Help divorce taking forever

[Shehasadiamondinthesky]

So my son's partner left her husband 10 years ago but never got a divorce because she couldn't afford one at the time.
Everything was amicable. She met my DS several years ago and we all live together so she's decided its time to get the divorce finally.
She's filled out all the DIY paperwork, exH has agreed to everything, and sent it off but the courts have had this paperwork for months and are not answering her calls or emails and she has had no acknowledgement of paperwork.
She's getting desperate now but really doesn't want to get solicitors involved because of the huge expense.
Is there anything we can do? Or is it just a matter of waiting it out.

With Bury Divorce Centre? They’ve had my papers since August. Had to get a solicitor because of the delays and mistakes. Hopefully will get my Absolute by 1st August. Will not put money on it though.

OMG Ken that is ridiculous. We've got a deadline as we need to buy a bigger house together and of course she wants to put her money into it as well but she can't do that until her divorce is finalised. Looks like we'll be living here for another year then.

It really does depend on the court it seems. There are some horror stories on this site. Bury does seem to be especially
mine went through last year with Birmingham. I got decree final just under 3 months form petition, it was extremely fast and extremely efficient. I was a bit shocked how fast it was tbh

i think it is time to escalate to your MP, but do write a letter of complaint to the court first. Make a noise. I don’t know that it would do anything but it is a ridiculous situation and whoever the MPs are in the Bury catchment area are, they need to be raising these issues in PMQs . It isn’t fair on people involved to be left hanging in this way and in many cases unable to move on financially or with child care arrang,ents.

I’m sorry your family are in this situation- it sucks.

Question-+when you said she sent it off, do you mean she submitted on line? It should all be done on line , doesn’t need to send anything off physically. I got automated responses of acknowledgment of my case and a case number and hearing date within (I think as can’t remember exactly) about a week of my application. It is all automated and I got email responses only, along with how to access the divorce site for my case directly.
has she got that? Has an email gone into her junk folder?
the courts do answer the phone …worth spending a day off work to keep ringing incessantly to get hold of them too.

I’m in the old system. Started the process in 2017 thinking I could DIY it. My original petition was rejected twice on technicalities and even then it was taking 16 weeks to get a response. So finally handed it over to a solicitor last July. It’s been an expensive PITA. Luckily I wasn’t that keen on getting divorced. The solicitor is still having to force the process through. I suspect the ‘data’ collected only wants to represent how the new system is functioning- and to show this is effective, old applications are taking an age.

Complaint made but by the time I got a response, progress had been made so apparently no complaint to answer.

It’s been a nonsense but sometimes you have to roll with it.

Gosh, that's ridiculous. I did mine using the digital service and it was 5 months from submission to Absolute!