered? That’s a great question. That is for the judge to determine. But I was speaking with an attorney the other day who said he was recently at a meeting with some of the judges. They’re talking about different things about the court, and then they were saying they don’t know why more folks who either represent themselves or with an attorney aren’t requesting an attorney’s fees because they’re ready, willing and able to ward attorney’s fees in these cases where people request them.

So a couple of the guidelines where you might find that this be ordered is in cases where there’s no absolutely income earned by the spouse and no access to money, and the other spouse has the ability to pay – that would be one reason that the court or the judge may order attorney’s fees.

So, it really boils down to that, having equal access to money to hire an attorney. Now, if the parties make the same amount of money, probably won’t have a chance of getting it.

If there is double income earners, if you make $50, your husband makes $100, perhaps there may be an order for attorney’s fees but maybe it will be a smaller amount.

Now, you can ask for whatever amount you want, you know, $5000, $10,000, $2,500 – whatever the case may be, but when you go to that hearing, it’s going to be up to the judge to order how much and it’s going to be up to the judge how that is paid.

So, here, it becomes an issue. We’ve had cases where people where have had no orders for attorney’s fees and costs, but then they ordered the payments – so let’s say, it was $5000, in small increments of let’s say $200 a month payable to the other party’s attorney.

So, here’s the issue: you now have an order for attorney’s fees, but they’re payable in increments of $200 a month. How are you going to hire an attorney and tell them “Hey, I have a new order for attorney’s fees of $5000 but you’re not going to get paid except for $200 a month.” Good luck finding an attorney that will accept a retainer of $200 to get your case started.

So start bringing that up.

Hope this will get you started if you’re representing yourself and you need to get some attorney’s fees, we can help you file the motion, we can help you go an ex-party, and get the money you need to hire an attorney if that’s what you need to do.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com . 661-281-0266, and as always, thanks again for reading!