Recovering costs

Hi,

This site has been a huge help so far so thank you to everyone who has contributed and asked questions.

There''s one thing I''m still unclear on however which is recovering the costs from my ex.

I can apply for the Absolute in about 5 weeks and the judge awarded all costs to my ex. A fact he was not at all happy with.

How do I recover these costs? If I need to ask him, I''m pretty confident he will say no.

What do I do if, as suspected, he doesn''t pay? What action can I take?

I''m self repping by the way.

Thanks in advance

You need to work out what your costs are before doing anything else.

Did you instruct a solicitor? If so you will need to dig out their bills and see what is on them.

If you didn''t instruct a solicitor the process is simpler as the costs will be limited to the court fees for the Petition and the Decree Absolute, the oath fee to swear the special procedure affidavit (unless it was done for free at the court) and any other expenses you incurred in progressing the petition which are normally limited to the bailiff/process server fee and a fee for duplicate marriage certificate.

If he signed the acknowledgement and sent it back, your costs will be the court fees and the oath fee, send a letter seeking these amounts and see what the response is.

Charles

This question to Charles, how can a litigant in person work out their costs to include conducting the hearing and recover costs against the ex spouse.
Does the court take into account my debits to include outstanding bill to my previous solicitor.

The costs of divorce are those which you have incurred in the course of proceedings, which include your solicitors costs whether currently paid or unpaid.

To calculate the costs you will hopefully have some detail contained in the bill which will help you work out which bits are dealing with divorce and which bits are dealing with non-divorce related stuff.

Charles