Divorcing couples face delays of 18 months

DELAYS for divorcing couples have doubled because of court backlogs that is forcing them to wait up to 18 months to legally separate, leading lawyers say.

Some who applied to divorce before coronavirus have had to spend four months in lockdown together in the same house, while law firms are reporting increases of 50 per cent in couples seeking to separate since March.

They are facing waits of six months to finalise their decree nisi, compared with delays of three months before Covid-19, according to internal court data seen by The Sunday Telegraph.

They then face up to a year to agree a decree absolute if there are financial disagreements that have to go to trial, according to lawyers. “The delays were pretty appalling prior to Covid-19, but they are now disastrous,” Joanne Wescott, a partner in family law at Osbornes in London, which has seen enquiries rise from 75 in March to 116 in June and 112 to date in July.

The divorce delays are the latest examples of “backlog Britain” following The Sunday Telegraph’s disclosure last week of families forced to cancel holidays because of four-month waits for passport applications to be processed.

Internal data from the Ministry of Justice’s Bury St Edmunds divorce centre show there is a 15-week delay before a legal adviser will even consider a decree nisi applications.

Lawyers who logged on to get timing updates last week were told that the centre is only now processing “correspondence including emails” that were received on April 1, nearly four months ago.

The MoJ is planning “Nightingale” courts, evening and weekend sittings and greater use of video and remote hearings to increase capacity to clear the backlogs, but the legal profession is resistant to longer hours.