Thanks, I rather suspected as much. In the wider world you would expect to be able to insist that levels of service promised were delivered. In the court world, I don't believe such a concept exists, does it?

LLYNBH

Hi there

The Courts Service is like any other government funded body - not enough money to make it work as it properly should. We have too few judges doing too much work, which leads to frustration from the public and people like you wanting to move on but being unable to while your case grinds through the process. Not a great scenario, but like anything, without enough money, it cant work properly.

Sorry this is happening to you.

Amanda

Hi,

This may not be much help in terms of you getting anything "chivvied up" but I had a similar experience after the FH. The Judge at the FH asked the Barrister's to draft the order once they had received the judgement. the judgement took at least 3 weeks (but the judge was also a part-time judge!).

The Barrister's had "forgotton" that they were asked to draft the Order by the Judge at the FH and therefore I had to prompt this - otherwise I don't think anything would have happened! The Barrister's themselves acting for each side were key in this scenario. It took 23 e-mails between them which I was copied in on by my Ad Hoc advice solicitor (I did not want the e-mails as it was not going to make a bladder of a difference to the outcome - it just cost me money - not happy but could not do a thing about it).

I even ended up ringing the court directly after 3 weeks to chase up the Order and got a copy faxed to me before it went to my solicitor, with hindsight I don't think the court should have done this really - I could have been anyone!

Crazy - but shows the court process as it is - slow, frustrating and more often than not, a farce.
Remember, it's your money - I would inform the court that you are now acting in person and cut your costs with your solicitor!

Re:Experience of a Final Hearing 2 Days, 12 Hours ago
Blue,

I am afraid that even though it costs you nothing to send an email, your solicitor will charge you for reading it ... and for any reply.

Some solicitors have not caught up with the age of the email and still charge each email as if it were a letter ... even one that is two lines long can be charged at the minimum rate of one unit - ie 6 minutes of time at anything up to 25 a unit!!! Others take a more pragmatic approach ... but I am afraid they are few and far between

Blimey..You know i said that since July I was 550pounds worse off yet all I have to show for it is a petition - which I don't know if he has defended or not. Well today I received a further letter requesting £247. For what? Oh for sending 2 letters(1 was an e-mail) , reading an e-mail!! and 18 mins of prep work and 2 x half hour telephone calls in which I was desperately crying whilst she gave me naff advice (which I found out after discovering this site).
FM! How do I dispense with her services without a) incurring more charges to read the letter! b) for her to send any response to petition to me? What wording shoud I use? Am I doing the right thing? Thought I might wait until I need thte consent order agreed and then appoint the other solicitor that I have spoken to who deals in Family Law. Any advice pilgrims???xxx
.

Blue,

There's a Form you'll need. (Can't remember how this was done?) Are you transfering to another sol? (in which case the new one might do it for you?)
But if you're self-repping you need to inform the Court; your out-going sol and your ex's sol. (The AR proceedings are a seperate case to the actual Divorce; but sometimes Court offices automatically transfer the same sols details to the AR file; as mine did until I told them I'd be self-repping for the AR bit).

Continuing the theme of how to get a result when the FH is over but the judge hasn't got around to writing whatever he needs to write after the FH, I was able to speak to a different judge - who had come to see me about a different matter, but I said I would like to turn the tables while he was with me and ask some Judge-y advice.

He said that my solicitor was entirely right to make a joint approach with stbx's solicitor to the court. He said there could be a further joint approach to the court, although having already made a joint approach, there wasn’t great benefit in making any chivvying joint. He said that I should ask my solicitor to make an informal approach to the Court Manager to request that, if the judge was so busily scheduled that he did not have time to write up his judgements, then the Court Manager should schedule a day for him to do so. He said that the process had taken at least 4 weeks longer than it should have done.

He also said that there is the route of a formal complaint to the Court Manager, but that court users are reluctant to make formal complaints about judges as they have to continue to work with them in the future.

Anyway, I emailed my solicitor (as ever, being aware that any email will incur charges, but after this length of time I felt that it needed to be done) and got the following reply:

"Well done. I have spoken to the Court but will do again to obtain an accurate Time scale (and they can list etc)
I actually don't mind upsetting judges (must be my age) but I don't want any adverse reaction to you even in the judicial subconscious.
A little way from a formal complaint yet.
I'll let you know what the Court says if news today. I'm away next week but I'll leave the problem with my Partner."

And so it goes on.

LLYNBH

I don't wish to be negative but you may as well do your own chasing - your solicitor has no more clout than you. Your solicitor will charge you for every pointless phone call he/she makes to the court and the result will be exactly the same as if you had done it - trust me I have been in this position.

Please, don't waste any more of your hard-earned money on your solicitor. The FH done there will be no change to the outcome of the case and you are literally burning money by dealing with your solicitor. There will be a "mop up" process to go through but if you "sign off" your solicitor with the court from now on you can have everything sent to your home address direct from the court. There is absolutely no point whatsoever in having a solicitor now, it's all just expensive admin which you can deal with yourself.

I am trying to help, I have been there and got the very expensive T-shirt!