Decree Absolute

Hi,

Hope everyone is enjoying the last few days of summer.

I am the petitioner in a divorce and have recently got decree nisi.
I do not want the decree absolute to be made unless the finaces are sorted/ the consent order is sealed.

- Is there any way I can ensure the court does not grant decree absolute until consent order is sealed?
- Can I prevent the respondent from making the application after 3 months of nisi when they are eligible?

Sorry I have not gone into the specifics of the case, but for various reasons I do not want the absolute to be made. can someone please advise?

Regards

You cannot prevent decree absolute simply because you do not want it. In order to prevent decree absolute there has to be a valid reason which means not every reason will do. If you do not have a valid reason for not applying for decree absolute and it becomes necessary for the respondent to apply for the decree then the respondent will be able to claim the costs of the application from you. You may have a valid reason but it is impossible to say because you specifically say that you are not giving any reasons.

Thank you David. Helpful.

Sorry I meant the details of the personal situation and those around the divorce may be irrelevant.

For clarity - I do not want the decree absolute to be made till the finances are sorted, i.e. the consent order is agreed and sealed by the court.

I do not want the decree absolute to be made without us having had a financial settlement.

Is this possible or a valid reason?

Regards

Like I said, not wanting decree absolute is not enough. You need a valid reason to prevent it and you haven't given one. That is not to say that some such reason might not exist but simply saying you want the finances to be settled first is not in itself enough.

I'm in a similar situation, I don't want the absolute until the financials and child custody are agreed.

Or are they two separate matters, apologies for the naivety. Until my wife agrees on the financial split she is no position to provide a secure future for our son

Like I said, 'not wanting to' and having a valid reason for objecting to decree absolute being granted are two separate things. 'Not wanting' in itself is not sufficient. In neither of these cases has anyone actually said what prejudice (if any) they would suffer if decree absolute was granted.

Hi David,

Hope you are doing well.

Reg cost order - I am a petitioner and have been granted a cost order against the Respondent asking them to pay the costs. This states the costs need to be agreed.

My understanding is I can get the costs order enforced if respondent does not pay/ respond to demand for payment.
Can you please advise what happens if the enforced order is not complied with? Is there any CCJ against them ?

Thank you

It is usually unreasonable to expect one party to a divorce to pay the other's divorce costs. After all, it is not just one spouse who is divorced. It is two. It is more reasonable to share the divorce costs. And before someone says so a divorce is hardly ever the 'fault' of just one spouse. Even in cases of adultery that is more often than not the symptom of a broken marriage than its cause. I dare say there are some exceptional cases. For instances, some people defend a divorce and cause the other to run up huge costs in dealing with such a situation. In that sort of rare situation it might be justifiable for the spouse who defended and failed to pay the other's divorce costs, not least because you will not then be talking about a relatively small amount of money.

However, in most divorces and in most normal situations it is unreasonable to expect the other spouse to pay the whole cost of the divorce. In this case, for instance, the poster wants the other to pay for the divorce but does not want to apply for the decree absolute until he/she (not the paying spouse) wants to do so (which may be a long time).

Sometimes courts make sort of automatic orders for costs because of the particular ground for divorce and because the respondent spouse has answered (or not answered) the acknowledgement of service unwisely. This does happen but whether it should happen is something else.

Assuming in this case that the petitioner has incurred the court fee of £550 to issue a divorce petition and perhaps solicitors' costs of, say, another £500. That would make total costs of £1,100 or so. If a person owes you £1,100 would you necessarily issue a county court summons to recover it? Many people would take the view that the cost and trouble exceeded the amount at issue. Of course, a person can issue a summons and do it but relatively few people do precisely for this reason. And if there has been no attempt to agree costs and/or an appropriate letter before action has not been written it might be the party owing who gets the costs of the enforcement proceedings from the enforcer.

So, yes, you can sue but the recovery of your costs for doing so will be restricted for this sort of sum. Also, of course, another reason people do not usually do this is because some sort of adjustment can often be made in the financial settlement. Separately suing for it is usually unnecessary.

Hi David,

Many thanks for the useful information.

While the question of sharing divorce costs is subjective, but I understand and totally agree with what you said about the costs of county judgement vs the outcome.

In my query, I was only trying to understand the process of enforcement. From your advise, I understand the first step is to provide details of cost incurred to the other party and asses them and if this fails the next option is enforcing the cost order. Is that correct understanding?

Thank you

I have no wish to comment further on this.

Thank you