What's the divorce process? Should I have signed something?

[FushandChups]

H left me and filed for divorce due to unreasonable behaviour. After speaking with a solicitor, I agreed through an email that provided he covered the costs, I wouldn't contest the grounds and we entered mediation to sort out children & finances. This was all sorted by Feb but I haven't seen anything further from his solicitors and I'm now wondering if, unintentionally, I am holding this up.

Should I have signed the initial papers even though mediation hadn't been completed? Should I do it now or will I receive something else through which covers the grounds as well as what was agreed re finances and children?

I desperately want to be divorced and thought the ball was in his court and expected to see another version of the petition (especially as I refused to cover the costs as ticked in the first version). BUT, is this the case...?

Help

Worth calling your solicitor and asking if there's anything you should be doing.

Quick Google and I think I am waiting on him to file the papers with the court.

I have agreed not to contest the draft petition and the mediation papers have gone to his solicitors so I think his solicitor need to pull all of these together to send to court and I will then receive the petition, statement of arrangements (children & finances) and a Q&A document which I then send back promptly to the court... and Bobs your uncle!

He hasn't asked for the marriage certificate yet which is still at my house and there is obviously the cost of this which I am not sure how he is paying. As you can probably gather, not overly friendly these days but am tempted to hand over the certificate so that he actually progresses it.. he was the one who didn't want to wait 2 years so why is it now taking so long!!

Oh - and I used a free hour with a solicitor to talk through the draft petition so I don't actually have one on retainer, so to speak.

I think you might need your own solicitor to rubber-stamp stuff.

My divorce was finalised about a month ago, my ex petitioned me, he had a solicitor but I did it all with only a free 45 mins with a solicitor where I used to live then another free 45 mins with a solicitor where I love now to go through the financial settlement. So you don't necessarily need a solicitor of your own.

Finances and children sorted through mediation so am just waiting on his solicitor to put it all together. .. I think.

I have heard you can diy through wiki-divorce if necessary and as I'm not petitioning, presume he has to ensure right papers filed etc?

It's crazy - I know no one gets married to get divorced but I never thought I'd need to know how to end it all Honestly, can't wait now though!

If you still have the marriage certificate then he can't have started the divorce process with the courts.

Thanks Miranda - will drop that off with him when I collect the DC on Sunday then as I just want this over

that's not true Miranda - he can get a copy of the marriage certificate, anyone can, and use that. You don't need any magic original - I ordered copies online of ours and handed a copy over.

I think he would've asked me for it rather than go through the hassle of getting a copy. Regardless, can't hurt to give it to him - I don't have any need for it now

That's true catsrus - I think I was thinking of how XH was in actually getting anything done as he would never have got round to ordering a copy and needed me to find the original copy for him .

XH and I did our divorce without using any solicitors but we were amicable about it and also there were no assets worth splitting. Had we had a consent order then one of us (probably me) would have used one. But for the actual divorce process it was very straight forward without.

Our decree absolute was granted on Thursday and I found out yesterday so is still quite exciting at the moment

Maybe try giving the court a ring as well. With mine it turned out they had a huge backlog and were still processing post they had received weeks ago.