Divorce Judgment Gives People The Most Trouble | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you have tried to prepare your own divorce or are considering doing so, you will learn how confusing and difficult the divorce paperwork can be.  But the worst is yet to come.

Most people will have some problems with the initial divorce documents.  They will have items rejected, not file them correctly and not fill them out right.  But the final test will be when you go to prepare the divorce judgment.

The divorce judgment is the last set of divorce documents that can be up to 25 pages long or more.  These final judgment documents give everyone  a problem.

But there is a bigger issue when completing the final divorce judgment forms and doing them wrong.  When you submit the final judgment documents, they will go into a huge pile of judgments that are also waiting to be approved.  The current wait time for your divorce judgment to be reviewed is 3 months to as long as 6 months.

This means that every time you submit your final divorce judgment, you will have to wait several months before your learn if it was done correctly or not.  I know people that attempted to complete their own divorce and have submitted their judgment 3 times.  They have been trying to complete their divorce for over 3 years.  They have been trying to get their final divorce paperwork approved for over a year.

Some people figure it out really fast that they need help and others are a glutton for punishment and keep asking for more rejection.  That was an attempt at humor, but you have to hand it to these folks that keep on trying.

Whether you have not quite gotten to the final divorce judgment phase or are one of these folks that have had the judgment rejected numerous times and are ready for help, please give us a call.

We do a lot of judgment reviews where we will take a look at your entire divorce case from beginning to end and complete and correct all the documents so they can be submitted and approved by the court.

Divorce Process Starts When Spouse Is Served | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

One of the things that keeps coming up when I am helping clients with divorce is explaining when the divorce process actually starts.  There is some confusion on this as well as what document to file to let the court know your spouse has been served.

The divorce process does not start when you file your divorce case.  When you go to the court and turn in all your papers and pay your filing fee, you will receive a comformed “stamped” copy of your divorce filing.  You and everyone else in this world feels like they have filed their divorce and therefore the divorce process has started.

The divorce process actually starts when your spouse is served, not when you file.  Everything is hinged off the day your spouse is served.  Even the 30 days to file a response or when you want to file a request to enter default.  None of these things can occur until your spouse is served.

When you file a lawsuit (which filing for divorce is) you have to give the other party notice.  Notice that you have filed for divorce and what you are asking for such as your requests in the divorce Petition.

So three things I want to clear up here.

  • The six month waiting period does not start until your spouse is served.
  • You can’t file for a default unless 30 days have passed since your spouse was served.
  • The Court won’t know your spouse was served unless you complete a proof of service and file it with the court.

These are the big three things to watch out for.  And make sure to complete your proof of service correctly.  There are several boxes you need to complete and many the person who will be doing the serving needs to complete.  I see a lot of people who do this wrong or forget to put the dates and times of service, etc.

I hope this clears up the issues of when the divorce process actually starts.  When does it start?  When your spouse is served!

Divorce Can Be A Tough Business In Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Being in the business of helping people divorce can be tough sometimes.  Most of our divorce cases are amicable, but we do have a few that have clients that are upset and get angry at each other.  I think this is normal.

We definitely don’t get as many angry or upset clients as I did when I worked at a law firm here in Santa Clarita.  By its very nature, when you get n divorce attorney involved, the divorce case is going to have a much higher emotional impact.

Most of our clients are at least someone in agreement and are somewhat trying to work together to complete their divorce case.  Lets put it this way.  Our clients are not mortal enemies like you find when they hire attorneys.

So that leaves us to work between the clients to facilitate the divorce process.  Because we often help both clients we will hear the complaints on both sides.  Our job is not to mediate your divorce, but we are here to make things easier and keep the divorce process moving.

Divorce is a tough business because we don’t sell widgets that make people happy.  Most people purchase products or services that make them happy.  However, the second biggest purchasing motivations is to reduce pain.  And I think that is where our divorce service comes into play.  We reduce pain, meaning that we help you complete a process, that when finished, will hopefully relieve some pain and stress in your life.

Some of my clients are funny in that they can’t wait to celebrate completing their divorce.  Maybe it was a very short divorce or that “Vegas wedding”.  Yeah, we get some of those.

In any event, people just want to get their divorce over and done with a fast as possible and with as little problems as possible.  And that is what we do.

We are a professional divorce service that will help facilitate the completion of your divorce.  We complete all the necessary forms, file all your documents, go to court for you and complete the entire divorce process from start to finish for one affordable flat rate.

I Need Help With My Divorce Papers | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you have thought or uttered the words, “I need help with my divorce papers“, you are not alone.

The divorce process is confusing and frustrating at best, if you are trying to self prepare your own divorce.  While not recommended, it is possible.

Many people need help with their divorce.  Some realize that right from the get-go and others struggle through many phases of the paperwork before throwing in the towel.

Getting help with your divorce papers is a smart thing to do.  Not only because I own t his business, but because I see so many people struggle for months and sometimes years attempting to do their divorce papers on their own, only to realize they have wasted  countless hours and days of their life and  still are no closer to finishing  their divorce.

We recommend you get help immediately.  But if you started the divorce process and then later realized that you need help with your divorce papers, that is okay too.  It is never to late to get help with filing your divorce papers.

The folks that have come to us after spending several grueling months attempting it on their own feel a great sense of relief when they turn their divorce over to us to complete.  Some of the best compliments we receive are during the first meeting in our office or conversation on the phone with our clients. They can’t believe how much time they have wasted trying to complete their own divorce.

They say they are so glad the talked to us and are using our service.  They realize how much they really did not know about the divorce process and how we made it so clear and understandable and broke things down in plain English for them.

If you find yourself needing help with your divorce papers in Santa Clarita or anywhere in Los Angeles, please give us a call.  We would be happy to discuss helping you prepare your divorce and pick up where you left off.

Save $435 On Your Santa Clarita Divorce | Tips & Tricks

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Simply by reading this article you will learn how to save $435 on your Santa Clarita divorce.  I have seen so many people spend money they did not have to on filing fees.  Had they just used our service from the beginning, they would have saved this money.

When you file for divorce, you have to pay the $435 filing fee in Los Angeles County.  Other Counties have a similar filing fee and some are higher.  This is, of course, unless you qualify for a fee waiver for your divorce.

When one party files for divorce, you will notice on the Summons that it says that the other party has to file a Response within 30 days.  The language is very scary and says that if you don’t respond in 30 days you will lose rights and your spouse can move on without you.

So not knowing how the process actually works, your spouse files a response and pays the $435.00 also.  Now you have spent $870 on your divorce.

Would it make you mad to learn that you did not have to file the response and you could have save the $435.00?

In uncontested divorce cases, it is not necessary to file a response.  You can still participate in the divorce and enter into a written agreement without having to spend the money on the filing fee for submitting a Response.

And with uncontested divorce cases, the money being spent is usually coming from the same household.

That said, here is what we suggest.  You should call our office to have us complete your entire divorce.  That $435 you would have spent unnecessarily on the Response filing fee almost covers our cost to prepare your divorce for you.

So if you used our service, you will have saved yourself the $435 filing fee and not have to complete your divorce paperwork on your own.

We wrote this article, because many clients come to us after filing the initial divorce paperwork which included filing a response.  Had they just called us in the beginning, they would have saved that money to apply to having us complete the entire divorce for them.

Don’t Waste Your Time Attempting To Complete Your Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I am the first to say that it is possible to complete your own divorce.  To say anything else would be a lie.  But the fact that it is possible is far removed from what it will actually take to complete your own divorce if you attempt it on your own.

So why do I say it is a waste of time to attempt to complete your own divorce?  I will give you a few examples of issues and roadblocks you may face when attempting to do your own divorce.  While there are hundreds of issues you can come across when trying to do your own divorce, I will give the most common issues people face.

Believe it or not, completing some of the divorce forms is the easiest part. But many people make tons of mistakes on these forms.  And we are talking about capable people here.  It is just that the divorce forms are so foreign that it is hard to figure out what you are supposed to do in many cases.  So while completing the forms is the easiest part, most will fail to complete the forms correctly.

The next thing I see a lot when people are attempting to complete their own divorce is that they are unaware of how the process of divorce works.  For instance; What forms to complete and in what order, how to serve the divorce documents and which ones can be served by you and which need to be served by someone else.  Which forms have to be personally served and which ones can you mail.  Which forms are filed with the court and which ones are only served on your spouse.

I would consider the two issues above, that of how to complete the divorce forms and being familiar with the divorce process as the two biggest issues people have when attempting to complete their own divorce.  But there are hundreds of issues that can spiral off these to major problems.  There are so many decisions you have to make and so many easy mistakes to make.

This is why we say you should not waste your time attempting to complete your own divorce.  There is just too many things that can go wrong.  I can’t tell you how much business I get where people have tried to do their own divorce for months and sometimes years, only to come to us for assistance after wasting so much of their valuable time.

 

Should You Do Your Own Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

There are a couple of factors you can use to determine if you should do your own divorce or if you should hire a company to complete your divorce for you.

The first thing to figure out is if you have the money to hire a divorce service in Santa Clarita to help you.  When people call, this is what I tell them.  If you have more time than money, then you may want to consider attempting to complete your own divorce.  It can be done, however it will be a long frustrating process.

There are free services out there such as the Court’s self help centers, but the services are limited and they are extremely busy.  Using the self help centers will takes many  trips and you will experience a lot of frustration along the way.  But it is is free.  So if you are short on funds and perhaps unemployed, this may be your only option.

So lets assume you have the money and hiring our service is an option.  But you are still thinking that you could save the money and complete it on your own.  The next thing to consider is what your time is worth.  How much time are you willing to spend on the weekends and on the evenings, researching and trying to figure out what divorce forms to complete?

Some look at the initial divorce forms and feel like they can complete it, and you probably can.  The thing about the divorce process is that the paperwork gets more complicated as you go along.  Sure the initial documents are easy enough, but then comes the financial disclosures.  Those are a bit tougher to figure out, especially with how to serve them and what documents to attach.  Which forms to file and which ones get served.  You will have lots of questions, trust me.

If you get through the first two phases of the divorce paperwork, the most difficult part is the judgment.  The judgment consists of about 25 pages of attachments.  There is a lot of information you have to cover and it is easy to make mistakes.  Many people fail to complete the judgment correctly several times which causes significant delays and frustrations on your part.

I have clients that come to me at various stages of the divorce process.  Those just starting out that that immediately realize that they cannot or do not want to attempt this on their own.  Then there are those that start the process and later realize they need help.  Then there are those that attempted to complete the entire divorce process by themselves and submit the judgment.

I will be honest with you, there ends up being more work when clients come to us after trying to get all the way through the divorce process on their own.  Usually we will have to re file many of the documents from the beginning and amend the divorce forms that were filed because they were done wrong.

We recommend that you hire us from the beginning.  In most cases the cost will be the same, regardless of where you are at in the process.  But we can pick up where you left off.

Give us a call if you would like more information about our Santa Clarita Divorce Service.  We are headquartered in Santa Clarita, California and serve all the courts in Los Angeles County.

Non Stipulation To Commissioner During Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

This is not something that comes up to often for clients representing themselves as it does for attorneys during a divorce, but it just happened to one of my clients so I wanted to address it.

This has to do with the parties agreeing to a Commissioner presiding over their divorce case instead of a Judge.

When you file for divorce, you have the right to have your divorce case heard by a judge.  However, may of the Judges in the courtrooms are not full-fledged Judges, rather they are Commissioners.  We won’t go into to detail regarding the differences here.

So when you go to a hearing where there is a Commissioner instead of a Judge, you have to sign a stipulation saying you agree to have your case heard by a Commissioner instead of a Judge.

If you don’t want to have your case heard by a Commissioner, you would sign a form saying you don’t agree to have your case heard by a Commissioner.  This is called, “Non-Stiping” a Commissioner.  Non-Stipulating a judge is common practice among attorneys in family law.  Not so much because they don’t want to have their case heard by a Commissioner, but because they don’t like the Commissioner in general.

What happened to my client today is that they went to a hearing on a motion for child support.  When the other party found out that he could delay the case simply by not agreeing or stipulating to the Commissioner, that was exactly what he did.  Not because he did not like the Commissioner, but simply to stall the case.

What happens next is that your case has to be reassigned to another division.  This happened to be at the San Fernando Courthouse where there is only 2 family law courtrooms.  There is one Judge and one Commissioner.

Due to the amount of folks non-stipulating the commissioner in San Fernando they are transferring some cases to Van Nuys.   At least that is what happened to our client.

How To Streamline Your Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

The more I talk about it and write about it, the faster word is spreading on how to streamline your divorce using the Hybrid Divorce Judgment.

The hybrid divorce is simply that.  A cross  between a Uncontested divorce and a Default divorce case.  So lets back up a little first and talk about these two types of divorce cases which will help you better understand the Hybrid divorce.

An uncontested case is one where both parties have entered the case.  One party has filed the Petition for divorce and the other party filed a Response and they will enter into a written agreement regarding the terms of their divorce.

A default case is where one party has filed for the divorce and the other party does not respond. This can be intentional or because the other party is not going to participate or has not participated at all and you want to move on.

Now, on to the hybrid.  The hybrid divorce is one where the Petitioner files for divorce and the other party is not going to respond and default (purposely) but the parties are still going to enter into a written agreement.

So you can see it has the elements of both the default divorce and the uncontested divorce.  The difference between a true default and a hybrid is that in the true default, you can submit the request to enter default after 30 days where with the hybrid divorce, you will submit the default along with the written agreement and judgment.

The only difference between the uncontested case and the hybrid divorce case is that there will be no response filed with the hybrid divorce.  Aside from not completing a response, you will do all the same paperwork as the uncontested divorce case.

The reason this streamlines you divorce is because you do not have to file a response and once the case if filed you can start working on your financial disclosures and toward a written agreement.  The other aspect of the hybrid divorce is that you avoid paying that second filing fee for filing the response.  This saves you $435.

How To Amend Your Divorce Paperwork | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I get a lot of clients coming in for our divorce service who have already started the divorce process in Santa Clarita.  One thing that I frequently find is that the initial divorce paperwork that they have filed in incorrect.

For instance, you may have spelled one of the parties names incorrectly or perhaps used the wrong date of marriage on the Petition. (Don’t worry, you’re not alone). If you have made a mistake on any of the divorce documents and have already filed them with the court, you will have to correct the issue and re file them. And if you have already served the documents, you will have to re-serve them as well.

So I thought I would discuss the proper way to amend your divorce paperwork.  Let’s talk about the initial documents, the Summons and Petition.  On the Petition itself, if you make a mistake and need to amend the form, they already have a box for you.  In the box that says “Petitioner for” you will see there is a big “Amended” box there as well.  So this form is easy.  Simply fill out the Petition correctly and mark the “Amended” box. Re-file it with the court and you are good to go.  But wait, if you amend the Petition, you have to file another Summons.

So make sure to also file an amended Summons.  There is no box on the Summons, so you can simply write the word “amended” above the word summons.  Now because these are the initial documents to be served, make sure you serve them again together, even if you had already served the first Petition and Summons.

And one last thing on this.  Don’t for get to file the amended Proof of Service of Summons.  If you fowled up these initial forms, you will have to wait another 30 days before moving forward after serving them again on your spouse.

You can amend any of the divorce documents that you file just like this by following the instructions above.

If you ran into trouble on these initial documents, you are not alone.  But so you know, these are the easier of the documents to file in your divorce.  That said, you are a good candidate for our divorce service if you had trouble with your divorce forms right out of the gate.

Please give us a call to discuss how we can help you make your divorce as pain free (and error free) as possible.