19 week wait for a first appointment.

Hi,
I thought the first appointment should be between 12 and 16 weeks. Mine is 19 weeks from the date of the Form C
Can I challenge this?
It is not covered by the family procedure rules?

I think it depends how busy the courts are. Seems like every man and his dog wants a divorce at the moment. It took about 6 months for me to get to FDA and then another 4 months after that to get to FDR.

Bubblegum11 wrote:

Hi,
I thought the first appointment should be between 12 and 16 weeks. Mine is 19 weeks from the date of the Form C
Can I challenge this?
It is not covered by the family procedure rules?

What is there to challenge? The court has a finite amount of resources and a backlog is the result of too few resources.

Making a complaint will only add to the frustration.

The court budgets have been slashed in the past few years and whilst new measures, such as centralised divorce centres, are streamlining the process there are still too few judges and court staff to deal with the volume of work.

It''s just another mark of the recession I''m afraid but ultimately the new systems will pay off and the court service will run much smoother in the future once we recover from the recession. This is of little consolation to you of course as you the recovery is still a few years away

Charles

thank you both for your response.

I have had time to calm down and adjust my expectations accordingly. I think I was more frustrated at the fact that they create all these rules and then fail to follow them:( . I have to say though I have found the court staff extremely helpful at both Bury St Edmunds and at my local court.

Anyway, My form E should be very comprehensive and thorough with this amount of time to prepare it.

My ex has just told me that he is willing to sign a Consent Order:ohmy: Getting the court order may have just been enough to get him to back down:woohoo:.

However, he has said this before and then changed his mind in the space of 24 hrs!

I think I''m even more confused now than I was before:unsure: So I have lots of new questions...

1. If he does agree to the consent order, do I have to complete another form A (for dismissal)?

2. The consent order would be completely in my favour (there is a good reason for this), but I can''t see anywhere on form D81 where I can explain why this is (financial conduct & children''s needs). Is there any way I can explain this or will we have to attend court for a hearing before a judge signs any such order?

3. What happens to my original First Appointment - will it be cancelled? I ask this because my ex may well back out of the consent order... so will I need to start the whole court process again? I''m just not sure he will follow through with the consent order.

4. Can I get a refund for the £255 court fees paid with my form A?

Sorry for all the questions but it feels like everything is very uncertain at the moment.

A consent order will see the end of proceedings but if there is no order the current court process continues as a default position.

A first appointment can be adjourned (taken out of the court list and allocated a new date) pending an agreement or, if a consent order is approved by the court, the appointment will be vacated and the proceedings will end.

You won''t be able to obtain a refund as the court fee that you paid was an issue fee. The fee is incurred when the application is issued and is non-refundable even if you settle immediately after issue.

Charles

I have to say I don''t feel sympathetic to the courts on this one, the listing process is a shambles and so much time is wasted - if they could move to a sensible online booking system then I''m sure the judges could be made to work a bit longer than the 10am-3pm with a 2hr lunch break gig that many of them seem to enjoy. 19 weeks for a First Appointment probably listed for 30 minutes?! Really?!

My view on the divorce process is that after an appropriate cooling off period, the whole process end to end should be hugely accelerated - I''m envisaging 2-3 months cooling off then settlement within a week. The longer things drag on the more entrenched everyone becomes. I thought Bury St Edmunds was supposed to be this super-dooper resourced-up place?!

Might be worth getting the divorce transferred to another court that isn''t so busy (/is slightly less incompetent) - a 19 week wait for FA tells me they''re a shambles, no organisation in the world is so overstretched that they can''t find one person to attend to you for 30 minutes in the next 133 days. Who do the judges think they are, junior doctors?!! That wait for FA means you''ll have further long waits for subsequent appointments so it''s going to take a verrrry long time to sort matters out if you can''t agree. Good luck!

Lol! Thank you s59 - this is exactly the rant I needed to have a few weeks ago. I agree with you 100%. If a service is not fit for purpose (regardless of the reason) we should have a right to complain and highlight deficiencies in the system. It''s not a complaint about the people that work there but more about the family courts system. The family procedure rules clearly state that the FDA will happen between 12 and 16 weeks from the date of the form A. So basically the the family procedure rules are just a load of rubbish because the courts don''t even take any notice of them.

I''m just hoping the ex comes good on the consent order now so that I don''t have to attend court - although he has gone very quite now, so it''s probably just one of his stupid games to stall things - as if the court process wasn''t slow enough.