Partner applied for divorce online but not agreed finances yet - I have to respond by tomorrow, is this ok?

[Loubee2000]

Hi as above my partner has initiated divorce online I had a notification thdt I have to respond by tomorrow but absolutely nothing has been agreed re finances or kids yet? If I respond to this will it affect any of this?

Usually finances are agreed between the decree nisi and the decree absolute. If this is the very first time you have heard about it sounds like it is the initial application to divorce. Do you have children and does it include a child arrangements document?

Of it's the first stage of divorce. Ie acknowledging the divorce application then you should go ahead.

You will then go into 20 week cooling off period before conditional order is granted. 6 weeks and 1 day later the person that applied for the divorce can apply for final order.

You should start thinking about finances. If you reach agreement then that is submitted to court after the conditional order has been granted.

There is no such thing as decree Nisi or decree absolute anymore. And you do not need to have a child arrangements order.

Your advice is very out of date and incorrect.

I finalised my divorce in September after starting it last October.

This will be the initial request after which you have to wait 20 weeks for any further communication. I'd recommend starting to look at the financial Order at this point to get the balls in motion and understand what you need to do.
Once the 20 weeks is up you will get information as to a court date for the conditional order to be granted (don't worry, you don't need to go to court, but the divorce request is read allowed in one. I live in the NW and mine was read in Birmingham).
Once this has been granted you have to wait 6 weeks to apply for the final order. Most legal professionals will advise that you should get your financial Order signed off before applying for the final order and this can take a good few weeks (but can't be approved prior to the conditional order being granted).

If its of use, my time line was as follows:
18/10/23 applied for divorce
25/10/23 application accepted (20 weeks starts now)
14/03/24 applied for conditional order
27/03/24 conditional order request accepted
16/04/24 conditional order granted
29/05/24 able to apply for final order

As we were still living together and my house purchase hadnt finalised we waited to apply for the final order as per legal advice. Essentially once the financial Order was approved there would be a set number of days for it to be carried out and I'd have been homeless as my ex was buying me out.

We sent our signed order in 10/07/24 and it was referred to a judge on 29/07/24 (they all go to a judge)
We got judge approval on 10/09/24 and applied for the final order that day.
Final order was granted on 11/09/24

No he told me he had and we’re in the middle of mediation but I can’t see it going very well to be honest.