How To Get Temporary Divorce Orders If You’re The Respondent | Santa Clarita Divorce
Hi! Tim Blankenship here, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We specialize in divorce in LA County.
Today I wanted to talk to you about question I was asked from a gal who was looking for some assistance and found us online. Her question was: “If you’re the respondent, is there a way of moving the case forward especially if you want spousal support?”
Her question basically alluded to the fact that her husband was the petitioner, had filed for divorce and was kind of dragging his feet. The reason she felt he was dragging his feet was because he didn’t want to pay child support.
She thinks that by him delaying the case, he will be effectively paying child support for however long he decides to drag this out. So her question was, how can she become the petitioner so she can then move the case forward, and that’s an interesting question.
Again, I haven’t been asked that and I wanted to clarify that.
If you’re the petitioner in your divorce case, you’re the petitioner all the way through; if you’re the respondent, you’re going to be the respondent all the way through.
Regardless of being the petitioner or the respondent, you have just as much right to move the case forward and equal access to the law as the other party does. So as the respondent, what you would need to do is simply, either, continue on with the case and do the next step that’s required; if she’s only been served, she should then file a response.
If she’s already filed a response, she should then do her preliminary declaration of disclosure. And once she’s done that, she can then later request the petitioner to do his. This is what’ll get the case moving forward. If you talk to an attorney, which I am not, they may suggest that you file for a request for trial setting.
This again, would get the court involved and get the case moving.
Now, her specific question was in regards to how to obtain child support. At any time during the divorce case, you can ask the court to give you temporary orders for just about anything. So in this case, she wants to get temporary orders for child support pending the final judgement of her divorce case.
To do this she would file a FL-300, this is a request for order form, and in it you would describe the circumstances and why you’re requesting child support. You then get a hearing, the judge would hear the hearing, and then ultimately make an order on support, whatever that may be.
So hope that clarifies it for you. It was a great question Wanda. I’m sure if you have that question, everyone else does, so hope that clarifies the situation for you.
Again, my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist. We do specialize in divorce. Please give us a call at 661-281-0266. You can always get more information on our website at divorce661.com. Thanks!