Can applicant unilaterally cancel FDR?

Background - The divorce petition is mine, but she is the applicant for the Form A and for the scheduled FDR (I guess that they were worried that I would delay in submitting my Form A, so the other side took the initiative). Now suddenly they are giving short notice that she will apply for the Decree Absolute, months before the FDR. Her disclosures have continued to be inadequate, with a resubmitted form E required and schedule of deficiences on her answers to my questions. I am trying to figure out how it will benefit her to get the decree absolute. My question is whether she can cancel her FDR unilaterally once she has the absolute, leaving me high and dry as petitioner for the divorce if the court says that I should have submitted my own form A? She has much greater assets than me, offshore, and I suppose that she does not care about my small pension.

No, once the application is issued you are both party to that application. If your ex wanted to withdraw she would have to make an application to the court, to which you could object.

Charles

My 2 pence worth was that the decree absolute was issued separate from the finances & it made no difference to either.

The ex decided to try and pull out of the hearing and initially the judge gave 6 months for me to appeal & then literally weeks later rubber stamped the withdrawal despite us (solicitor and myself) submitting an appeal (which appeared to have gone under the radar, which I put down to covid & them jumping at the chance to clear some off the backlog of they thought they could cancel them).
However persistence paid off as after many months of chasing the courts, objecting to the way they handled it, they agreed it was not correct and put the case back on, much to the disgust of the ex who proceeded to have a melt down.
So, you will be informed if your ex tries to withdraw and it is possible to get it back on, just be prepared to (politely) keep contacting the court, insisting that you do not agree and requesting they reschedule it & hopefully you’ll have a better experience than we did.