serving divorce papers to overseaas respondent

[NutellaLawson]

Hopefully someone can give me soe help on this.

I sent off my divorce petition to the UK courts and have received confirmation that they have sent it to the respondent abroad. I am almost entirely certain he still lives at the address I gave but he has not responded (and it's been three months now).

Since court bailiffs will only serve to a UK address I need to serve papers to him myself. But what papers? Where do I get hold of the documents I need to send him? The letter I received from the court and the leaflets on gov.uk don't tell me what to send of how to get hold of them. The information just keeps assuming the respondent is in UK.


It's so unfuriating. He has no incentive to respond, as in his country he is free to marry if he wants. According to local records he's not and never was even married, as it looks like (due to an unpaid bribe) marriage records were never filed, whereas I have to account for a name change in this country so I can marry my current partner. I have tried contacting the authorities to have it confirmed formally that I am not married either, but they aren't responding either and the legal rigmarole necessary for that looks even more complex than to get my ex to acknowledge receipt of divorce papers.

Or so I thought.

So can anyone tell me what my next steps are on this? There are no children or marital assets involved. I literally just need to know what to send him so I can DHL it to his address.

[Collaborate]

Oh crikey. sounds like a right mess.

Firstly, you need confirmation that you're actually married. Presumably you have the marriage certificate. Presumably too you've filed that together with a certified translation.

If you need to serve someone abroad then you have to serve them in a way that would be effective in that country. So you need to do some research, and perhaps contact a lawyer in that country. You then need to serve him in accordance with that process.

[Monty27]

Probably not much help but a friend of mine in UK divorced her husband who was in Kuala Lumpar. I know she used Edexcel as the courier and it worked. But what you need to be couriering I'm not sure. Can you afford a solicitor?