Hi,

My partner has petitioned for divorce on 2 yr sep grounds. He let his stbx know petition was coming which she seemed fine with, however she now says that plans for his kids must be sorted before she signs anything.

The situation is this, she lives with kids in same small town as us, he has kids one full day every weekend. She says they must stay the night at ours but I already have three kids and therfore no room to accommodate his as well which he agrees with.

Question is can she hold things up ­base­d on this - if she can she will - can she force him to have his kids overnight when we dont have the space?

I am totally new to this site but would very much welcome any advise given.

Thanks

Hi khudson,


and welcome to wiki.

The divorce petition is an administrative process : look upon it as correspondence between the two parties and their solicitors (if any) and the court.
Papers get signed, exchanged, stamped etc - you get the picture.
This process has nothing to do 1) with the children of the marriage and 2) with the finances of the marriage.

The stbx cannot refuse to sign a divorce petition; she can make life difficult for your partner, she can scream and shout, but in the end she will have to sign the papers as there is a procedure whereby papers are served on a reluctant party.
She may think for the moment that she can put conditions on her signing the petition.

The trick is to gently disillusion her about this while trying to find a viable solution for the children.
I doubt very much that she can force your partner to have the children overnight - you could point out to her that if the children stay, this will mean that technically there is overcrowding and that you will point this out to the court.
The courts like to see that the parent without care has enough space to have the children - this is apparently not the case here.

Hope this helps

Red XX

Thanks for that Red.

If it comes to it my kids will have to stay at their dads so we can make room for his. Anything to get the divorce happening.

Another question, not sure if you can help but here goes:-

She has said she will see a solicitor with the papers. Does this mean anything he charges her will be payable by us - she is on benefits and therefore gets it all for free. When we filled in the petition we crossed out everything on the page that asked for costs/ancillary relief etc. We want nothing from her, maintenance is sorted between them but we are worried she may be able to continue to bump up the cost of a simple DIY divorce!

she could just disagree to the divorce and that would be the end of the divorce...

Remember that grounding for divorce is 2 years separation WITH consent from the other party .. ie an uncontested divorce. Although i hope you win her round

Best of luck

Hi

His stbx has received forms from court but is saying she wont sign them till she has something in writing to agree his time (overnight) with the kids. As above we dont have the space. Is her solicitor likely to advise her to hold off or are they obliged to advise her the divorce and kids are seperate issues?

If she can be awkward she will. She is a first class bi**h.

Also her time ­frame­ for us having the forms back is Tuesday next week, after that we could be going down the bailiff route but what if she ignores that as well?