Old Divorce Decree Absolute confusion

I was married briefly (under 2yrs) in 2000.We seperated abruptly due to a few reasons, my decision.We both got solicitors and the very messy and hurtful divorce went through.Or so I thought.To cut a long story short,I tried to obtain a copy of my Decree Absolute as I seemed to not have it.I def have the Decree Nisi and at the time I was young and confused so thought I may have had the absolute and not realised etc.However,the court I wrote to claimed they had no details whatsover and that this prob meant I was therefore not officially divorced.I tried to contact my husband and he seemed th think he had his decree absolute, but I think he may be thinking of the nisi.I informed my solicitor of this and he looked into it(costing even more!)and from what I can remember,he explained this: I applied for the divorce then as that went through,for some reason there was confusion and then my ex applied and the result is this mess!I am no longer in touch with my ex and still owe money to my solicitor to this day,hence too scared to contact him again in order to sort this out.Does anyone have any ideas what I can do?I just want to know if I am divorced or not,and if not,how to complete it cost effectively!Thank you for any advice

Hi there

To do a search as to whether or not there has been a decree absolute, you can apply to:

The Principal Registry of the Family Division
Decree Absolute Search Section
First Ave House
42-49 High Holborn
London
WC1V 6NP

You need a D440 which you can obtain from the court service website:

www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk

And you will need to enclose a cheque for £20 made payable to HMCS.

If the search comes back positive (i.e. there is a decree absolute) it will give details which you forward to the relevant County Court and they will retrieve it for you.

If it is negative (i.e. there is no absolute), after this amount of time it is likely that the court will want you to start again, however, there is a slim (very slim) chance that the court will accept an application for absolute backed up by an affidavit, comfirming you have not lived with your former husband & that you have not had any children to him since the date of nisi and explaining the circumstances as to the delay in the application.

Good luck
Amanda

thank you for all that prompt info....I will do this asap. Its unbearable knowing I could still be legally married all these years still!
Ibish

just been on the hmcs website as suggested....theres a fee of £40 unless youre on just working tax credit...Sadly,I am a working mother, for all my faults, so I will have to pay! It will be worth it tho!

Whoops sorry re fee - been a while since I did one!