2. Mrs H complains that HMCTS delayed in processing her divorce application.
3. She says that the delay has affected her mental health and wellbeing causing her stress and anxiety. She says it has also financially disadvantaged her as the financial settlement could not be implemented until her Decree Nisi had been granted.
4. As a result of this complaint, she would like an apology, service improvement and a financial remedy.
7. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have not found any indications that something has gone wrong.
8. Mrs H complains that HMCTS delayed in processing her divorce application. She has provided us with a chronology she has drafted. This starts with her submitting her application for divorce on 28 March 2022 and ends with her solicitors’ email dated 19 December 2023 that the Court confirmed it would grant the Decree Nisi on 19 December 2023.
9. We are sorry to hear Mrs H’s explanation that the length of time it took to resolve her divorce legally affected her negatively both in terms of her wellbeing and finances. We appreciate that this would have been a very difficult time for her.
10. During this period, Mrs H complained to HMCTS on 13 May 2023. It responded three days later acknowledging that her solicitors had recently forwarded an Acknowledgment of Service from her ex-husband’s solicitors. Her solicitors had told HMCTS that this had been sent to Courts and Tribunals Service Centre (CTSC) in July 2022. HMCTS responded that CTSC would need to receive this directly from the other party to the proceedings before the case could progress.
11. In a later complaint response dated 29 August 2023, HMCTS confirmed that it had no record of ever receiving this Acknowledgment of Service in July 2022. Mrs H has told us she believes that HMCTS lost the document.
12. The party that needed to send the Acknowledgment of Service to progress the case was Mr H – Mrs H’s ex-husband – who has not raised a complaint with us or provided his account of what he says happened. We therefore do not know if Mr H’s position is that his solicitors actually sent the Acknowledgment of Service to CTSC in July 2022, and if so what happened– if it was inadvertently not posted, lost in the post or if HMCTS lost it as Mrs H believes.
13. We also do not know whether Mr H’s solicitors ever chased CTSC or HMCTS in the 12-month period between when Mrs H says her ex-husband’s solicitors posted the document and when her solicitors sent HMCTS a copy. And if his solicitors never chased CTSC or HMCTS to confirm receipt, why not. Whilst we can see that Mrs H was keen to progress the case as quickly as possible, we do not know whether her ex-husband shared that objective.
14. Ultimately, this aspect of the delay relates to a step Mr H needed to take to progress the case – HMCTS cannot be blamed for delays caused to the case by Mrs H’s ex-husband. If he has any concerns about how HMCTS dealt with any documents his solicitors sent to it, that would be his complaint to raise with HMCTS. But to the extent we can consider this complaint as raised by Mrs H, HMCTS say it never received the Acknowledgement of Service from her ex-husband in July 2022 and we have seen no evidence to raise any doubt about this.
15. We can see from the chronology Mrs H provided to us that the Court ordered a stay of proceedings on 6 July 2023. She says that HMCTS informed her that the Court lifted the stay on proceedings on 9 November 2023. This was a delay in her case of around four months.
16. HMCTS are not responsible for the decisions judges make in legal cases – HMCTS deal with administrative matters only. We also have no power to look at judicial decision-making. We therefore cannot comment on why the judge made the decision it did in Mrs H’s case.
17. We can see from Mrs H’s chronology that HMCTS wrote to her on 15 November 2023 confirming that the decree Nisi would be reconsidered as a result of the Court lifting the stay in proceedings. Mrs H’s solicitors then emailed her on 19 December 2023 stating that the Court had confirmed that the Decree Nisi would be granted on 10 January 2024.
18. Our Principles of Good Administration - Being Customer Focused, states that Public bodies should behave helpfully, dealing with people promptly, within reasonable timescales and within any published time limits.
19. We can see that once the Court lifted the stay on proceedings, HMCTS acted promptly to progress Mrs H’s application and updated her on what was happening. This is in line with Our Principles of Good Administration.
20. We have therefore seen no indication that HMCTS has done anything wrong in this case.
21. We appreciate that this is not the outcome Mrs H wanted, but we hope that our impartial consideration of her concerns has been of some use to her.
1. We have carefully considered Mrs H’s complaint about HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). We have seen no indication that HMCTS has done anything wrong. We appreciate that our decision will be disappointing for Mrs H.