California Default Divorce How Community Property Is Treated

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California Default Divorce How Community Property Is Treated

Hi my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com and we specialize in divorce in California.

We’re doing a lot of videos this week talking about California default divorce case.

A default simply is you file, you served the other party and they’re not going to be involved. And I want to talk specifically about community property as it pertains to a default case, again the default is you filed, the party was served, they didn’t respond. They are not going to be involved at all; they’re not going to sign a thing and how true default case and how community property plays a part in that.

Now, community property is property that you obtained, asset or debt, during the marriage. So, that’s the type of property we are looking at.

On a true default case, the court will require you, with very limited exception, to divide the property, the community property (assets and debts) one hundred percent evenly. They do not allow you to take more assets than the other party. They don’t allow you to give the other party more debts. It has to be cut down right down the middle.

Now, there are times where that’s fine. It is going to be split right down the middle, but most times, most of the time it’s not going to be fair, even though it seems fair to the court that you split all the community assets down the middle, fifty fifty.

A lot of times this community property is property that you want to keep on your own and it’s still fair even when your spouse says “Yeah, I want him or her to have that community asset”, even though the distribution would be fair, It would appear to be unfair to the court.

But when you do a true default case, the court doesn’t give you any leniency on that even if it is. So they’re essentially going to force you to divide property right down the middle, whether or not it’s truly fair to you or not or fair to the other party or not.

Now, true default cases where the other party is not involved at all, sometimes those cases are the only way to go, because the other party is not going to participate, you’re not on friendly terms, they are not cooperative and that’s your only option is to do a true default case.

However, we’re finding that a lot of people will do a true default case simply to save money on the fees.

In the normal course of a divorce, you would file, pay the filing fee, the other person will respond to get involved and pay another filing fee. And people would say “Well I don’t want to pay another filing fee just to get involved, we’ll just do a default.” But then you ran into this problem with community property.

So, what we suggest that you do what’s called a hybrid. A hybrid is a default with agreement. So you can have a default but you can enter into an agreement with your spouse and when you do that, you can divide up the assets and debts as you choose and the court will not get involved in how you divide up your property.

Call me if you have any questions on that, we do specialize in divorce in California.

Tim Blankenship is my name. 661-281-0266, and we’ll be happy to help you with your divorce in California whether you’re just getting started, somewhere on the middle or you are at the end of the paperwork turning in that has been rejected and you’re at wits end and frustrated with the process. We can fix everything, go back to day one and fix everything for you so please give me a call. We’d be happy to help.

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Van Nuys Divorce Self Help Legal Center

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Van Nuys Divorce Self Help Legal Center

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com and today we are talking about the self-help center at the Van Nuys Court House and the services they provide and I just wanted to let you know what you’re kind of looking at when you go down there.

So, there are some folks that should go down there and should use these types of services.

If you are low income, if you have more time than you do money, then the self-help center is probably a good place for you to go. The reason I say that is, it is free.

Now, you’re going to wait in line for a long time. It’s going to take you at least ten to fifteen trips, you know, full days spending at the court house over a period of time, maybe six months to a year. Going down there, wait in line each time you go because it’s first come first serve, they don’t work off appointments and they’re very busy.

So, if you have more time, let’s say you’re unemployed, maybe you’re part time and you don’t have money to come to a service like ours to help you prepare your divorce, then that’s going to be your best option.

But let me tell you who it’s not for. If you are working full time and you cannot afford to leave work for ten to fifteen times, you know, over period of six months to a year, going down there and getting help and wait in line and spending your time away from work and so forth, it’s not for you.

I know, I have worked at the San Fernando self-help center and the Van Nuys self-help center and I can tell you its extremely busy. It’s not a place you necessarily want to spend your time and there’s a lot of other things you can do to be productive.

So, that said, if you have more time than money, that’s the place for you. If you’re employed, give us a call and use a professional service to get your divorce completed. We can save you money; we can save you lots of time and a ton of frustration.

If you use our service, we can help you; we’ll do everything for you. You can go on with your life. We’ll take care of preparing the forms, filing the forms, serving them and going down the court for you.

We have all the court’s software; we have everything the attorneys have. We can get you through the process.

We operate on a flat fee basis and we can get you through the process on a single filing fee which means, not only are we going to be less expensive than you doing it on your own because of saving you that filing fee, but you’re going to save time, frustration and you can go on with your life.

Give me a call, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661. We are located in Santa Clarita, CA; you don’t have to come to our office if you don’t want to. We do a lot of this right over the phone. We have clients throughout Los Angeles County and have lots of divorce cases at the Van Nuys Court.

Please feel free to give me a call. 661-281-0266 or feel free to visit our website at divorce661.com, we have tons of videos, podcasts and you can even find us on iTunes at Divorce Master Radio.

Look forward to helping you with your divorce, Tim Blankenship. 661-281-0266.

Thanks!

Divorce Judgment’s Delayed In Los Angeles County Divorce Cases

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Divorce Judgment’s Delayed In Los Angeles County Divorce Cases

Good morning, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com, and today I wanted to talk to you about how the LA county courts are recording the judgments being submitted.

You’ll see on there that it’s saying that they are currently processing judgments, judgment packages that is as of May 6th this is causing some concern from my clients and I know there’s a lot of talk about this in the legal industry in LA County so the courts reporting that they’re currently working on judgments as of May 6th and we’re finding that this is absolutely not true.

So i wanted to get this video out there to let people know that everything is fine it’s just that the courts are very slow right now.

I must have 20 to 30 judgment packages sitting with the courts right now.

All prior to May 6th none of them have I received back.

So here’s what I recommend you do.

Number 1 is, go to the case summary at the LAsuperiorcourt.org and check your case summary. So go ahead and enter your case number and make sure that your judgment package had been received. If it’s been received anywhere I’d say from February this year this 2013 till now is still a big possibility that they have not reviewed your judgment yet and if it’s been received and you’ve verified that then this is just an issue of them having these long delays.

I know my clients are wondering where those judgments are. I’m on the Los Angeles county bar family law forum.

This is the back channel of sorts where attorneys and other legal professionals are communicating and everyone is talking about the delays with judgments taking many, many months as much as six months and more.

So just keep that in mind, it is taking a long time to get judgments submitted. The last time there was even an update to the superior court website was a month ago.

They had over 500 lay-offs a while back. I’m sure there are a lot of things going on. They had people that were demoted, people that were fired.

Position are going unfilled and positions where they needed to hire someone are being left unfilled so, of course their workload has gone up.

We are Just as a small paralegal firm here in Los Angeles, and we’re submitting probably five judgments a week to the court and we’re just one firm. Plus you have attorneys, and people going pro per and doing their own cases.

So, I’m sure that they are very busy.

Also, keep in mind that the court website is referring to the central court’s processing timelines. The branch courts like Lancaster, San Fernando, and Venice, they’re taking even longer and they’re not reporting where they’re at as far as judgments are concerned. So, it is taking a long time to get your judgment back from the court.

If you’re one of my clients watching videos, the emails regarding this issue just know that they are taking a long time. We are on top of it and once we submit it to the court it’s in their hands. It’s literally out of ours, so it’s just a waiting game at that point.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. We do handle divorces in Los Angeles County. Please give us a call if we could be of assistance.

 

How To File A California Divorce Motion – Order To Show Cause – Request For Order

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How To File A California Divorce Motion – Order To Show Cause – Request For Order

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com, and today I want to talk a little bit about divorce motions, request for orders, order to show cause, it can be called any of those things.

Specifically, I want to address what you need to fill out in order to file a motion with the court.

The first thing you’re going to need is a form FL-300. This is the request for order application. It’s a four-page application. It’s pretty self- explanatory. There are some check boxes at the top of the first page that you’re letting the court and the other party knows what you’re requesting. Whether it be orders for spouse support, child support, and so forth.

The last thing you’re going to do on the last page is you’re going to write your declaration. You can hand-write it on that last page, and tell the court and the other party your argument of why you’re making your request.

So it’s fairly straightforward, but there is some initial documentation that you’re going to need depending on what you do.

First of all, if you’re asking for money, or you’re request has anything to do with money. You’re also going to need to fill out an income and expense declaration. This is an Fl-150. You’ll see there on the first page that it doesn’t say that you have to do it but there is a check-box that says that you have completed an income and expense declaration.

Again, anything that has to do with money is going to need an income and expense declaration.

Now, if you have proof of certain things, or you have evidence that you want to show the court.

So, proof of your argument, an attachment, email, a bill perhaps. You want to attach those as exhibits. So what you’ll do is you’ll have your request for order, followed by your declaration. In your declaration you can reference exhibits, and you can just say exhibit A is attached, then you’re going to have those attachments behind the declarations so the court can see what you’re trying to show them. And while they’re in the declaration, they can refer to your exhibits.

Now, if there’s not enough room on that declaration page, it’s only maybe three-quarters of a page of room. You can always mark the box, see attached and you can just write on are regular word document. You can type your declaration there

Now, service, once you file that motion with the court. You’re going to get a court date. That then will be served on the other party. When you serve that, you have to serve blank copies of exactly what you send them.

If you send them a request for order, you need to send them also a blank responsive declaration. I believe that’s FL-320, and if you send them a completed income and expense declaration because let’s say it had to do with money. You’d also want to send them a blank income and expense declaration cause they’ll need it if they’re going to file a response. They’ll also need to file an income and expense declaration.

So, I hope that’s been helpful.

Make sure you check my other videos on the dates of service, there are specific dates that things have to be served to the other party. Don’t forget to file the proof of service.

If you want to have us prepare a motion for you to get temporary orders for anything, please give us a call. We do this as a service. We take care of the whole ball of wax. We’ll complete your motion, attach exhibits, file your income and expense declaration. We will go to court and file it with the court and serve the other party.

We will file proof of service and take care of everything for you, then you’ll just have to show up in court and ask the court for your request.

I’m Tim Blankenship divorce661.com. We are licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm. We are headquartered in Los Angeles County and serve all the courts of California. We would be happy  to discuss your particular circumstances.

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

California Divorce Marital Settlement Agreement | Divorce Agreement Assistance

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California Divorce Marital Settlement Agreement | Divorce Agreement Assistance

Hi, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com.

And today I wanted to talk to you about marital settlement agreements divorce settlements. Whatever you may want to call it.

We’ve been getting a lot of searches and hits to our website, people looking for settlement agreements, marital settlement agreements  et cetera. So, I wanted to talk about what those are.

First of all, marital settlement agreement, essentially, is the final agreement in your case, in your divorce. It’s going to outline all the agreements, so it’ll deal with child custody, if you have children, a parenting plan, visitation, spousal support, child support, division of assets, and division of debts.

Literally, all agreements will be encompassed in this marital settlement agreement. Now, when we found cases for folks, we’re a legal document preparation company, we specialize in divorce, we are a non-lawyer firm. But we can work with you direct to prepare your divorce case from start to finish.

We prefer using marital settlement agreements where having the parties come to an agreement in their divorce case. Other than that, you’re going to find yourself in court if you’re unable to come to an agreement. You’re either going to settle outside of court, or you’re going to go to court. Those are your options.

In the previous video, we mentioned that only five percent of cases actually go to court. So, big chance you’ll be able to use our divorce service all the way through. Come to an agreement, whether it’d be easy or difficult. And eventually, the two of you will come together in an agreement and then we will indicate that agreement on this marital settlement agreement and attach it to the final judgment, it is the final step.

A lot of people try it and come to all their agreements before they ever filed for divorce and then they’re waiting months and months to file because they’re trying to come to an agreement.

The important step here is to not to put the cart before the horse because the marital settlement agreement, everything as far as the agreements of your divorce are last.

The first thing you need to do is actually file your case, get the case number issued, get your spouse served, and start that six-month window or that six-month clock on that cooling off period.

After that, you need to work on your financial disclosures; that’s something we would have to help you do. And then you have an idea of what all of the assets and debts are on the table, they have a template so you can come up with an idea of how you want to divide those assets and debts and then we’ll indicate that on your final agreement, attach that on the judgment, and wrap up the divorce case for you.

If you have any questions about marital settlement agreements, settlement agreements for your divorce. We can certainly help you. If you’re working with another firm, and maybe an attorney, or a law firm in your cases.

You’ve already gone to court and you’re ready to wrap things up we could take that; take over for you, and for a flat fee. Wrap up your marital settlement agreement, and put everything together for you, and conclude the case for you.

My name is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. if you have any questions about marital settlement agreements or divorce settlements, please give me a call. Be happy to discuss your particular circumstance, and see if we can help you out.

Direct number is 6612810266. You can find us on the web at divorce661.

Again, Tim Blankenship. If you have any questions, please give me a call, thank you.

California Spousal Support Information | We Explain Spousal Support Issues in California

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California Spousal Support Information | We Explain Spousal Support Issues in California

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship. I’m owner of SCV legal doc assist and our website is divorce661.com.

Today, I wanted to talk to you a little about spousal support.

Spousal support is something you’ll have to address in your marriage, and I just want to cover a couple of topics.

First of all, we can help you with getting a spousal support order if you need one, a temporary order, we can help you prepare a motion during your divorce case and help you get some temporary support.

We also give post-judgment support orders. If you needed to modify a support order, or need to respond to a motion for support that’s something that we can help you with.

But I wanted to talk to you a little bit, just some basics, we’re not attorneys; we’re not a law firm. We’re just here to prepare documents, we do specialize in the divorce process, and we have worked for law firms and for the courts.

So we’re not here to over-complicate things, we’re just here to give you kind of a plain English explanation about how this works.

So, spousal support is determined quite simply by a determination of the income of the parties, the length of the marriage, and the need for support.

Now that can be a very long and complex topic but that’s kind of the essentials. How long were you married, how much the parties make, and is there a need for support.

Now, there are some basic rules to spouse support.

Again, keeping it simple, if you make more than your spouse, you may have to pay spousal support, sounds pretty clear. If your marriage is longer than ten years, the court can retain jurisdiction over spouse support forever.

So, what this says again, I’m not an attorney, so, I just wanted to make that clear, but if you were to look on the internet you’d find that California determines that a long-term marriage is that which is over ten years and the court can retain jurisdiction.

This comes up almost in all of our divorce cases that we filed for folks here. And if it’s over ten years of marriage, the court can retain jurisdiction. Doesn’t mean you have to pay spouse support, or that you’ll get spouse support. There has to be a need, and there has to be some other qualifying factors. But the court retains jurisdiction forever. So, ten years after your divorce potentially, one of the spouse could come back to modify the spouse support.

How spouse support is determined again, length of the marriage, if there’s a need and so forth. And spousal support is determined by what is called a DissoMaster. Courts use this; law firms have access to this. So also, have access to the courts’ software in helping you determine what spousal support would be.

Essentially, we’d take a look at what the parties make, punch it into this software, and spits out a number and lets us know what that numbers are going to be. It just gives you guidelines.

We can just get an idea of what you’re looking at. If you’re going to request for spousal support, you can always bring that if that’s what you decide to do.

Again, we are a full service divorce firm, we are not attorneys but we can help you file your divorce case, get you temporary for spousal support and do everything along the way and everything a law firm would do for you except give you legal advice and represent you in court.

If you’re looking for a cost efficient way of getting spousal support, or getting through the divorce process, please give me a call my name is Tim Blankenship my website is divorce661.com.

You can get tons of information there we have lots of videos on YouTube channel.

What’s best if you’re curious and you have direct questions, just give me a call, everyone’s case is different, so I’d be happy to speak with you, my direct number is 661-281-0266, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Do You Need An Attorney For Your California Divorce?

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Do You Need An Attorney For Your California Divorce?

Hi, my name is Tim Blankenship and I’m licensed in bonded legal document preparation firm located in Santa Clarita and serving all of Los Angeles County.

I wanted to discuss with you a few statistical facts in regards to divorce and let you know that you do have some alternatives if you’re looking or thinking you need a divorce attorney for your case. I want to let you know that you have some alternatives in helping you.

Now quite obviously is to use a company like myself and have someone to assist you with your divorce.

Now statistically speaking, I want to give you a few facts; I wanted to let you know that, only five percent (5%) of divorce cases ever go to trial.

So what this means is you’re either going to settle in your case or your case is going to go to trial but only five percent of cases that are filed here in California ever go to trial.

So what that means is there is that ninety-five percent chance that you’ll never see court when you go into your case. That said, why is it you think you need a divorce lawyer in your case?

Another fact, eighty-five percent (85%) of all divorce cases that are filled are done so without an attorney.

So here’s another fact saying that in most cases it’s going to be filed by someone representing themselves and that’s where we specialize, folks that are going through the divorce process in California and are self- represented, we help those clients who are in pro per, we help them get though the process. We help them with the paperwork and completing the divorce process from start to finish.

Again, eighty-five of folks are filing on their own.

Now again, I wanted to discuss with you alternatives. If you think you need an attorney and if you’re on this page, you’re probably sitting watching this video. You probably searched for a divorce attorney in our local neighborhood and you’re considering possibly filing for divorce.

I want to make a suggestion, I want you to call my office and see if there’s something we can do for you before you speak with an attorney, or even after you speak with an attorney. It really doesn’t matter when you call us.

I just want to let you know that you do have alternatives to hiring an attorney and many times in fact, the statistics say that there’s only a five percent chance you’re case will go to court, and eighty-five percent of folks filing for divorce are doing it on their own. Therefore you’d be better assisted by our firm who can help you go through the process and represent yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, if we feel you need an attorney, or if you call us and you’re asking for assistance and we find that we’re unable to help you, we’ll be the first people to let you know that you should seek an attorney or at least get a consultation for your particular case.

Well give us a call, we’d be happy to discuss your particular circumstances, everyone is different. We are very experienced at this we have worked for law firms, we had worked for the court systems. So we’ll be happy to let you know if it’s something, if your situation is something we can help you with, or if we think you need better served with an attorney.

Worst case scenario is you get a great referral to an attorney by calling our firm and discussing your particular circumstances.

Again, Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. Be happy to talk to you, give us a call. My direct number is 661-281-0266. Thanks for reading!

More Changes To California Divorce Forms

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More Changes To California Divorce Forms

Divorce661.com, we are a California divorce document preparation firm.

And today I want to talk to you about changes to the California divorce forms. We recently received some updates today; this will be for July 1st, 2013.

There are generally about two to three updates to the California divorce forms per year, and the reason that I’m bringing this up is there are many people that use either automated document assembly services where you go online and pay a fee to have your documents, your divorce forms done for you online.

You know there are many online companies that will do that. The problem is that they do not update their documents and there has been some specific changes to the California divorce forms as of change of July 1st , that if the forms are not updated by these online legal document companies, your forms will be rejected.

Routinely, I have to help people fix mistakes and errors when they went online and used an online service or some type of divorce document assembly service; and this particular update to the form is going to cost some significant problems for those of you that from this point forward are using these online divorce services who have not updated their forms.

You’re going to have real trouble getting your divorce finalized; it’s just going to get rejected left and right.

So I want to make folks aware of these changes. If you’re going to use one of these online divorce services which we are trying to help people to avoid as often as we can because we get a lot of business from folks who abuse these services. Lost their money, found out it was worthless service, and came to us to fix, and had to pay us as well, which is unfortunate.

So hopefully, you’re watching this video because you’re considering using an online service and we’re going to want to dissuade you from doing that, because it’s going to give you a lot of heartache.

Please give us a call; we’d love to help you with your California divorce.

My name is Tim Blankenship. We specialize in divorce document preparation; you can reach me direct at 661-281-0266 and thanks!

2 Years Tax Returns Now Required In California Divorce Cases

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2 Years Tax Returns Now Required In California Divorce Cases

We are a California divorce document preparation firm, we do specialize in providing divorce services in California.

And I wanted to talk to you about some changes in regards to family law and the paperwork when you’re filing for divorce.

In July, 2013 we received updates from our software provider regarding the forms software we use for filing divorce papers, and realized there have been several changes to the forms. So, part of divorce is filling out your financial disclosures.

This is called the declaration of disclosure. That said; there are certain documents that need to be served. What they’ve added to the declaration of disclosure, and if you want to look this up, you can look up family code section 2104, but what they’ve added is really two things.

Number 1, is you now have to serve two years of tax returns. So on top of your, with your income and expenses declaration, and your schedule of assets and debts, along with the documentation, you now have to serve two years tax returns, that wasn’t a required in L.A. County as far as I know, until these most recent changes.

It had been part of the disclosure process in counties such as San Bernardino which we filed cases for as well. There has been that rule there, but this seems to be a new change for Los Angeles County.

The other thing that they’re requiring is now that we have – as far as when those declaration of disclosure needs to be served, they are now giving you sixty days, from the day of filing the petition to submit your schedule of assets and debts, and your income, expense declaration.

Normally, or in the past I should say. That wasn’t required; there wasn’t so much of a time frame. You could file your petition, serve the other party and there wasn’t really a time frame in which that had to be done. But now there is a family code section 2104 that also indicates that you have to serve your preliminary declaration of disclosure.

Of course, included here is the two-year tax return within sixty days of filing the petition. So I guess what we’re seeing is the family law court starting to follow suit, more closely aligned with civil procedure as opposed to kind of being left a little more loose.

Again this is Tim Blankenship, divorce661.com. We do prepare divorce documents in California.

Please call us if you have any questions 661-281-0266 and thanks!

Don’t Waste Your Time Filing Your Own Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce | Los Angeles Divorce

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Don’t Waste Your Time Filing Your Own Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce | Los Angeles Divorce

Hi, Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com we are licensed and bonded legal document preparation company specializing in California divorce.

And today I wanted to talk to you about doing your divorce yourself.

You know we’ve done over a hundred videos (now over 300 videos), self- help videos helping people figure out their divorce, if you’re inclined to do it on your own.

As I tell people on the phone, they call. If you have more time than money, you may want to consider doing your divorce yourself.

Other than that, I’m going to tell you, don’t waste your time doing this yourself. If you’re on the fence, and you know, should I do my own divorce? It looks like I can do the paperwork. Don’t get sucked into that. You’re not a professional at this. Whatever business you’re in, I’m sure you’re very good at. And we’re very good at what we do. So let the professionals to this.

You’re talking about court forms; and the divorce process; and separation of assets and debts; and yes you may be saying. “Well Tim, I have an easy case, there’s no children, no property”; and I’ll tell you, people tell me that it’s not as easy, and as seamless as you think, it’s not as simple a divorce as you think, even when you have very little assets; or no assets; or no children, and even a short-term marriage, the divorce forms are complicated, serving your judgment is complicated.

So I’m just going to say, if you’re on the fence, or you have a job, or you don’t have the time, don’t mess with doing the divorce yourself, don’t waste your time. We have people that have attempted for several years to do their own divorce.

They filed, four, five years ago, they started the process, they had issues with the court and they just stopped. We don’t want that to happen to you. Let the professionals do it, give us a call, anywhere in California, we can take care of that for you.

Give me a call 661-281-0266. Go to our website divorce661.com for more information. And we’re looking forward to helping you.

Thanks!