What Is A Divorce Dissomaster Report | Santa Clarita Child & Spousal Support

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What Is A Divorce DissoMaster Report | Santa Clarita Child & Spousal Support

Good morning, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

And today I wanted to address, and talk about what a DissoMaster is.

When you’re going through divorce; and you are married for a certain period of time; or if you have kids. You’re going to need to find out what spousal support or child support is going to be. That means how much it’s going to be.

The courts, and if you’re using an attorney, would use what’s called a DissoMaster report.

Essentially what it is, is a calculation that will take into consideration the income of the parties, as far as spousal support, and including child support. it will also include who has the children, what percentage of time.

So time share and income will help determine child support. now generally you’d have to go down to the court house, down to the facilitator to get a copy of a DissoMaster, meet with the facilitator so you could get a DissoMaster printout so you can include that with your final judgment paperwork.

Well I am happy to announce that we have finally purchased the software for the DissoMaster software, and we are now able to complete dissomaster printouts for child support, and spousal support right here in our office when you’re representing yourself.

So a few things I want to say about that. Number one, our service has just gotten better because we’re able to provide this service in the past, we had to send folks down to the facilitator to make an appointment in order to get this printout and now we will be able to do that for you in our office.  And secondly, people that did not want to go the court were using either an attorney or another service that were charging upwards of two hundred and fifty dollars to complete this printout for you.

So this will just be an added service that we now offer with our firm. We’re hoping to do it at no extra charge, in fact, if you are representing yourself, and you are attempting to do your divorce case yourself and you need a DissoMaster printout for your case, we’d be happy as a free service to provide that to you.

Provided that it’s something that we can do quickly and easily for you, and you have an understanding as far as time share, custody visitation, and the income of the parties.

Again, this is Tim Blankenship; hope that it was helpful in regards to dissomasters. If you need a printout or need to find out what guideline support is in your case, please feel free to give us a call. You can reach as at 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

Sole And Community Property In Petition Must Be Disposed Of In California Divorce Judgment

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Sole And Community Property In Petition Must Be Disposed Of In California Divorce Judgment

Hi, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

And today were talking about an item on the Los Angeles Superior Court judgment checklist.

This is their rejection checklist that they use when you submit your final divorce paperwork and it says, “We regret, we must return this judgment for the following reasons checked”.

So, I decided I’m going to do a series of videos and discuss all the different reasons in this two and three page judgment reject sheet, of what could happen and how to correct that or if you haven’t submitted it yet, prevent it from happening.

So, today we’re going to talk about, and this is on page two, we’re going to talk about, under where it says judicial council form FL-180 and then on page two it says, “All sole and community property listed in the petition must be disposed of in the judgment.”

Okay, so, when you filed your petition and I have one here, when you filed your petition at the bottom of page one. Number four, it says: separate property and on page two number five it says: community property.

Now, at that point you may have either listed certain property, maybe you listed some items at your separate property and listed some items as your community property or maybe you marked the box that says in property declaration, form FL-160 or you said in attachment four.

So, if you listed property below or if you listed property on that FL-160 or in an attachment. All that property in your final judgment must be disposed of.

So, let’s say that you listed ten items and it doesn’t matter if you listed them below here, in a separate declaration, in an attachment or in the property declaration. Regardless of where you listed at, if you listed ten items on property, on separate property, when it comes time to do the judgment paperwork, all those items need to be given or signed to either you or your spouse.

If the court, in going through the judgment find nine items that are listed and distributed or assigned to one of you but the tenth item isn’t, they’re going to reject the entire divorce. That’s because if you list property on your petition or in any attachment to that petition, that court needs to assign that to either you or your spouse.

You can imagine if you forgot to list a checking account that had $10,000 in it, you listed on the petition but you didn’t assign it to either party in the divorce judgment and the judge signs the case. Then you have this outstanding asset, this $10,000 checking account that hasn’t been confirmed to anyone.

Now, what are you going to do with that? You are going to have to go back to court. So, that’s why the judgment would be rejected, because it doesn’t address all of the issues of assets and debts being distributed that were listed in the petition.

So, to avoid that, just make sure that if you list something that when you do the final judgment paperwork that each of the items that were listed, either in the property declaration, if it was a default judgment or if you marked the property declaration box. You are going to want make sure that all property is listed on the judgment paperwork and is assigned to one party or the other.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce 661.com.

If you have any questions, please give me a call – 661-281-0266.

Thanks and have a great day!

Divorce Forms You Need To Complete After Hearing | California Divorce

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Divorce Forms You Need To Complete After Hearing | California Divorce

Hi! This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

And today I’m going to tell you how and what you need to do after you’ve gone to a hearing for your divorce.

Now, this is going to be specifically about, say, a request for order, an order show cause and that type of hearing, maybe you filled a motion to get some temporary orders for spousal support, child support, something like that.

So, you’re going to go to your court date, you’re going to have a hearing, if both parties were there, the judge will make orders, even if both parties are not there the judge can still make orders but in that case you’re going to have to take some additional steps to be done in this case.

So if you go to court, I just had a client and this is based on a specific example I just had. I had a client, go to court, filed the motion, went to court, the judge made orders and her spouse did not appear.

So the judge made some orders and advised her that she needed to complete an order after hearing and give notice.

So, of course her question was what does that mean? So, I wanted to clarify that for those that maybe completely doing your divorce on your own without the assistance of, let’s say a firm such us ours and you wouldn’t know what to do.

So, this is for you folks. What you have to do is what’s called an order after hearing. There are some forms online you can find that are fill-able. You can fill out the order after hearing and basically documents what the judge said.

Now, one of the first things you’re going to need is the minute order. The minute order is what the clerk types up of what the judge said at that particular hearing on that particular date. So, you’re going to first need to obtain a copy of that and for more information on that, you can watch a video I did on that as well.

Once you have the minute order, you’re going to take the order that was indicated on that minute order and you’re going to write that on the order after hearing. You’re going to use the different attachments necessary depending on what was ordered. Was it attorney’s fees, was it child support, custody and visitation. Once you see this fill-able order after hearing, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

So, you’re going to fill out that main page and then you’re going to do whatever attachments for whatever orders were made and then you’re going to write a letter to your spouse and include a copy of that order, letting them know that this is the order after hearing that you have typed up, here’s the copy of the minute order and that you need them to sign the order after hearing so you can submit it to the court to be signed.

You see, when they have one party do the paperwork, the other party has to sign it, agreeing with it.

Now, the rules say that they have ten days to respond to that letter. So, you mail a letter with the order after hearing and let them know they have ten days. After ten days have passed, you can submit that to the court and let the court know that, not only do they not object or call you, they didn’t respond and say there is something wrong with it.

So, if you’re going to do that, another thing that you have to fill out now is what’s called a declaration regarding execution of order after hearing and what it is, it’s a, you have to do this on the court’s pleading paper and you have to let the court know that you had the hearing, that you showed up, that orders were made, that you complied with the rule, you mailed the letter out, there is no objection, they didn’t respond and you’re asking the court to sign the order after hearing, make it an official order of the court without the other party’s signature and it is called a declaration of execution of order after hearing.

We can help you do that and you’ve been to a hearing and the judge advised you, you needed to complete an order after hearing, give us a call, we can take care of that get it filed and served for you and get it down to your court for you.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. Please give me a call, 661-281-0266 and talk to you soon!

Signing Divorce Papers Does Not Mean You Agree | California Divorce

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Signing Divorce Papers Does Not Mean You Agree | California Divorce

Hi, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

And today I wanted to clear up some misunderstanding as it relates to when you are served divorce documents by mail.

So, we specialize in divorce in LA County and a lot of our cases are amicable. And in amicable divorce cases what we like to do as instead of having the original or initial documents served by a process server, we like to mail them out to your spouse.

So they can simply sign the form which is called the notice of acknowledgement of receipt. All they have to do is sign this form that says that they received the papers and mail it back to our office.

That will take the place of hiring a process server and saves us some time and money.

Now, what happens sometimes is when people receive the papers like the summons, the petition, and anything else that might be included in the initial documents, is they’ll read the documents and if there’s something that they don’t agree with, they’ll tell the other party that they’re not going to sign the papers.

And that doesn’t make any sense.

When you receive papers from say, our office, and we’ve sent them to you along with this notice of acknowledgement of receipt. All we’re asking is, that you sign this form which says that you received the documents.

It in no way means that you agree with anything inside the petition.

So in this current case, the spouse had an issue with the custody arrangement that his wife was asking for, and because of that, he let her know that he wasn’t going to sign this notice of acknowledgement of receipt because he didn’t agree.

That’s not the proper way to do that, all he needs to do is sign the notice of acknowledgement of receipt and mail it back to our office.

This simply lets the court know he was served, that he received their paper. It in no way means he agrees with anything in those papers, so what’s going to happen is instead of him just signing this form now we have to hire a process server to go out there and hand him the forms.

Now because a process server served him, does that mean that he agrees with what’s in the papers? Of course not. So it’s the same thing.

So, if you want to disagree with something that you’ve been served with, that’s when you file a response. That’s what the response is for.

So just wanted to make this quick video to let people know if you received papers from our office or from anyone else if you’re in a self-representative divorce case, and your spouse mails you this notice of acknowledgement of receipt along with the papers. Signing that only means you received the papers so you don’t have to hire a process server, hope that helps.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com we specialize in divorce in Los Angeles County. Please give me a call if you have any questions or need assistance with your divorce case 661-281-0266.

Thanks and have a great day!

How And When To Serve A Responsive Declaration | California Divorce

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How And When To Serve A Responsive Declaration | California Divorce

Hi, Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

Today we’re talking about the due dates for filing your, or serving your responsive declaration to a motion.

I’ve recently helped a client file a response and we were talking about when he had to get into my office because there is a certain time-frame you have to file and serve your responsive paperwork.

In a previous video we talked about, if you’re the filing party, the moving party, how and when you need to serve the order to show cause documents on the other party.

But if you’re filing a response, you have other due dates that you need to be aware of.

So if you did recently receive a motion, they should have served you and given you ample time to respond. What the court say is it needs to be sixteen court days plus five calendar days if they’re going to mail it to you.

And we covered that in a previous video.

But if you were going to respond you also have some deadlines. The responsive declaration that you’re going to prepare has to be in court, file with the court and served on the other party, nine court days prior to the hearing.

Now, you don’t have to personally serve it, you can but that’s what that nine days is talking about. Nine court days prior to hearing you have to personally serve that responsive declaration on your spouse, if you’re going to mail it then you add five calendar days. So, it’ll be nine court days, watch out for holidays, plus five calendar days. That’s the time frames when you’re filing, and responding to an order to show cause, a motion, request for order, or whatever you want to call it.

Just keep track of those court days and what you’re going to do. Look at the court date, count back nine court days, then add 5 calendar days, and make sure you mail that out by that date, and make sure you get that filed with the court prior to that nine court day period.

This is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. For more information, give me a call, 661-281-0266.

Look forward to talking to you.

Filing & Service Due Dates For California Divorce Motions & Request For Orders

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Filing & Service Due Dates For California Divorce Motions & Request For Orders

Hi, Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com

Today, we’re talking about motions, order to show causes, and request for orders.

Essentially that name, is just a duplicate of word of the same thing. Motions, order to show cause, and request for order.

The reason I’m using all three of those is because they have changed the name from order to show cause to request for order recently. It’s the same application; they just changed it a little bit, so I wanted to make that clear.

But what we’re talking about today is due dates.

So when you file a motion in order to show cause or request for order, there are specific due dates you have to comply with in order to serve that and, we’re going to talk about that right now.

So let’s assume you’re filing a motion for temporary orders for child support, spouse support, it doesn’t matter.

You’re in the divorce case and you’re going to file a motion to get a court date for the court to do something, you’re going to ask the court to do something.

So what are the due dates?

So the first thing you’re going to do is file the motion. You’re going to go down to court, get a court date and then you’re going to have your filed documents from the court.

The next thing you need to do is serve that on the other party. You need to serve that on the other party to let them know, hey you need to show up for this hearing because I’m going to go to court and ask the judge to make some orders. So what are the due dates on this?

If you have just filed a motion, what you have to do is look at the court date. To file a motion, you have to serve that motion that you filed with the court, sixteen court days prior to the hearing, so what you need to do is you need to look at the court date, then look at the calendar and count back sixteen court days, not calendar days, court days.

And now remember, these are court days so you need to make sure you check the court website for any holidays, you don’t want to serve this late, the other party could object or do some other things if you don’t serve this at a timely fashion. So look at your court date, count back sixteen court days, and watch out for holidays.

Now that’s the day that that form or that motion rather has to be personally served, that means you have to have someone other than yourself personally deliver it, hand- deliver it to that person, if you want that to count.

Now, the other way you can do that is if it’s not post-judgment. Post-judgment motions have to be served personally but if you have a motion during a divorce case, you can simply mail it to them. So what you need to do is do the sixteen court days and add five calendar days to mail, and that would be a good mail service.

The next due date you need to concern yourself is if you’re filing a response.

The response due dates, that is something I’m going to cover the response due dates on another video. So make sure if you’re responding, check for another video, Google our channel for response dates for motions for divorce cases in California.

This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com; you can get more information off our website at divorce661.com, or reach me direct at 661-281-0266.

Thanks for reading!

 

How To Move California Divorce Forward | Request Trial Setting Conference

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How To Move California Divorce Forward | Request Trial Setting

Hi Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

Today we’re talking about how to get your case moving, your divorce case moving in California.

So, a lot of folks will call me and let’s say they started their divorce on their own, they didn’t know I existed, they didn’t they could get expert divorce services in California and have someone take care of the paperwork for them, and they attempted to do this themselves.

Let’ say they got a certain way through the process but the other party isn’t cooperating, the other party isn’t filling out their documents, and in some cases you can simply move forward with a default.

But in cases where the other party filed a response, you cannot just file a default and push forward with your divorce. You’re going to have to get the court involved.

So what is it that we need to do to get the court involved to move your case forward, when the other party has entered the case by filing a response? So let me set this up, there are certain procedural steps to a divorce.

Number one, you filed your case and served your spouse; number two, let’s say your spouse filed a response and has now entered the case. The next step for both parties is to complete their financial disclosures. These are known as your preliminary declaration of disclosures.

Once you’ve done that, how do you compel the other party to get them to do theirs? Let’ say, they don’t do it, they’re not doing it, or they intentionally want to stall the case and that’s why they’re not moving forward with preparing their preliminary declaration of disclosure, what can you do?

Well, if you’re with a law firm, and if you’re watching this you’re probably not, what an attorney would do is start a series of letters.

We’re requesting you do your disclosures in thirty days, if not, we’re going to request, file a motion, to compel you to do this. Well that can be a lot of work. Another thing that you can do is simply get the court involved at this point.

And the way you would do that is by filing what’s called a request for trial setting  conference. And this is family law 014, the form number is FAM-014, and what you will do with this is you will file this with the court and you will let them know what the issues of the divorce are. Are they child custody? Spousal support? You want to let them know what they are. And then how long you think the trial is going to last.

So essentially what you’re going to do is you’re asking the court to step in and start setting some dates for things to get moving forward.

So here’s what you can expect to happen, you would file the form, you have to serve it on your spouse.

A couple of weeks later, or a month in some cases, you’ll get the form back from the court letting you know of a court date.

The first court date could be called a trial setting conference; it could be called a case management conference.

Essentially what it is, the courts are going to bring the parties into court and find out what’s going on and where is it at? Once you talk to the judge on that trial setting conference or case management conference, the judge is likely to make some specific orders to move the case forward. So they may say, hey what’s happening?

Well I filed this because the other party hasn’t filed their preliminary declaration of disclosure. The judge may say that well, you have thirty days to do this. And set another conference date down the road.  So what the court will then do now that you have them involved is start setting a series of dates to move this thing forward. That’s what you need to do if it’s not moving forward, if you need to get the court involved in order to complete your divorce when the other party has responded.

I hope this has been helpful on moving your case forward; this is regarding filing a request for trial set in conference for your divorce.

My name is Tim Blankenship, 661-281-0266. And get more information off our website at divorce661.com.

Thanks!

How To Prepare Divorce Fee Waiver In California

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How To Prepare Divorce Fee Waiver In California

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

And today we’re talking about how to fill out a fee waiver when going through divorce in California.

The fee waiver request form is an FW-001. This is going to be the main form. This is going to be your request form to fill out when you’re trying to get a fee waiver.

Now, it’s pretty self-explanatory but there are some parts of this that I wanted to address.

Number 1, 2 and 3 on this form simply is your information, your job if you have one, if you have a lawyer and what core cost are you asking to be waived. So, I’m talking about number 4, what you’re going to mark, if you’re going through divorce in California, you’re going to mark the first box: Superior Court, fees, that’s under box 4. Number 5, is why you’re asking the court to waive your fees.

So, there’s a couple of things here. The first box, is a box that says ‘I receive:’, and it’s talking about medical, food stamps, SSI, SSP, county relief, if you’re in cal-works or receiving welfare, things of that nature.

Generally speaking, if any of those items qualify on number 5A, you’ll qualify for fee waiver and you won’t even have to see the judge for permission. This is something where the court clerk, at least in my experience, has been able to approve those, right there at the window.

Now, the other option is item 5B and it says ‘My Gross Monthly Household Income is less than the amount listed below:’, and what it does is it gives you 6 scenarios of members of your family size from 1 to 6 and lets you know if your income is below those certain amounts that you automatically qualify for a fee waiver in those circumstances as well.

Now, what about if you don’t qualify under 5A which is, let’s say the food stamps, the welfare, very low income, or 5B where you don’t fall into the income levels there, and many of my clients have that happened.

For instance, if you’re a single person and you’re trying to ask for a fee waiver, you can’t make any more than $1,163.55, that’s a very, very low income to qualify for.

So, what you’re going to do, let’s say you have a lot of bills, you’re unable to meet your bills and you just flat out don’t have the money to pay the filing fee, you can attempt to mark box C, this will be 5C, it essentially says ‘I do not have enough income to pay for my household basic needs and the court fees.’.

Now, when you do this, what you’re going to have to do is fill out page 2. Page 2 is essentially a miniaturized version of an income and expense declaration. You’re going to list your income, your bills, how many people lives with you, what’s the total household income, your property, assets, debts, and so forth – monthly expenses, food clothing – and then you’re going to come down to the bottom, it’s going to have total monthly expenses, and that’s going to be compared to your actual income and household income and the judge will make a determination based on how you prepare this declaration, if you qualify for a fee waiver based on the fact of saying ‘I don’t have enough money to pay for court fees.’ Essentially ‘I have no more money. I live beyond my means.’ is essentially what you’re going to be saying.

So, that’s the third option in requesting a fee waiver. I never hurts to attempt type to get a fee waiver. You will save $400+ on the fee waiver. One other thing I want to mention, the other form you’re going to need to fill out besides the FW-001 is the FW-003. What this is is this is the actual order on court fee waiver.

So, even though its order, you’re still going to fill it out, you’re going to put in your name, your information, and you’re going to mark a box because it says it was granted. You don’t want to go in there with a box marked not granted so you only want to go in there and say the court grants you, you’re just going to mark this box, basically what you’re doing is you’re preparing this for the judge, and all they have to do is sign it, mark that the fee waiver was approved on page 1 and the rest of this is for the court to fill out.

But just make sure you fill out all the caption information, the court information here.

So if you have any questions, you give me the call.

There is a, when you go to, say, Google when you just say, fill-able request to waive court fees, that is something that there will be an information sheet on, it will walk you through it, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

If you need assistance, give me a call, Would be happy to help. My number is 661-281-0266 and I did want to mention one other thing.  You’ll notice on the request to order court fees, that if you, say you simply marked ‘unemployed’ and you have no income and you marked box B which says ‘My income is below a certain amount’, technically, pro the paper, you don’t have to fill out anything else on the financial sheet but I just sent two folks down to court to get a fee waiver, and despite the fact that they had marked box B and said that they did not have to complete page 2, the clerk still had them complete page 2, put down that they’re making no income and they did have some debts to put that down, and actually had them also write, you know, hey give me a reason why you have no income, no job and no debt. They want a brief explanation.

In both these cases, it was, “Hey I’m living with my family members, and they’re helping supporting me.” Whatever your case is, if the court, they’re not just going to let you say unemployed, no income. They’re going to want to ask “How are you supporting yourself?” “Are there people helping you?” and things of that nature.

So, that’s how to complete a fee waiver form for a California divorce. This would be for all courts in California, all divorce courts, that is.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. We specialize in divorce and you can reach me at 661-281-0266.

Thanks for reading!

Online California Divorce Document Company | Horror Story # 1

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Online California Divorce Document Company | Horror Story # 1

Hi! This is Tim Blankenship again with divorce661.com.

And today, I want to talk to you about another client of mine who, prior to calling my service, used the services of one of these online divorce document assembly services.

I’m not going to name names but you know these online divorce document companies that will sell you the forms. They’ll either send you the blank forms from anywhere from 100 to 200 dollars or they’ll send you a series of questionnaires online that you fill out and then it auto-populates your divorce forms.

I have lots of clients that I get that come through here. They’ve done one or both of those and then come to me when they realize the forms don’t work to get their divorce completed.

So, I want to discuss a little bit about why you should not have to use these services.

As an example, this gentleman came in because he used those services where he paid $200, filled out all the forms online and then they shipped all the documents to his home. He came in because he didn’t know where to start – which forms need to be filed, which ones need to be served, which ones need to be completed, and he had a lot of questions.

So, when he brought in all his documents, what we normally do is we’ll go through it in completion and show him how much of a dis-service this is. And what we discovered is he was sent about 20 forms he didn’t need; he had forms that were missing that he did need and absolutely no understanding of how to process the forms once he had them.

Not only that, but the court that they assigned him based on an address they gave was wrong, so had he filed these, he would have been in the wrong court. On top of that there was two separate types of petitions in the paperwork and had he filed the petition they send him, he would have been charged double the cost of the normal filing fee.

So, potentially that would have cost him an extra $435 had he gone this alone.

Now, unfortunately he had already paid for the services and there is nothing I could do, moving forward he said it’s a learning experience and I want to share that with you watching this video, so you don’t fall into the same circumstances.

And I get these types of clients all the time, who want to buy the forms. They are sucked in to believing that it’s easy, in fact he told me that the online company, on the website it says it only takes a few minutes to complete. Well, he spent four and a half hours on these documents. Wasted his money, wasted his time and the documents were completely wrong and then came up here to our company to have us complete all the documents for him.

Now, again I have lots of clients that end up doing this. So, I’m going to do a video every term a new client comes to my office that who used an online assembly service or purchased the forms. I want to talk about this, in the hopes of getting more stories out there.

So, folks would simply just call me. So, they don’t have to go through this and waste their money. If you have more time than money and you can’t afford my service let’s say, don’t go out and buy the forms. All these forms are free, you can do one of two things: go to your local court house and pick up the forms or go send me an email. Tell you what, send me an email and I will send you all the forms.

They’re also online, the court website. If you don’t have a computer, send me a letter. Somehow, call me and I’ll send you all the forms you need. You’re here as a free service to do this, but there’s folks out there that just don’t have the money, we understand that and we don’t want you to spend more money, fifty bucks, twenty five bucks, whatever it is for these forms. They are free, we will send them to you not a problem.

You can send me an email at info@scvlegaldocassist.com or just call me, 661-281-0266 and get more information off our website at divorce661.com, and again just be wary of these companies. There are a lot of them and they have lots of money to spend on marketing.

So, they’re out there, you’re going to find them. Use you’re a professional service like us to prepare your divorce on California. Give me a call.

Tim Blankenship, 661-281-0266.

And have a great day! Thanks for reading!

Completing Property Declaration With Default Divorce Judgment In California

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Completing Property Declaration With Default Divorce Judgment In California

Good morning! This is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com

And today I’m answering the question, “Do you still need to do your financial disclosures in a default case?”

And I thought this is a good question and one that should be addressed on video.

So, quickly, a default case is where you file for divorce and your spouse has not filed a response, does not intend on filing a response and you’ve filed a request to enter default which was approved and now you are ready to move forward with your divorce case on your own and your spouse will no longer be involved with the case.

When this happens, you still need to do your financial disclosures. And these are your preliminary declaration of disclosures, which will include your schedule of assets and debts and your income and expense declaration. Then, in addition, so not only do you have to still do your financial disclosures in a default case, but you also then, once it has been granted the default, you then have to do a property declaration.

So, in essence, you’re doing it twice and this property declaration is the FL-160. You’re going to have to do that as well, because when the case is by agreement in a non-default case, both of you exchange your financial disclosures and you both know what is on the table and it’s by agreement and so the court doesn’t get involved. They don’t care what the assets and debts are, they’ll see it on the final judgment paperwork but they’re not going to have to ask you to send you this property declaration because they know you’d know the values.

In a default case, they want you to complete this property declaration FL-160 and on this property declaration you’re going to list all the property, how much is it is worth and what is owned on it and who it’s been given to.

So, what they want to do is, make sure that you’re not listing all the assets, including your husband’s or spouse’s assets rather and taking everything and giving the other party all the debt. They want to make sure there is a fair and equitable division of the assets and debts. Especially, when the other party is not involved and has not responded.

So, that’s the only time they’re going to take a look at that. So, the answer is yes, you still have to do your financial disclosures and you have to, in essence, do them twice by submitting the FL-160 – property declaration when you do a true default case.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

We specialize in divorce in Los Angeles County. Please give me a call at 661-281-0266 if you have any questions about divorce, I’d be happy to help you out.

Thanks for reading!