Filing For Legal Separation Is Not Faster Than Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

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Filing For Legal Separation Is Not Faster Than Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Today we are talking about the differences between legal separation and divorce as far as how fast or how slow it may take to get the process completed.

I’ve been getting a lot of calls for legal separation lately, and I generally talk people out of it for couple of reasons, but today we’re going to talk about the fact that people think that legal separation is faster to have processed than is a divorce.

I want to talk to you about the real world and what really is happening when it comes to legal separation.

In a divorce, you may have heard that there is a six month cooling off period. That means from the day your spouse has served, you can’t get the divorce finalized for at least six months and a day.

With legal separation that’s not the case, so some people may think, let me do a legal separation because that’s going to be faster.

That way we can divide everything up, maybe for particular financial reasons or tax purposes or what have you.

But I want to wan you against that and this is what I’ll tell you if you call me for legal separation.

Essentially, because the courts are so impacted right now, so busy, job losses, court closures, layoffs, etc. the legal separation process is going to take just as long as the divorce process and here’s why:

While you can get the legal process done immediately, there is no cooling off period like there is with divorce. The issue is they actually getting it processed through the courts.

In a perfect world, you’d be able to do your legal separation paperwork, take it down to court, have the judge sign it, there’s no cooling off period as long as the paperwork is correct, you can have your legal separation.

For that reason, it would be faster. However, in Los Angeles County, the process of getting your judgment approved is no faster for legal separation than it is for divorce.

What’s happening right now, because of court closures, the process of getting your judgment approved is taking anywhere from six to nine months.

If you factor that in for your reason for getting a legal separation and then you plan on maybe later divorcing. There’s really no reason to file for legal separation and then later divorce, because ultimately it’s not going to be any faster than the divorce process with the courts being so slow to approve the judgments in general. Whether it’ll be divorce or legal separation.

I hope that made sense. If you have any questions about legal separation, we’re going to be doing a few videos this week on that because we’ve been getting a lot of calls.

661-281-0266. My name is Tim Blankenship.

For more information you can go at divorce661.com.

Full Service Divorce Firm In Los Angeles

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Full Service Divorce Firm In Los Angeles

I want to comment on the fact that when you hire us, you are hiring a full service divorce legal service. We take care of everything and are a full service process.

What do I mean by that? When you hire us, we’ll take care of everything for from filing your paperwork with the court and preparing and serving all the forms.

When we mail out our documents to your spouse or to you where we need something signed, when you get it, you’re going to receive it with postage paid return envelope coming back to us.

I had a client that emailed me today and said “By the way Tim, when you mail out the forms to my husband, can you please put in an envelope with postage and I’d be willing to pay for it?”

And it made me laugh because I’m sure there are companies out there who charge on extra service like the postage and something like that.

Now with us, we charge a flat fee. That means that the fee you pay is the fee you’re going to pay. There’s not going to be any additional charges for postage or otherwise.

So I replied back to her email and said “look, you’ve hired a full service firm. Whenever we send something out by mail and we need something signed by you or your spouse or anyone and the courts as well, we always supply returned postage and envelope so we can get it back in the mail. That’s what full service means”.

If you have any questions about divorce and the divorce process or anyone who wants to work with a full service legal service, please give us a call.

My name is Tim Blankenship. You can reach me direct at 661-281-0266.

How To Get Judge To Terminate Child Support | Los Angeles Divorce

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How To Get Judge To Terminate Child Support | Los Angeles Divorce

Today I wanted to talk to you about an email that I’ve received over the weekend that was related to an Income Withholding Order.

This is in regards to a form called FL-195, and this form is used when there is an order for say, child support or spousal support, and it’s going to be submitted to the court in order for the judge to sign it.

And then that order, once signed, is normally served on your employer, and that’s what your employer uses to know how much child support or spousal support to withdraw from your check if you’re on the receiving end of that.

Now, this email specifically was in regards to cancelling or terminating the order for spousal support. This was a case where child support was ordered in the final judgment, and the child was turning 18 and we needed to get the termination of child support.

So here’s the issue: if there was a previously filed and ordered, you know judge signed an FL-195 and it’s with your employer, you have to go back to court. Your employer is most likely going to require that a new order be signed by the judge indicating that child support is being terminated.

This means that you have to go to court and file a motion to get the FL-195, or the termination of child support signed by the judge.

Now, this means you need to do some planning.

In this case, the last payment was going to be in the next 30 days but the employer needed the paperwork much sooner to make the change and the deduction. What most likely was going to happen is there is going to be support taken out beyond what the order should have been.

And this is because the person should’ve done this a little bit sooner because we need to now file a motion with the court to get the judge to sign the order. This is going to take probably 60 days before this happens.

Keep that in mind if you have a child support order that you need to terminate. It’s going to take some time, so plan ahead. At least 4-5 months in advance.

Again this is Tim Blankenship with SCV Legal Doc Assist. You can reach us at 661-281-0266 or on our website at divorce661.com.

How To Request Trial Setting Conference To Move Los Angeles Divorce Forward

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How To Request Trial Setting Conference To Move Los Angeles Divorce Forward

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

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 set in 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.

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.

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 set in 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.

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 setting conference for your divorce.

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

How To Complete Property Declaration With Default Judgement In Los Angeles

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How To Complete Property Declaration With Default Judgment In Los Angeles

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.

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’s been granted the default, you then have to do a property declaration.

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 in 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 as 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.

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 take in 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. Specially, when the other party is not involved and has not responded.

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 FL160 – 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.

Los Angeles Online Divorce Horror Story

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Los Angeles Online Divorce Horror Story

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 and 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.

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

In today’s example, this gentleman came in because he used a service where he paid $200, filled out all the forms online and then we 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 had a lot of questions.

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 and have us complete in 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 time 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 fee 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.

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.

Los Angeles Divorce | Start Your Divorce With Us Even If You Need An Attorney

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Los Angeles Divorce | Start Your Divorce With Us Even If You Need An Attorney

Today I’m going to make a bold statement. I’m going to suggest that regardless if you know you will need an attorney for your divorce case. That you at least start with us.

Start with us to get your initial documents served, filed, processed and completed before you have to go out and hire an attorney.

Now, we’re not saying don’t speak to an attorney first. It’s always a good idea to speak to an attorney if you have legal questions. But once you’ve done that, do you necessarily want to go out and retain them to prepare your initial filing documents, your summons, your petition, all these hours, forms or check-boxes?

The next step is doing your financial disclosures, again, forms that you can use, or expert services to complete for you and a fraction of the cost of an attorney.

What we suggest is, spare your checkbooks, spare your bank account, use us for the initial few steps of your divorce and that is getting the legal documents prepared, get them filed, get them served, get that process done and then go hire an attorney.

Then let them do what they do best, let them represent you in court if that’s what you used to happen, let them appear in court, let them give you legal advice, but why do they need to prepare the legal documents in 2, 3 or $400 an hour? That doesn’t make sense to us.

What I’m saying today is, come to us to start your divorce. Whether, if you know, hey this is going to be a battle, we’re going to go to court. I know it. There’s nothing that’s going to keep us out of the court. There’s no sense in having an attorney preparing those initial documents.

Their check-boxes, we can take care of that for you and we’ll let you know when it’s time to move on from our service and go speak to an attorney or have attorney represent you.

Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Give me a call if you have questions – 661-281-0266.

Divorce Minute Order In Los Angeles

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Divorce Minute Order In Los Angeles

Today I want to answer the question: “What is a minute order?”

I just happen to see that someone landed on our blog by typing that in. They did find our blog. I don’t know if we answered it well enough. I know we haven’t done it on video so I’m going to do that today. Talk to you about what a minute order is and what you would need one for.

A minute order essentially, and I’m looking at one now. Just have a client have to pick one up. If you have to go to court, let’s say you filed a motion for child support or spousal support or something along those lines and you had a hearing and let’s say the judge made some orders regarding the hearing.

The minute order is essentially the written document that records what was it that the judge said at the hearing.

There will be things that say it is stipulated that the commissioner may hear it to determine and a subsequent matter is judge pro tem, this marriage called for hearing, the petitioner sworn and testifies and then it will go in to what was said sometimes, but mostly about what the judge ordered after hearing the testimony.

So, in this particular case we needed the minute order because the judge made some orders and we needed to get a copy of the minute order so we can see exactly what it was that the judge said was the order of the court.

Because in some instances, when the judge makes an order, that has to be written up on what’s called an order after hearing which is simply an order written up after the hearing.

And then that needs to go through a legal process wherein the other party needs to sign it and if they don’t sign it in a specific amount of time then you can file it with the court with the declaration and I won’t bore you with all the details of that. But that is what a minute order is, there may be other times when you need one.

If you want to see what was it that the judge said specifically what was the order. You’d want to get the minute order.

And to do so, you simply go down to the court. If you had a recent hearing and it usually take them two to three days to get the minute order in the file. But you can go down to the court, walk into the court room.

Don’t go to the clerk, the clerk’s office. Go to the court clerk, let them know you’re recently there and you need a copy of the minute order, give them the date and they should be able to have a copy for you.

If you have any other questions about minute orders, feel free to give me a call 661-281-0266.

My name is Tim Blankenship and you get more information about the divorce process off our website at divorce661.com.

Why It’s Good To Watch Our Los Angeles Divorce Videos

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Why It’s Good To Watch Our Los Angeles Divorce Videos

This is officially our 100th video upload to YouTube. And we do lots of videos as you know, if you’ve watch our videos. We cover a broad array of issues related to divorce and today I was reminded why I do all the videos I do.

A client just left my office and he was fully aware of the divorce process and how we work and everything to do with divorce as far as what he’d seen off our videos. Everything he learned was off our videos.

I’m guessing he probably watched twenty or thirty of our videos. Because when he called us originally, he said, he knew what we want to do. He want to do a particular style of divorce because he thought one thing and then he asked, he thought maybe he should do another but after watching our videos he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

He has watched the videos on how to prepare the forms, He was kind of deciding, should I try and do this myself. Because we have so many videos, you can literally complete your entire divorce process on your own.

But after watching the videos, he decided, he’d rather just pay someone to do it professionally and take care of everything for him in the end.

The benefit to us is, we have very informed clients. By the time they come into our office they have already decided to use our service. It’s not a meet-and-greet-and-tell-me-how-the-process-works.

We either had a long conversation on the phone after they’ve watched our videos and read our blogs or both. We’ve talked to them, we’ve directed them to our blogs; watch some videos, get informed. We really want you to understand the process of our divorce because at the end of the day you’re the one technically filling out the forms. We don’t exist, we’re just doing this for you and you’re representing yourself.

We adjusted, recopied. We’re glad we put these videos out there. It does help us. We do find clients this way, by getting this information out there but at the same time, folks who wanted to do their own divorce can completely do all the forms, all the filing and we cover everything from A to Z on how to do it.

We’re helping the community, but at the same time people wanted to help themselves by working with us. They’re free to do that as well and of course we’d love to help you with our divorce service.

Make sure you watch our videos, get informed, go to divorce661.com website, go to our YouTube channel which is: youtube/divorce661 and you can, again there’s over a hundred of videos as of now where you can learn about the divorce process and everything there is to know about it.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com.

Please give me a call if you have any questions, we would like to get it started. 661-281-0266.

Tips On Saving Money During Your California Divorce | Los Angeles Divorce

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Tips On Saving Money During Your California Divorce | Los Angeles Divorce

Today I want to talk to you about how to save money on your divorce in California.

You may have heard the term hybrid divorce and then again you may not have heard the term hybrid divorce. That’s because not many people talk about the hybrid divorce process. What the hybrid divorce process is a situation where you can go through a divorce and have an agreement with your spouse, so, your spouse can be entered in the case and not having to file a response.

Let’s back up a bit, in a normal divorce proceed, one spouse will file a petition and the other spouse will file a response. Normally that’s necessary in order for the other spouse who’s responding to get involved with the case, the response lets the court know that they are involved In the case, that they are going to be participating in the case and doing their disclosures and signing the written agreement at some point.

Now, the alternative to that is what’s called a default or a true default case and that’s the extreme opposite. That’s where the other spouse doesn’t participate, doesn’t file a response and is not going to enter into a written agreement.

Now, with the hybrid, the other spouse doesn’t have to respond yet can still do their disclosures and can still enter into a written agreement.

Essentially, whether or not your spouse responds, here she can still be involved in the case as long as she is willing to comply with completing their preliminary declaration of disclosure and ultimately will sign a written agreement, written judgment at the end of the case.

Technically there is no difference between a hybrid divorce, again, we will cover that again, which is an agreement and no response and here she signed a final judgment and the case where you did file a response and you’re going to have to do the exact same things. The only difference is by not filing a response you save that $435.

What folks don’t know is. When you file a petition, you have to pay, in LA County anyways, its $435. If your spouse responds, here, she is going to also will have to pay $435.

The question is what do you do if you want to enter in a written agreement but you don’t want to pay that other $435. Well, the answer is the hybrid divorce which I’m the only one that I know of that’s talking about this and it’s a hybrid because it’s a cross between an agreement and a default case.

I’ve written a lot on my blogs about this. I have just about every one of my clients go through a hybrid process because it saves them $435.

If you have questions about the hybrid and how it works and if it’s right for your particular situation, please give me a call: 661-281-0266.

We’re head-quartered in Los Angeles County but we do and can help you all throughout California. Please give me a call 661-281-0266. So you can get more information of our website at divorce661.com.