How To Complete Your Divorce Fast | Los Angeles Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Complete Your Divorce Fast | Los Angeles Divorce

Today I want to talk to you about how to complete your divorce fast.

You may have heard that there is a 6 month waiting period to get your divorce completed. And while that is still true, there is some confusion about that. Many folks think that they file for divorce and then they have to wait 6 months to turn in all their paperwork, that’s not true.

What you want to do is get your divorce paperwork done as quickly as possible.

As a matter of policy with our firm, what we do is we like to get all of your divorce documents done in the first 30 to 60 days.

The reason for this is the backlog at the courthouse in approving judgments is running anywhere from 3 to 4 months. So what that means is we can submit your divorce paperwork, your judgment, in fact all of your paperwork in completion within 2 months get it submitted to the court knowing it’s going to take them 3-4 months to approve.

The benefit of this is, in the alternative, if you wait until that 6 month to submit your divorce paperwork, it’s going to take you another 3-4 months after that.

You’re looking at more like 9 to 10 months as opposed to 6 months in getting your divorce completed.

So if you want to get your divorce completed rapidly, please give us a call. We can do that for you. We are located in Santa Clarita but we do service all of Los Angeles

Again, my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist that’s 661-281-0266. Thanks!

What Property Do I List On Schedule Of Assets And Debts | Los Angeles Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

What Property Do I List On Schedule Of Assets And Debts | Los Angeles Divorce

Today I want to talk to you about problems and issues that we’re seeing and questions of people have when it comes to completing the schedule of assets and debts.

The schedule of assets and debts is one of the forms that you’ll be using when completing your preliminary declaration of disclosures. This is a form that will be served along with the income and expense declaration.

The schedule of assets and debts is a list of all property that you have. Its property you had prior to marriage, property you had during marriage and property you have after separation. If you’ve had a long term period of separation, there’s going to be some property that you’ve purchased through her bank account, something like that after separation.

The common issue that we’re seeing is that folks think that when they’re completing their schedule of assets and debts that they’re only to list the property that’s either belongs to them, owned by them or in their name alone, and that’s incorrect.

The property list on the schedule of assets and debts isn’t going to be all property; property before marriage, during marriage and after separation as well as property that belongs to your spouse, property that your spouse had prior to marriage that you’re aware of, property that’s in his name alone.

Even the house, if it’s in your husband’s name alone, let’s say, and it was before marriage, it’s going to be a separate property you still listed.

Not only community property but separate property on the schedule of assets and debts. By listing the property, you’re suggesting that it’s your property.

You’re just list in the property that you’re aware of that was accumulated before the marriage, during the marriage or after separation and all that’s used for down the road is to be a template, if you will, for how that property is going to be distributed.

On the schedule of assets and debts, when you lose property, one thing you can do is indicate if the property is going to be yours or it’s going to be your spouse’s.

If you’re the petitioner, you can simply place a ‘P’ in front of it. If it’s going to go to the respondent, you can simply place an ‘R’.

There’s an area where there’s a date where that property was purchased. And if it’s prior to marriage, just put ‘prior to marriage’ or ‘after marriage’ or ‘during separation’ and I’ll help you determine if it’s going to be a community asset or a separate property set.

I just want to clear that up. I can see that on a daily basis where there’s confusion out of what property is to get listed on there.

Again, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. If you have any questions, feel free to give me a call at 661-281-0266. We’re a low cost, affordable document preparation firm that specialized in divorce in Los Angeles County.

Hiring A Process Server For Divorce In Los Angeles

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Hiring A Process Server For Divorce In Los Angeles

This article is for those folks who are looking for a process server.

We are not a licensed process server, but we do know who the good process servers are.

What we’re doing is a referral service where you can work with us, give us a call if you need a process server. We will take care of setting it up, you will basically be paying us and then we will take care of the process service by coordinating the service of your spouse for you divorce case.

There are several process servers in the LA area that are not good process servers as they’ll take your money and not perform the service, or not do a good job, and not find them want to find them and want to charge you more.

This happened to a client of ours recently. If you contact us, you know, we specialize in divorce. We help people get through the divorce process, that’s our specialty.

We work with a couple of different process servers, depending on where on you’re at, where on Santa Clarita, anywhere in LA County, or outside of LA County we can help you.

Give us a call. You’ll pay us direct, and we will coordinate the entire process; hiring the process server, getting them served, and then filing your proof of service with the courts. That way you don’t have to worry about looking up, a process server, are they going to do the right thing, you know, the typing of the forms, we’ll take care of the whole shot for you.

If you are looking for a process server, just give us a call, we’ll take care of it, coordinate it, we’ll bill you direct, and then you don’t have to worry about it.

Give me a call, my name is Tim Blankenship, 661-281-0266. We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm so if you’re looking for someone to help you with the paperwork, give us a call for that as well. Talk to you soon!

Los Angeles Divorce | Best Methods For Writing Divorce Declarations

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Los Angeles Divorce | Best Methods For Writing Divorce Declarations

Today, I wanted to give some pointers if you’re looking to prepare a declaration, perhaps for a motion, maybe request for order if you’re filing for a motion or even if you’re responding to a motion.

You kind of want to go over some of the best practices, things to avoid and things of that nature.

Most of this information is things I’ve seen going to the court system and when I work at law firms, how to write the declarations, how to word with them and so forth.

First, I want to talk a little bit about the structure of your declaration, how to start it off and so forth.

When you write a declaration and you are preparing this as a motion, you want to give first a little bit of background of about your circumstance.

Maybe a short paragraph about how long have we been married, her name, the respondent’s name, if you have children and how long the marriage was and things of that matter.

If it’s a child custody or child visitation, just give a little bit of background information so the court knows a little bit about what’s going on. Then, if you’re filling on a request for order, there is specific order to the way this is drawn up.

First, you have child custody, then child visitation, child support, then spouse’s support, attorney’s fees and costs, property restraint and property control.

Right now, talking about the FL-300, you can use that for your template in how you’re going to address the issue. If you have child custody issues, you want to discuss in your request for order, then talk about those issues first. In doing this, it’ll flow in the same manner that the application is set up and it’ll make it much more understandable for the court and for the person you’re sending this to address.

Same thing goes if you’re filing a response to request for order, follow the same suit. Even if the other party didn’t do it correctly, go right down in the same order that it shows and is reflected on the application and you’ll be in good shape.

This will keep you on task and keep you from bouncing around from ideas you had. Handle all issues regarding the child custody before moving on to the other issues.

We do assist in preparing motions, request for orders or to show causes both for petitioners and respondents. We can do responses as well; we do them both during the marriage, we do them for paternity and we do them post judgment.

We can take care of all this for you, please just give us a call.

My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist and you can reach us at 661-281-0266.

I Have A Pension | What Is A QDRO Qualified Domestic Relations Order | Los Angeles Divorce

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I Have A Pension | What Is A QDRO Qualified Domestic Relations Order | Los Angeles Divorce

We Now Offer QDRO Service For All Pensions, 401k’s, 403b’s and Retirement Systems 

Today, we are answering the question of what is a QDRO.

QDRO stands for Qualified Domestic Relations Order. And if you’re reading this article, you probably have a pension.

QDRO are the legal instrument which divides up a pension.

(Update To This Blog Post)

We Now Offer QDRO Service For All Pensions, 401k’s, 403b’s and Retirement Systems 

They are essentially an actuary who will go through and determine what percentage of the pension as community property belongs to your spouse or your spouse has an interest in.

If you have a pension and this is going to be divided, it is going to be a necessary to process q Qualified Domestic Relations Order.

And this is how it works essentially, you have the divorce going on on one hand and you have a pension that needs to be divided on the other.

The QDRO is an instrument that will be drafted by our firm and will be included with the judgment. It can either go and be filed along with the judgment at the time it’s filed or it can be indicated in the judgment that it will be divided at a later date.

And then later when that QDRO is completed, it can then be filed with the court even after the judgment has been submitted.

Don’t forget that that QDRO needs to be certified by the court and filed with the pension so they’d know, at the time of distribution, who is getting what.

If you have questions about our QDRO service whether you’re using our affordable divorce process service or not, give us a call because we can still prepare your qualified domestic relations order for you either way.

My name is Tim Blankenship, owner of Divorce661.com. We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm. We specialize in divorce in all of California.

You can reach me direct at 661-281-0266 or on our website at www.divorce661.com.

California Divorce | If You Move You Must Complete Change Of Address

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

California Divorce | If You Move You Must Complete Change Of Address

Today I want to talk to you about the change of address form that you need to file if you move during your divorce.

The clerk’s office has very specific rules or guidelines you could say in where they mail your documents.

I want to talk to about the change address form and why it’s important you update your records with the court.

So let’s assume you filed for divorce, you live in location A, you file for divorce on your summons; and petition; and case cover sheet, that tells the court where you live, that’s the court, that’s the address the court’s going to have on record for you.

Not that they’re going to mail anything to you, probably but if they were say for instance, to set a hearing or something along those line, they do that by mail. They don’t call you. So, you’re going to want to have your address correct with them.

The most important part is when you file your judgment. When you file your judgment, you’re going to file several documents. It’s 20 to 25 pages depending on your circumstances and one of those is a notice of entry of judgment form. It’s FL-190 I believe, that form is going to be mailed to you when you submit your final judgment.

If the address on that document does not match the address that you initially filed with the court, if all your paperwork is correct, everything is else is fine, they will reject your judgment because of a wrong address, this is form MC-040 I believe.

You can submit that change of address with your judgment just make sure you serve a copy or at least you give evidence of serving a copy on the other party.

But make sure you have that change of address completed either before you submit your judgment or along with the submitted judgment so they’d know that the address is correct and you notified the other party.

My name is Tim Blankenship divorce661.com is our site.

For more information, you can give us a call at 661-281-0266.

We specialize in the California divorce process, thanks!

Los Angeles Divorce | Proper Order When Submitting Divorce Judgment Forms

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Los Angeles Divorce | Proper Order When Submitting Divorce Judgment Forms

Today we’re talking about how to prepare the divorce judgment in California and specifically this is going to be in regards to what order they need to go in.

We’re having, I’m seeing a lot of clients having trouble with filing their divorce judgment and half of it is doing the wrong forms and the wrong check boxes and all that, but the folks that get that part right are not getting the order correct and not collating the divorce judgment package correctly and not attaching the right forms to the documents that needed to be enclosed in the divorce.

I’m going to go over that and this is going to be about the order that you need to essentially staple your documents together.

If you’ve had your divorce case rejected and it says it wasn’t in the right order or it says the FL-180 was not the top form or you’re getting ready to submit your judgment. This is the video for you just to see if have this in the right order.

So, what I want you to do is take out your FL-180. The FL-180 on the second page is going to discuss several areas: children, parentage, child support, spousal support, property division and attorney’s fees and cost. This are items J through N on page two of the FL-180, the judgment form which is essentially the cover sheet for your judgment.

What you are going to do is, you are going to use that as your guide for the order you are going to submit your judgment.

Let’s assume you have all of these that apply to, you have child custody and visitation which is on line J, you have child support on K, you have spousal support on I, or I’m sorry in L, and property division on M. So, that’s going to be the order that you submit these.

Let’s talk specifically about the order.

Let’s say you have child custody. So, the first thing you are going to have in there is not on this form but it’s the FL-190. It’s regarding the children; it’s kind of a notice regarding responsibility for children. So, don’t forget that form.

The next thing you’ll have in there will be your child custody visitation attachment and that’s going to be the FL-341, that’ll be your first attachment, and behind that, you’re going to have your child support order, the FL-342, behind that, you’re going to have spousal support, that’s the FL-343. And then behind that you’ll have property division which is FL-345.

None of the other forms, well let me make it back up. So that’s what’s going to consist of your actual judgment package. So you have the judgment, you have all the attachments behind it and that’s going to be its own attachment, and you’re going to staple that together.

Everything else that’s part of the judgment package is going to be submitted individually. They are not going to be attached to this package with the judgment FL-180 on top.

If it’s a default case or a hybrid case, you’re going to have a request to enter default, you’re going to have a notice of entry judgment, you’re going to have a stipulation waiver, a final declaration of disclosure and you’re going to have the declaration for default and uncontested dissolution or legal separation.

All of these will be submitted with the package but individually, so, each of these will be stapled with three copies of everything behind them, this one, and all of these will be separate from the actual judgment package.

So, if you got it rejected it’s probably because you got of these all stapled together and the court didn’t want to take the time to unstapled it and put it in the correct order. So, just keep that in mind.

We’ll be talking a lot about the judgment packages, we’re seeing a lot of clients get this rejected. People that are doing this on their own. So, we’re going to try and cover all the items of rejection that are covered on the three page rejection sheet that the LA County Courts have.

And you’ll find that, even if you are anywhere in California that you’re going to find a lot of these rejections to be very similar wherever you are at in California.

I hope this was helpful, if you have any questions about submitting your judgment or your looking for a service to help you prepare your judgment or any part of your divorce case please give me a call.

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

And of course you can always get more information off our website at divorce661.com.

 

Los Angeles Divorce | Benefits of Bringing Your Spouse To Consultation

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Los Angeles Divorce | Benefits of Bringing Your Spouse To Consultation

What I wanted to discuss is how it might be a good idea, of course this is assuming that things are mostly amicable with your spouse if you’re going through divorce.

This week I had three separate couples come in together to the consultation, to an appointment, and they wanted to do that because they wanted to discuss some options and get a lot of the paperwork done in a single meeting.

And it was actually the first time that I had agreed to that, not because I had any issue with it, but because no one had asked, and it actually turned out to work out very well.

And I wanted, if you’re watching this video, to consider that as an option.

Instead of coming in and meeting me on your own and filing, you’re going to obviously have tell your spouse at some point, so maybe bring it up and you both come in at the same time and meet with me. And we can get a lot of paperwork done and answer questions for both parties.

This was helpful in a lot of ways, but most importantly, aside from getting a lot of the paperwork done is if you hire me to help both parties prepare the divorce paperwork for you, for both of you, the spouse that did not hire me, did not know who I was prior to receiving the paperwork, always seem to be a little bit cautious in working with me because they were not the one to hire me.

When these couples came out and met with me at the same time, both of them were very comfortable and will have no issue moving forward with me carrying the paperwork for both parties. So it was a very good situation; I do highly recommend it.

In cases where you know that it would be a low conflict style divorce or uncontested divorce; because both of you can come in at the same time and we can answer questions, both for you and your spouse so both of you feel comfortable as far as what the process is going to be.

And so you’ll realize that hey, I’m not an attorney, I’m not here to give you legal advice or represent one party or the other. I’m here to help push the paperwork through, explain the process and when you need specific information or you get stuck or you need help coming to decisions on certain things, what am I going to be able to do to help you?

Advise you as far as what the court process is, how to get appointments from the mediators. So the idea is that I want both of you to feel comfortable in working with me so for one rate we get the entire divorce process done.

Again, this is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist.

We’re headquartered in Santa Clarita. Please give me a call in 661-281-0266.

Or you can get more information off our website at divorce661.com

Divorce Paralegal | Divorce Services Offered In Los Angeles

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Divorce Paralegal | Divorce Services Offered In Los Angeles

I’m on my way to Rancho Cucamonga. Meeting up with some folks I don’t know, I joined a team, ragnar relay race.

It’s a 200 mile race and we’re going to meet these folks for the first time and just get together before we have to sit in a van for 36 hours running 200 miles.

Anyways, as I drive out to Rancho Cucamonga, I remember that I have several cases in the Rancho Cucamonga courts, in the San Marino County courts, and want to comment on the fact that a lot of folks don’t know that even though we are headquartered in Santa Clarita, that we service all courts in Los Angeles county, as well as other surrounding counties.

In California, the divorce process is identical aside from there being a few local forms which are easy to locate once you’re on the website.

Our firm has cases in San Bernardino County, San Diego County, up in Sacramento. Just about everywhere. There are like fifty some odd counties in California, and we have cases in quite a few of them.

So if you are anywhere in California and you happen to read this article, we can help you. We do have a completely online service, where we don’t even have to meet with you.

Some folks locally like to drive in, I don’t know, maybe a fifty-sixty mile radius, but many of our cases that we handle are completely done over the phone, by fax and email.

So, give us a call. You can reach us direct at 661-281-0266, or you can get more information on our website at divorce661.com.

Los Angeles Divorce | Process Using Divorce Paralegal Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Los Angeles Divorce | Process Using Divorce Paralegal Service

Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about how our legal document preparation service works.

When you call us, the first thing you will do is be asked a series of questions so we can better understand what your circumstances are regarding your divorce.

After we discussed your case with you, we will be happy to give you an indication of what the cost will be. We work on a fixed price basis and not on hourly rates.

The next step, once you decided to work with us, we’ve broken down the process into three digestible steps.

Step one is completing the initial divorce paperwork, filing it with the court and getting that paperwork served on your spouse.

The second step is completing the financial disclosures for both spouses and step three is preparing the final judgment.

Because we are a neutral third party and not a law firm, we often work with both spouses for one flat rate. That means that we can prepare both of your and your spouse’s paperwork, prepare the final judgment, and get your divorce for one price.

If you like more information on our service, please just give us a call or visit one of our local area websites.