I'm feeling a bit frustrated over the initial application and the use of a divorce company that is causing me more hassle than gain.
I am using a quickie divorce company, as I didn't know what I was doing.
4 weeks ago they advised me to send three paper copies of the application off and original marriage certificate, and I sent it by special delivery. It was stressful printing everything out with my husband upstairs. Since sending it on 1 Sept I'd heard nothing.
After 1hr 15 min wait on the phone to the court today in Harlow to check progress. they said it was received but needed processing.
After, I get an email finally with a case number requesting payment - but also saying my marriage cert (which I carefully attached in the original pack) was missing.
I replied with their contact form attaching a photo of my marriage certificate and requesting to know why my original was 'gone' as I had specifically asked for it back!
I then ring the payment centre to pay, who tell me that if you apply digitally for a divorce, there's no posting of certificates, just uploads, you don't need to wait for the paper office in Harlow to scan and upload forms. But because my case is now paper - my husband must send his forms by post to scan by Harlow, and future forms. And that we can't access the online portal.
In short, the divorce company will delay matters with this ridiculous antiquated system and expensive special deliveries, lengthy calls as I can't chevk progeess via the portal, and I guess now I have to fork out for a duplicate certificate. If I had not used them of course I'd have done it all digitally in 2024, but they never told me that option.
I feel no confidence now in documents being processed safely or quickly. Online would eliminate that. I feel like this will go on now and I guess am looking for reassurance that paper applications do go through. It just feels like by using a quickie divorce company I have now created an additional.layer and delays and unnecessary paperwork, postage, calls and no way of tracking progress online.