Delays Bury St Edmunds

[Shibby585]

I don't suppose anyone knows the delays at Bury St Edmunds? Sent off consent order on 7th October 2020, judge asked for further information which was returned in December and still heard nothing back. I have emailed them to no response over a month ago.

I'm due to get married in 5 weeks so I marked the consent order urgent. I would hate to see how long it takes if the document wasn't marked urgent.

Yes I have used Bury Saint Edmunds. It's the main court for London and has a terrible backlog. It's difficult to find out how are your Divorce is progressing during lockdown. The answer is very slowly indeed. We were at decree nisi April 2020 and was still not divorced using those courts. You'll have to find ways of distracting yourself while you wait. I have tried ringing up on a number of occasions, only speak to a person working from who doesn't really know what's going on. All they can tell you is very basic steps forward if there have been any. Muster patience and very good luck!

Thank you for your comment it didn't notify me of your comment. If you are at nisi have you applied for absolute or still waiting on finances before completing? We applied for absolute and got it within 10 days as we had no choice but to proceed with that aspect. The judge came back in November and asked for further information on the consent order then nothing since then. Ideally we would have done the absolute after finances but we had no choice but to proceed

I was advised by my solicitor to wait until all finances were sorted before applying fr the absolute. My message above is confusing, but OH n I are not divorced yet and cannot apply for absolute until after the pension annexes have been approved + statutory 28 days’ wait. Judging by last enquiry made, I think our divorce was read 4 April 2021 (or whatever the term is for looking over a divorce), so we should hear imminently. Ho-hum.... Absolutely not holding my breath on this one. It’s taken us almost 2 years to get the most simple of divorces through!

Sorry to hear that, ours has been going on a year and a half now, we would have rather waited to get the absolute but unfortunately with my wedding 8th May we had no other choice but to proceed. We don't have any shared finances or property anymore. Hope it gets resolved for you soon I guess we just have to resign ourselves that it won't be resolved before the wedding. The extra stress is we aren't using a solicitor so we don't have anyone to guide us through the process. It's a shame it all was being done online until my ex refused to sign the deemed service meaning it all went paper based and to Bury

Don't you think a short delay in your wedding plans might be in order here? You can't guarantee that you'll be divorced in time?

Decree absolute is done. All that is left is the financial. So legally I can get remarried. It would have just been nice for the consent order to be done in time.

Oh I see! I thought you were taking a big gamble or planning on a bigamist arrangement - LOL!

If the further information has been in Since December and you haven't received a response to emails, I'd complain. They have 7 days to respond to complaints and usually the way they deal with it is just to give you what you are asking for.

No the decree absolute is all sorted (we had no choice there) but as you can appreciate the anxiety of not having financials sorted is annoying.

Since this post originally went up we put in an escalation 2 weeks ago and heard nothing, then an escalation earlier in the week for them to ring and as for the ex to then hang up and not contact my ex.

So I've had to ring up and ask someone from Bury to get in touch to find out what on earth is going on. I doubt I will hear anything mind.

Rather than an escalation, I really would email them and put “Complaint - Urgent” in the header. An escalation just sounds like something their call centre do.

Will give it a go... But my consent order was marked urgent, so I doubt it will make any difference lol.

But my consent order was marked urgent. Most probably are and in all probability it will have been put in a pile with all of the others.

They are so behind, but the worst thing is, they regularly lose things. I once spoke to someone at the court who told me their inbox had over 2000 unread emails so I think it's highly unlikely that they'd get to it any quicker even if it were marked urgent.

The things that helped me were putting in a complaint (it was via a 3rd party complaints handler, I can't remember who, but it was linked via the count website) and then using the chat service for updates. They can't usually tell you much, it's just the same as the call centre so expect to wait at least 30 mins before anyone even responds, but if your paperwork has been looked at, it should be on their system.

@tiddleypops thanks we have already marked the consent order urgent. We emailed and posted it and it's apparently with the judge we have emailed and marked it urgent and heard nothing and did as you say contacted via the third party divorce site and its been escalated twice. They did ring but asked for the ex wife then hung up so I'm fairly sure it was about the escalation and they have got mixed up.

I then rang again this morning and asked to go to Bury and couldn't get through so they have contacted again. I'm just going to resign that we won't get it in time.

I'm just going to resign that we won't get it in time. You're not going to put in a complaint?

@bunnyruddington I have put in three complaints over the past 3 weeks and I've still not heard back. I highly doubt I will hear back as Bury is nigh on ubcontactable