Online California Divorce Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Online California Divorce Service

We are licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in divorce in California, paralegal if you will. Most people know us by that name.

We handle divorce cases all throughout California. We do much of it online and help cases all throughout California.

We wanted to make this video because there’s a lot of clients out there that have found us online, on YouTube.

Looking for an online divorce service or looking for not just a divorce service, maybe a cheap divorce service, what have you, with their uncontested case.

So, what we want to do is discuss the differences between our service and other online services.

First of all, what you’ll notice is, if you’re searching around that there truly isn’t a service out there that allows you to file completely online. Some people allow you to do the initial documents and then they’ll stop there.

But the online services that you’ll find are basically automated document assembly services, this means you answer a long online questionnaire and then your answers are populated into the forms.

The problem with this is there is not a human being looking at the forms to make sure you did it correctly.

We have numerous clients that come from one of these myriad online services that they had their forms done incorrectly and they’re rejected by the court.

Not to mention, their forms are not updated, because usually these online companies are trying to service all the states in the US and they can’t update their forms correctly.

In California, the forms are updated twice a year and we’re seeing that these online services haven’t updated them for many years and these forms are now being rejected.

Now, let’s talk about costs. When you file through an online service, they may have a low teaser rate upfront but they’re goal is to try and get you to use their full service and so forth.

They don’t, however file any of the forms, serve the forms or anything like that. That’s really when you’re going to need done.

When we fill out your documents, we literally will do it by hand. We’ll talk to you on the phone. We can get some of the questions from you via email, whatever you prefer, depending on your schedule and were going to walk you through step by step and actually type up your documents for you. No automated document assembly with our company.

We’re going to save you money, when you use our service we can show you how to avoid paying the other half of the filing fees.

When you use an online service, generally they will recommend or require you to file a response along with the petition. Now, you’re paying $435 twice.

Not with us. There’s a way with the courts that you can get away with paying a single fee, it’s called a hybrid. I won’t go into it here, but make sure to call me.

Because if we do this, our fees will be absorbed by the fees you save in filing fees and you have us do all the work.

My name is Tim Blankenship. We specialize in divorce in California. Please give me a call 661-281-0266.

For more information visit our website at divorce661.com.

Cheap Online California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Cheap Online California Divorce

Today I want to talk to you about our cheap online divorce service.

If you’re looking for an online divorce service, the first thing you’re going to find is that most of them are automated services. Something that you pay for, you don’t talk to somebody. You simply answer questions online and then you print out your documents.

The problem with this is that you have to do all the work, so this truly is not an online divorce service. You’re going to have to print the forms, and then all the work is up to you.

The probably the worst part about online divorce services is that you’re going to have to pay twice as much in court fees. And this is because they’re going to require you to file your petition and pay a fee and the other party file a response.

We have a truly online divorce service, in that we will take care of everything for you. We don’t use questionnaires, you’re not going to have to come to our office, were going to prepare your documents as if you’re sitting in our office, take care of everything for you from start to finish.

We handle only California divorce cases, we’re sentry located in Los Angeles, northern Los Angeles County area and we can handle your divorce case anywhere in California.

Essentially what we do is instead of you filling out online questionnaires, we simply make an over the phone appointment with you. It takes about thirty minutes to prepare each set of documents with you.

Once you’ve signed up for services with us, we’ll set an appointment with you at your convenience and we will over the phone complete all you divorce papers for the initial forms. Our service includes, filing all the documents, serving all the documents, going down to court, taking care of everything for you.

So, when you use our service, it’s more of a all-inclusive service. Where we’re going to take care of everything for you. Filing the documents, serving the documents and so forth.

So, what we recommend is give us a call regardless of where you are in California. We have filed with probably most of the fifty somewhat counties in California to date, we have clients all across California and we are a full service online divorce dissolution.

There isn’t anyone else out there that is doing this process, whether you be in northern California, southern California, east or west we’ll take care of it for you.

The court process is essentially the same in all the California courts aside form a few local forms which we have access to and we’ll take care of it for you.

When you use our service, it is cheaper than using an online service, and I’m just going to explain that cheaper, please call me to talk about this.

When you use an online service you’re going to have to pay two fees. To file a petition and when you file the response and if you’re having an uncontested case which I assume you are if you’re trying to do this online. Then, there’s no need to file the response.

We have what is called a hybrid where you guys can enter into a stipulated agreement and save that secondary filing fee.

So, our costs are minimal when you take in to account the fact that we’re going to have those fees waived on the response.

And we’re going to take care of everything for you, saving you time and frustration.

So, please give me a call.

My name is Tim Blankenship.

We are a company that specializes in divorce only in California.

When you call, you will be speaking to me. I am the owner and I will be taking care of you from start to finish in your divorce.

Please give me a call, 661-281-0266 or please visit our website for more information, divorce661.com.

Thanks for reading!

I Need Help With My Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I Need Help With My Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce Service

If you’re reading this, did you type into the search engine on either YouTube or Google ‘I need help with my divorce papers’ or some variation of that?

Well, you’re not alone. Many people run into trouble and need help with the divorce process at some point during the process.

It is a difficult and confusing process, and people just like you, ordinary people, smart people, have difficulty completing the paperwork.

Some people get stuck at certain points during the process; some people will look at the initial paperwork and say ‘you know what, I don’t want to do this’, ‘I don’t want to deal with this’, and ‘I can’t figure this out’; and they call us for help before they ever file a single thing, or fill out a single form.

To the other extreme, we have people that attempt to do the entire process on their own, from start to finish, including submitting the final judgment, and then run into trouble there; or we have calls come in from any point in between.

Maybe they did their initial paperwork and now they fell stuck; and they want to hire us to complete the remainder of the process.

So anywhere, at any point when you need assistance, we can pick up where you left off. Whether, you haven’t filed a thing. Whether you’ve had your judgment submitted, and rejected. At any point we can pick up and take off. Pick up where you left off. Okay. Glad I got that out.

So, give us a call if you need assistance at any point with the divorce paperwork. We can help you anywhere in California. We are essentially located in Los Angeles, California to be exact.

We are in Santa Clarita which is in northern LA County, but if you need help with the divorce process at any point, just give us a call. We’d be happy to finish things up for you.

We have people call from all over California that simply either scan us or mail us their documents and their rejection letter; or just let us know where they’re at; and we can finish it up for you, get your case submitted, and let you know what’s left to be done, and finish up, wrap up the divorce for you.

Tim Blankenship, our website is divorce661.com. Please give me a call direct at 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

Your Divorce Process Does Not Start Until Spouse Served | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Your Divorce Process Does Not Start Until Spouse Served | Santa Clarita Divorce

Today I wanted to talk to you about an issue, and a question that a lot of people have, and that it keeps coming up.

So I want to do another video and maybe hit it from a different angle so maybe it makes more sense.

The question is, when does the divorce process actually start?

Many people feel that the divorce process starts when they file their paperwork. You fill out the forms; you take it down to court. The clerk stamps it, you have these conformed stamped copies, and you think “Great, I’ve started my divorce, and in six months I’ll be done.”

That is a common misconception that I’m going to attempt to clear up again, and advise you as to when the actual process starts.

So, you have your filed papers. The divorce process officially starts, that six-month waiting period starts when you served your spouse. This can be, doing it by mail, and notice of acknowledgment of receipt, or when you have someone personally serve your spouse.

That is the official kick-off of the divorce process.

Now, there are several things that hinge of off that service date, that six-month window, or that start date when your spouse is served.

For instance, if you’re going to do a default filing, meaning, the other party is not going to respond for thirty days. Look at your summons if you’re wondering what I’m talking about says the other party at thirty days. Those thirty days is after your spouse is served.

It’s not after the date you filed; after your spouse is served. So you cannot file the default and tell your spouse is served. The six-month window starts as of the date your spouse is served. So if you file your divorce papers, and hang on to it for two months, nothing, the clock has not started ticking.

So, when your divorce can be finalized – is going to be six months from the day your spouse is served.

Heed that in mind that nothing, everything hinges off that date of service, that notice of filing that you serve on your spouse. That’s when everything kicks off. You can’t file a default, your six-month window doesn’t start ticking.

I want you to be aware of that. Keep in mind though, that if you don’t file or, I’m sorry, if you don’t serve your papers, and this is kind of something that started last year, the middle of the year of 2013.

Once you file, you’re going to want to serve your spouse within sixty days or you can anticipate the court setting a hearing.

You’re going to receive a notice in the mail that’s saying ‘hey, you filed for divorce, you haven’t served your spouse, you have to do so by this date or we’re going to dismiss the case.’ So I just wanted to throw that in as an added bonus to this video.

And this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. You can reach us direct at 661-281-0266, or more on our website at divorce661.com. Thanks!

Divorce Judgment Most Difficult Part of Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Divorce Judgment Most Difficult Part of Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Today I wanted to talk to you about the divorce paperwork that you’re probably going to have the biggest challenges on.

This is not only for our firm, or for attorneys, but also for folks who are trying to do their own divorce or if you’re considering doing your own divorce.

I kind of want to give you a head start as to where you’re going to have the most trouble.

So initially when you, when you file your initial documents, to file your case, you’re going to find that it’s not too difficult.

You can probably figure it out, get some help online, and probably work your way through it. You may make some mistakes. In fact, we find people do make a lot of mistakes but what we find is that is the easier of the paperwork so it is a little bit of a, it’s kind of setting you up for failure when you get those initial forms.

You think that they might be somewhat easy and you’ll be able to get through them because it only gets harder as you go. After that second set you have to do financial disclosures, there’s processes of service that have to be done in a certain way.

Some have to be mailed served; some have to be served in person.

There are a lot of complications you can run into in your divorce paperwork and the divorce process but you’re not going to really hit a real difficult challenge until you get to that final judgment paperwork.

This is where most people have the majority of problems. This is where we get a lot of calls from.

People get to this point, they either are getting ready to submit their final judgment and they can’t figure it out, or they’ve attempted to submit it, and they had it rejected for multiple reasons.

So regardless of, if you decide to go through the process on your own, just be aware that you’re going to run into trouble when you get to that final judgment phase.

There is checklist you can use online but even with those we’re finding that people who are self-preparing their judgments are having them rejected routinely and often. Meaning, one, two, three, four times they’re being rejected before they finally will call for assistance so we can complete them correctly and get them submitted to the court so you can get your divorce finalized.

Give us a call if you’re having trouble with your judgment, we’d be happy to sit down and do a judgment review and submit your final documents, so we can get this completed for you.

Again, Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. 661-281-0266, thanks!

Information You Need To Start California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Information You Need To Start California Divorce

Today I wanted to talk to you about what you need to have to get started, to get your divorce process started.

Many people call me and they’re telling me that they’re going to hold off on starting their divorce because they’re still trying to figure everything out.

They’re trying to come to agreements on, on, money, and support, and children, and custody, and parenting plans, and everything regarding their divorce, and they’re having trouble coming to agreements and so they’re not filing the paperwork.

What I tell these folks is they’re kind of putting the cart before the horse. None of those things need to be determined prior to filing for divorce.

If you’ve looked online, and looked at the divorce process, it may appear that you need to turn in everything at once but it’s actually a process.

The initial forms you need to complete are very straight forward and the information you need is very minimal, and to be honest with you what I tell folks is to get the ball rolling, to get the case started. All you need to know is your name, your spouse’s name, your kids’ names, their date of birth, your date of marriage, date of separation, where you live, and where the other party lives, and a basic general idea, if you have children as to custody and visitation.

Meaning, general, like, do you want it to be joint? Or do you want to have primary? Or do you want the other party to have primary? That’s it.

We don’t need to know, you know, if you’re going to have them on Saturdays from three to five. That doesn’t matter at the initial filing.

It’s just a very general blanket statement regarding custody, and that applies to spouse support, do you want it or not? Yes or no.

It doesn’t have to be how much or when or frequency or anything like that.

Child support –yes or no? I mean, they’re very general basic information that you need to know to file for divorce. And so that’s what we recommend.

Don’t try and put the cart before the horse, and figure it all out.

Because how are you going to decide what is an even distribution of assets and debts when you haven’t yet done your financial disclosures which is kind of the second step of the process.

Need to get all of that laid out, do the disclosures. Let each other know what’s on the table. Here are all the assets and debts of the marriage, and then you can start working on that final agreement in what you’re going to decide.

Who’s going to get what, what’s support going to be, what’s custody visitation going to be, and that’s why we break it down into those steps.

File for divorce, do your disclosures, now you know what property and debts on the table.

Then you can work towards an agreement, and that’s how we recommend you do the divorce whether you’re doing it with us or trying to do it on your own.

And this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. Please call me with any questions, 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

Should I Complete My California Divorce On My Own

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Should I Complete My California Divorce On My Own

Today I want to answer the question, of whether or not you should do your own divorce or not.

So let me first start by saying it’s completely possible for you to do your divorce on your own.

It’s just going to come down to a couple of factors. Do you have the time to invest to attempt to learn the process of filling out all the forms, all the nuances as far as what forms need to be filed and served, and including preparing the filed judgment, which can be twenty-five to thirty pages long?

So really you have to just take into consideration if you have the time to invest in doing that and I get this all the time have people call and they’ll say “Tim, I just don’t have the money to pay your fee.” and I’ll say “Okay, well, you have an option: Do you have more time than money or more money than time?”

– And that’s going to be the first question you should ask yourself.

If you’re not working or you’re unemployed you obviously have more time than money. So you’re probably going to want to do this on your own in most cases because you have the time to invest to sit at a computer, go down to the court self-help centers, and spend several hours in there for a couple of days trying to get this  paperwork done.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to be tough, it’s going to be confusing, you’re not going to like it, but that may be your option if you don’t have the funds to get professional services such as ours to help with the divorce.

The next thing you want to consider is how far in the process are you going to get before you ask for help?

The divorce process starts off pretty easy. There are only a couple of forms you need to fill out to file and get a case number.

The summons, the petition, the case cover sheet, if you have children then you need a declaration regarding children you have to complete, and you can get a case number, and those aren’t too tough to fill out; but then it gets tougher as you go.

The next step is doing your financial disclosures, and people have lots of questions on how to complete those, and they have trouble completing those, and even if you get through that, the third and hardest part, and I break this into phases, that’s why I say, one, two, and three.

This third part is completing your judgment which wraps up all the agreements of your divorce.  That can be twenty-five pages long. And there’s lots of check boxes; and fill-in the blanks; and the information you have to include; and property declarations; and checklists to watch out for; and people make mistakes on that.

So if you have the money, we recommend you, use our services right from the get-go.

Because what we find are people that have started the process, and got to the process to a certain degree.

We always have to go back and fix things, and amend certain forms.

In addition, when you come to us, you’ve wasted so much time trying to fill out the initial paperwork, to your disclosures.

I have some people that have gone all the way through as to have made the judgment. Had it rejected and then came to us, and unfortunately there is so much, there is actually more work to do cause we had to correct forms, amend documents, refill out forms, some form hadn’t been done in a while so we had to redo it for them.

So they didn’t save any money by trying to get through the process.

‘Cause it was just as much work or more to work to complete for them. Even though they have done so much of the paperwork, and spend so much of their time.

My recommendation is if you have more time than money. Of course, you’re going to have to do it yourself, but if you have the money, we recommend you start with us right from the beginning.

Don’t attempt to do this yourself, because it’s going to cost you the same regardless of where you’re at in the process when you come to us.

‘Cause we’re going to have to fix the documents that you did. Not because you don’t know what you’re doing, well, yes, it is because you don’t know what you’re doing.

What I wanted to say is not because you’re not smart enough to do it. It’s just that it’s very confusing to do.

So please give us a call, we’d love to help you out with your divorce and if you’re in California – 661-281-0266.

We’re headquartered in Santa Clarita which is northern Los Angeles County, and we do serve all the courts in California.

I’m looking forward to talking to you 661-281-0266. Our main website has tons of information and that is divorce661.com.

Thanks!

Should You Use A Divorce Self Help Book | California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Should You Use A Divorce Self Help Book | California Divorce

Today I want to talk to you about whether or not it’s a good idea to use a divorce self-help book.

I recently went to the library and I wanted to see what these publishers were putting out there and what I found out it they’re all pretty much the same thing.

There’s, you know, different publishers, different attorneys, or group of attorneys writing about divorce, and this is what you can find in a self-help book and this is why I think divorce self-help books are pretty much worthless.

So when you open up the books, you’re going to get maybe a chapter or two of general law and things related to divorce and after that it’s going to go into how to prepare your actual forms.

Now it’s kind of laughable.

I’ve been into this divorce service for several years now, and I know the ins and outs of all the forms and so forth.

And I was confused in looking at the different pages that showed say a summons and basically what it had is it had the page over here with all the instructions and then over here it had a copy of the divorce form.

Let’s say it’s the petition for instance, and it had arrows going to each line and back-and-forth, it looked like a geometry math problem with lines going back-and-forth if this then that, go back to C if you checked, marked box D, then skip E through F.

I mean it was really confusing; and I didn’t get a whole lot out of it; and I really believed that these books are not necessarily there to help you.

I mean, of course, if you took the time and went through it you could probably fill out some of your divorce forms, they’re probably not going to be accurate because the one thing that they don’t do is they don’t let you know about the local forms.

So you can certainly get a California self-help divorce book but it’s not going to know if you’re in LA County, or San Bernardino County or where in California you are.

And there are always local forms that you need to be aware of and the process is a little bit different from each county, and you also need to be aware of that.

So what I really feel these books are designed to do are to thoroughly confuse you cause that’s what it did to me.

And I’m in the business and they are hoping that you will call them each book lets you know that they’re an attorney or a group of attorneys and there’s help you could get by calling them.

So what they’re, I think, they’re trying to achieve is having you call them and then turn you into an actual client for their law firm by confusing you through the divorce book.

I wrote a blog on this and I’m going to insert this video in the blog and you can learn more about a better way of getting through a divorce.

I’ve done over a hundred and thirty or hundred and fifty videos so far about divorce; I’ve written over a thousand different articles on divorce.

I think that’s a much better way of getting through the divorce process, if you’re intending to do it completely on your own without assistance.

Of course, if you would like some assistance in California we’d be happy to help you out, but you can watch a video, you can watch, listen to podcasts we have done, you can read our blogs.

I think that’s a much better way of learning how to complete the divorce process than reading any book that is probably out-dated by the time it actually hits the bookshelves.

This is Tim with divorce661.com. If you have any questions, please give me a call at 661-281-0266, and you can always get more information off our website at divorce661.com.

Thanks!

Filed For Divorce But Now Reconciling | What To Do | California Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Filed For Divorce But Now Reconciling | What To Do | California Divorce

Today, I wanted to talk to you about your options if you filed for divorce and then later you want to reconcile your divorce or you want to take a little extra time to work things out and see if maybe you filed for divorce a little too soon.

So, I had two clients, probably in the last month, where this has happened to.

The first one you know had a rough week and came in filed for divorce, we filed the paperwork, and then essentially they wanted to hold off and see if things would work out.

So they spent a couple of weeks, maybe a month, waiting to serve their paperwork before doing so just to give it some time, and that’s certainly one option.

Once the paperwork has been filed, you can just hold it, you don’t have to serve it right away.

Just know, that if you’re in Los Angeles County, what the courts have started doing is if you have not served the paperwork within about sixty days they will set a hearing and have you come into court to explain what’s going on.

Now here is the problem with that, if you filed for divorce and didn’t serve your spouse, and then they mail something to your house from the courts saying, you haven’t served your divorce paperwork yet.

You can see how that could be a problem, your spouse getting something like that in the mail, unknowingly to you, that they got the mail and find out from the court that you had filed for divorce.

So you have to watch out for that.

The second option, and this really depends, is to just not serve the paperwork right away but have them sign a notice of acknowledgement of receipt.

What you can do is, and this is what happened in the second case. We filed for divorce, I mailed the paperwork out to a spouse, and then they said “You know what? We want to kind of hold off and see if we can work things out.” –which is great.

Of course that’s why there’s that six-month cooling off period, the courts want you to take that time to possibly reconcile your divorce or your marriage rather.

So what I advise this family is for them to not fill out any of the paperwork just hold on to it and you know you can always serve it later.

The other option is to just back-date the day the paperwork was received and just not sign it yet.

So what that means, is they can use the notes of acknowledgement receipt, sign it and date it for the day it is received so it’s back dated to that six-month date.

And they can hold it and if the court sets a hearing.

Then all they have to do is file that notice of acknowledgement and receipt with the proof of service and they won’t have to go to court for that case management conference; or they can go to the hearing and simply ask for the case to be dismissed if they’re going to continue on with their marriage.

Just keep in mind if you do dismiss the case and the divorce and you need to later re-file, you’re going to have to repay the filing fee.

So if you’re not a hundred percent sure, go ahead and have the person served, and then just wait.

There’s not going to be a rush to complete any paperwork after that point in most cases, and then later, six months, eight months down the road you can always dismiss the case then.

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to give me a call.

My name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

You can reach me direct at 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

How To Combine Divorce Cases By Stipulation | Los Angeles County Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Combine Divorce Cases By Stipulation | Los Angeles County Divorce

We’re talking about how to complete a stipulation when two petitions are filed in a divorce case.

I just did a video on what happens when two petitions are filed, and the answer was you have to treat one as the response.

Well, you have to complete a stipulation and file that with the courts, so that second petition is counted as the response.

So let me just back-up briefly, both of you filed a petition within days of each other, let’s say you have two open cases, you need to choose one as a lead case.

Generally speaking, you’re going to chase the first case that was opened, and you’re going to ask the court to use case B, the second case that was filed, as the, and treat that petition in that second case as the actual response to the first case, that way you have a single case in your situation.

So that said, what you need to do is draw up a stipulation and submit that to the court.

The stipulation, essentially, will say, we request the court, allow case A that was filed on this date to be the lead case and that case B that was filed on this date, this petition be treated as the response to case A.

Both of you will sign it, you’ll submit it to the court and wait for the judge to sign it, and therefore your second petition will be counted as a response.

Now the reason that’s been official, is because if you filed a petition, you pay the filing fee, both of you did.

If you file another response to a case that doesn’t have a response filed, you’re going to have to pay a filing fee again. That’s why you need to complete the stipulation, to have your second, your petition, to, not the lead case, you have the lead case, leave it alone.

Have your petition in the secondary case be treated as a response that way the filing fee and the petition you filed can be treated as a response.

If you have any questions about that, please feel free to give me a call, 661-281-0266.

You can always get more information from our website at divorce661.com.

We handle divorce cases in all of Los Angeles County.

Thanks!