How one tiny mistake on my divorce form lead to a 5 year delay – Help me fix it!

T.T.D

GDB2222 said:

One practical approach is to ask the staff in the court office. They can give you advice on procedures and filling in forms. Once you get the paperwork right to their satisfaction, this will sail through.  

However, it may well be that the only way to rectify this is to put an earlier date for the separation. But, of course, that might not be possible without lying to the court, which you must not do. 

Besides that, after all this time, it may not be possible to continue with the original application. Or you may need the court’s permission. Do you know why the court used an incorrect address? Was it their mistake or yours? 

The court clerks won’t assist in paper work or giving advice on how to remedy this situation they will direct you to get a solicitor. 

This is a specific issue that OP jumped the gun a little in that OP gave a date too early in law for the application for divorce and created this problem, if OP cannot/wont amend the date then OP cannot proceed this application then dies and OP will need to reapply.

The clerks and court don’t care what date someone puts so long as it’s correct for it to process through the system.

GDB2222

T.T.D said:

GDB2222 said:

One practical approach is to ask the staff in the court office. They can give you advice on procedures and filling in forms. Once you get the paperwork right to their satisfaction, this will sail through.  

However, it may well be that the only way to rectify this is to put an earlier date for the separation. But, of course, that might not be possible without lying to the court, which you must not do. 

Besides that, after all this time, it may not be possible to continue with the original application. Or you may need the court’s permission. Do you know why the court used an incorrect address? Was it their mistake or yours? 

The court clerks won’t assist in paper work or giving advice on how to remedy this situation they will direct you to get a solicitor. 

This is a specific issue that OP jumped the gun a little in that OP gave a date too early in law for the application for divorce and created this problem, if OP cannot/wont amend the date then OP cannot proceed this application then dies and OP will need to reapply.

The clerks and court don’t care what date someone puts so long as it’s correct for it to process through the system.

I agree, and the letter from the court pretty much says that. 

My experience is that the staff are often rather helpful with explaining things, but not giving advice. YMMV

TBagpuss

I'm afraid you can't fix it by r-esigning it. The relvant dates are the date on which you separated and the date you issued the divorce. On your photo, you show the date of the sepration as being 15.10.2014. If that date is correct, and if you signed your petition any any date earlier than 16.10.2019, then it's not a tiny error, it's fundemental and you can't fix it.   It's irrelevant how long you have NOW been separated for, the only time period that matters is how long you had been separated for at the date you signed the petition.

But if (say)  you actually separated on 15th October 2013, wrote that date correctly  in the petition, and then issued it in 2019, but made a mistake in filling in the dartes on the D80, then you can correct and re-sign the D80 .

You can apply to amend the petition, but the only option would be to change to  a different ground for the divorce, it would have to be a ground that would have been available to you at the time you originally issued the petition -nd I assume that if  one of the other grounds had been available then you would have usd it rather than wiating 5 years, in addituion, if you amended the petition in any way other than to make a minor, non-substantive change, it would have to be re-served on your ex (or you would needa new application for deemed service)

Your second option is to  apply to dismiss this petition, and start a fresh one. Given the stage you've reached this does require an applciation which would normalyl need to be served on your ex, as you can only withdraw a petition before iot is served / acknowledged .


The order from the court states that the dates on your D80 don't match those on the divorce petition, so you need tourgently calrify wht you wrote on the pettion and which dates are correct, and whether the dates you gave in the petition were 5 years prior to the date you signed the petition. 

breaking_free

RESOLVED

I amended both dates on the original form, moving them back by one month so that the 5-year separation rule could be applied and just last week got a letter from the court - success! The "trial" is indeed a judge sitting in court who will glance at the paperwork and then grant the decree nisi. Bish, bosh, bash, looks like I'm finally going to get my divorce, whoopee!
Thanks to everyone who responded. Perhaps my thread may help someone in a similar situation.