Divorce petition not acknowledged

[misswhatdoto2]

Petition was sent out by courts on 4th and received few days later by stxh (we're still in the same house while being sold). My solicitor had already told me that he had 14 days to return it so left it and finally asked him yesterday whether he was sending it back. He is now basically trying to blackmail me by saying until something is signed between us regarding finances he will not be sending back petition.
He have already had discussion regarding split of assets etc and provisionally came to an agreement but I'm still not 100% signing an agreement yet as I feel he is not being fair when the children will be with me.
Anyway, as I am paying for the divorce his intention is to try and drag it out and cost me more money if he doesn't get things his way.
My solicitor asked to keep note of any conversations etc that we have as proof that he has received them.

What happens now?? Looking on line it looks like they can be served by a court bailiff and then the courts can just go ahead with assumption if they still don't hear anything. Do they have to be served again? How much do bailiffs etc cost if I did need to use them??

I looked for this though I didn't need to do it in the end.
There are companies that do serving papers, i think the price I saw was less than £100.
They are called process servers.
The good thing is that they should give you proof it was served and they are independent (i.e. Not you or one of your friends or family).
Whatever you do don't cave to blackmail or being pushed into anything. If your xhtb is doing that, it's for his gain and not yours.
Good luck

My ex ignored the petition too. Fuck knows why as he left me! But anyway... I paid a court processor £120 (through the solicitor) to personally serve him the papers. That took a few weeks. He was served, and given 14 days to respond. He still didn't respond, so we're just going ahead now x

Thanks ladies. I've sent him a WhatsApp today asking if he intends on sending back divorce petition next week to try and have it in writing that he has received it but he's not replied yet also saw a thing called deemed service (?) Which looks like the courts assume he has received and not responded based on evidence. Not sure if a WhatsApp would suffice but nothing I can do until Monday so might as well chance my luck!

If he does reply acknowledging that he got the papers then you can use that

It depends on what the grounds are that you are filing for divorce under. If it's unreasonable behaviour, you can ask for Bailiff service through the Court or use a private Process Server. Once you have proof of service you can apply to the Court for "deemed service" of the Petition and apply for Nisi.

Hopefully, your solicitor will apply for deemed service. I think the court fee for this is circa £80 plus your solicitor's time. Ask him/ her if you have enough evidence for deemed service and, if not, get it eg get your ex to discuss it via email. I just posted about this same subject on another thread here. I said

(My soon-to-be-ex wrote several outraged emails to my solicitor when he received my divorce petition. He said it was 'abusive' of me to 'pressurise' him into a divorce etc etc. He didn't return the acknowledgement of service. So my solicitor just used the emails to show the court that the papers had clearly been received by my ex. The time between decree nisi and decree absolute has also been pretty straightforward for me too - thankfully! - there's not much in the way of finances for us to fight about and he seems to have no interest in seeing our daughter. I have just a few weeks now til I get my decree absolute 😄). Good luck!