Divorce Solicitors

At this stage, your chosen solicitor will want to find out about you and your situation. Your solicitor will need as much information as possible to provide your best options and give you an accurate timescale and estimate of the likely costs involved.

Your solicitor will need to know about the following:

• The history of your marriage – when and where you were married and the major events that have happened throughout the marriage, including the births of any children.
• The reason for your separation and divorce.
• Your finances – at this stage, it is ok to have a rough estimate, but we will need a thorough breakdown at a later date. We will need to know about all the assets you and your partner own, including property, investments and pensions.
• If you have a prenuptial agreement or if you have already come to an agreement with your ex-partner about finances or the arrangements for your children.

This first consultation will typically take about an hour. At this meeting, we will explain all the options available to you and we will provide an estimate of our fees. You will need to bring with you your marriage certificate and some identification. If you would like us to send you a note of the matters that we discussed after your meeting, then we can also arrange to do this.

Click here for more information about preparing for the initial meeting with your family solicitor.

After the initial meeting, you should have a clearer idea about how to proceed. The steps you need to take will vary depending on whether you are making a sole application (you are the ‘Applicant’), you are responding to an application (you are the ‘Respondent’) or you are making a joint application.

The key stages are as follows:

• The Applicant submits the divorce application to the court, along with the court fee and a copy of the marriage certificate.
• The court will issue the application and send it to the Respondent. The court will send a document called the “Acknowledgement of Service”. The Respondent then has 14 days to return the document to the court. The Respondent can use this form to say if they want to dispute the divorce or not.
• A minimum waiting period of 20 weeks must elapse from the start of proceedings before you can apply for the Conditional Order (previously called a Decree Nisi). This waiting time is designed to allow couples to agree on plans for the future. This is also a good time to start your Financial Consent Order application. It is important to be aware that obtaining a divorce does not automatically deal with the splitting of your finances. The only way to end all financial obligations between you and your spouse is to obtain a Financial Remedy Order, also known as a Consent Order if the agreement is reached voluntarily between you.
• You will then apply for the Conditional Order. If the court approves the application, it will issue a Certificate of Entitlement. After a few weeks, the court will then grant the Conditional Order.
• After this, there is a 6-week cooling-off period before you can apply for the Final Order. During this period, you may want to submit your Financial Consent Order to the court for approval.
• You can now apply for the Final Order (formally Decree Absolute); it will usually be granted within 24 hours. Once this has been granted, your marriage has legally come to an end.

Finances are dealt with separately from the divorce and can often be the biggest cause of conflict between ex-partners. However, several processes can be used to help spouses come to an agreement without having to go to court; they are:

• Negotiation – you and your spouse reach an agreement by making proposals to each and sometimes making concessions that you each feel comfortable with.
• Mediation – you instruct an independent mediator who helps you and your spouse to reach an agreement.
• Collaborative law – You each instruct your own collaborative lawyers and you all work together to reach an agreement.
• Arbitration – You instruct a lawyer or choose an arbitrator directly. The arbitrator makes a decision just like a Judge would.

We always encourage our clients to use one of these methods to reach an amicable agreement with their ex-partner. However, if an agreement isn’t possible, you will need to make an application to the court. We can do this on your behalf and we will support you throughout this process to get the best outcome.

We will ensure you do not face an uncertain future by putting in place the required documents to avoid potential further financial claims being made against you by your spouse.

Many people believe that if they have been with their partner for a long time and they live together that they are a ‘Common Law Spouse’. However, this is a myth. Unmarried couples have no automatic legal rights and they cannot claim against one another in relation to their finances and property. To find out more, please visit our page on unmarried couples.

New divorce laws came into effect in April 2022 meaning, you can now apply for a divorce by simply citing that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. It will not be necessary to wait years or to have to blame your spouse for causing that breakdown.

Please read our article on No-Fault Divorce for more information.

Before the new law came into effect in April 2022, you had to cite one of the five grounds for divorce; They were:

1. Adultery
2. Unreasonable behaviour
3. Desertion
4. Two years of separation with consent
5. Five years of separation without consent

Now, since the introduction of no-fault divorce, you can simply state that the broken down irretrievably and you do not have to provide any evidence.

Direct agreement – (aka ‘do it yourself’ or ‘round the kitchen table’)

Mediation (you work as a couple with a neutral professional)

Collaborative law (a team approach with specialist lawyers assisting each of you)

Traditional negotiation (the most typical approach)

Court application

No, if you and your partner can agree on arrangements for children and finances, it will not be necessary to go to court. You will only need to go to court if there is a dispute and you cannot come to an agreement.

It will take at least six months, but it could be even longer if there are any complicated issues around finances or children.

You are not required to have a solicitor. However, even if your situation seems fairly straightforward, we always recommend seeking professional advice, especially when it comes to sorting out the finances.

There is no automatic entitlement to spousal maintenance. However, the court may decide that one party needs a top-up to meet their needs. The court will consider how much the other party will receive and for how long. The court will make its decision based on what the party ‘needs’ rather than ‘requires’.

All the assets of a marriage will be considered, including pension funds. If one party has a large pension and the other has very little, then the court will look to divide the pension fund fairly. For more information, see our page on divorce and pensions.