Divorce w/o a hearing - what is taking so long?

jaime ma famille · April 2012

I live in Delaware, and my STBX and I have signed all the necessary paperwork for a divorce without a hearing. My lawyer said we won't need to go to court to receive our divorce decree. So, what is taking so long? I still haven't received it. At first I thought we had to do the ancillary matters first, but I wouldn't think so, because my lawyer said the divorce decree is completely separate from everything else - child support, custody, ancillary matters, etc. I know some people wait a very long time for their divorce decree, but my lawyer said sometimes it can be as quick as a couple of weeks in my state. I've been waiting for months.

jdbmjm · April 2012

If it's really been months, I would call the clerk's office and make sure they have everything and it didn't get lost. In California, mine took well over 2 months before they sent it back because XH didn't pay his filing fee. He paid, we resubmitted, and it was approved in a week. Sometimes there are backlogs in Court, which was also true in our case. There were fewer bench officers during the summer, lots of custody and other civil matters, so we just kept being put at the bottom of the pile. The self help center staff were also helpful in figuring out the status of the paperwork for us.

PhoenixRising11 · April 2012

In Pennsylvania, it takes 90 days to be finalized. Is there a set time in Delaware that you expected the decree to come through in?

arborgold · April 2012

jdbmjm:
If it's really been months, I would call the clerk's office and make sure they have everything and it didn't get lost. In California, mine took well over 2 months before they sent it back because XH didn't pay his filing fee. He paid, we resubmitted, and it was approved in a week. Sometimes there are backlogs in Court, which was also true in our case. There were fewer bench officers during the summer, lots of custody and other civil matters, so we just kept being put at the bottom of the pile. The self help center staff were also helpful in figuring out the status of the paperwork for us.

All of this. I kept calling to check on mine (in NY) and while it took awhile to get them to talk to me because he was the filer (WTF, btw), I finally learned there had been no progress because he hadn't paid the fee.

I contacted him a bajillion times about it, and he FINALLY (a month or so later) got back to me to let me know he was going to take care of it.

Actually, though, this post reminds me that I haven't rec'd mine either, and I haven't checked in with the clerk's office, either. I should probably do that today...

Divorce w/o a hearing - what is taking so long?

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