Divorce

Under the new law, the sole ground of divorce remains the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.  It is, however, no longer necessary to evidence this and this is replaced with the provision of a statement that the marriage has irretrievably broken down.  The new law also allows both parties to make a joint application where the decision to divorce is mutual.

Either a sole application or a joint application can be made for divorce under the new law. It is necessary to submit the divorce application to the court together with the marriage certificate.

The divorce will take a minimum 26 weeks from when the divorce application is issued by the court plus the time for the conditional order application to be considered and pronounced by the court. I would anticipate the proceedings taking in the region of 7- 8 months. It is usual to delay concluding the divorce proceedings until the financial matters have been dealt with.

You do not usually need to attend court in relation to the divorce proceedings. It may, however, be necessary to attend court if there are issues with regards to the financial matters.

Your spouse will need to complete an acknowledgement of service form and respond to the court within 14 days of them receiving the documents from the court.  If they do not do so consideration will need to be given to having the documents personally served upon them to enable the divorce to continue. There may be other options available depending upon the circumstances.

The court fee for divorce is currently £593. Depending upon your financial circumstances, it may be possible to apply for help with the court fee which can lead to either you having to pay none or some of the court fee.