Divorce - Consent order hearing today - help

[OhBuggerBollocks]

Shit shit shit, doing a DIY divorce - got notification of consent order hearing, but didn't realise had to attend. Thought it was just a formality. Ex has just phoned up asking where I am. No time to get there. Am I in really deep shit now with the court??

That's odd. A consent order is a document posted to the court which the judge rubber stamps (in most cases) in his or her coffee break.

why would there be a hearing?

Hi mumblechum, thanks for responding. Yes, I'd already filled in the Consent order as that had been sent by Ex's solicitors to me.

The notification I got said:

IT IS ORDERED THAT

The Consent Order hearing will be heard by the District Judge at ABC on 24 June at 12.15. The probable length of this hearing will be 15 minutes.

It didn't say anything about my presence being required, so I wrongly assumed it was just a formality as part of the divorce procedure. Now told by Ex that courts had ordered it to check I understood everything since I don't have representation.

Anyway, Ex said they decided in my absence that the divorce should go through and the judge presumed I'd had all the information I needed and the conditions were fair.

Luckily, I am happy with it. Our house had already been sold, and assets already divided which we both agreed with. He pays maintenance, and access to dcs is sorted.

It's just a bit frustrating that this hearing was purely for my benefit and I didn't attend. I really wish I'd sought clarification now, when the notification arrived.

Ah, I see. Yes, sometimes DJs look at consent orders and if one party is unrepresented and it looks as though they may be being ripped off, they won't rubber stamp the order but will invite the parties in just to run over it and make sure that you understand the terms and are fully aware of the legal implications (eg no claim against H's pension after a long marriage where the wife was a SAHM).

Glad it's sealed now, anyway.

I think they should use clearer language on these types of notifications such as "you are expected to attend".

Yes, I agree JaneParker - the wording should be more explicit, for non-legal background types like me.

I'm a bit paranoid now that I have blatantly been ripped off somehow, if judge deemed it to be unusual in some way. I'm guessing though that it's because the split was more or less 50/50 (which equated to about £45,000 each) but ex got a few thousand more. Though that's because we had borrowed £5000 from each of our parents towards the deposit when we bought the house - we had paid my parent's back quite a lot of that before we split, but we hadn't paid his. So it was to enable him to pay his parents back.

Also I got all the furniture and pictures, kitchen appliances, washing machine and fridge etc. So I do think it was fair all things considered.

He has no pension apart from the state pension.

What's done is done now, so no point in worrying.

Thanks both though for your comments.

I think it sounds fine. In our case he got 60% (as he earns much less than I do) and we both had solicitors - I paid for both sets but had an agreed consent order which was just put before the judge without anyone being there as both sides had had solicitors advise them on it so it was not one that required someone to attend to explain why she / he had accepted a very bad deal. Yours sounds like a fair deal.

When I was in practice against someone who was self repping I always put a bit extra in the accompanying statement explaining the split and would sometimes ask the self repper to sign a letter to the court confirming that they had had legal advice in the background but weren't represented - only when that was true of course but lots of people did just get ad hoc advice from a lawyer without them going on record as acting.