The new divorce law is split into three periods:

• Once you apply for your divorce and the Court has issued the divorce, your partner has 4 weeks to respond to the service and inform the Court they have received the divorce papers.
• After the Court has received the notification from your partner that they have accepted service of the divorce application, your case will be placed in a 20 week waiting period in which you are expected to deal with the division of assets and child arrangements, if any.
• Once the Conditional Order is granted, you will have a further 6 week wait until you are able to make the conditional offer and Final Order at which point you will be officially divorced.

There is therefore a minimum of 30 weeks between the application and the Final Order for divorce if all goes well. We always advise however that the divorce process may take anywhere from 35 weeks to 40 weeks dependent on Court availability and capacity and giving room for any minor complication that may arise.

A divorce can no longer be contested since April 2022. This means that once you have applied for a divorce, your partner is not able to object to the divorce taking place as there are no longer any grounds being claimed in the divorce for them to contest. 

Your partner will however need to respond to the Acknowledgment of Service from which will be sent to them by the Court. If they do not respond, the Court will not progress the matter to the next stage of the divorce (the 20 week holding pattern). You can either make a further application to effect deemed service or ask the Court permission to serve yourself or via your solicitor. We will then arrange for bailiffs to serve the Court papers to your spouse.

Goldsmiths Solicitors provide a fixed-fee arrangement when it comes to our divorce matters.

Our current fixed fee for dealing with your divorce is £950 plus VAT^ for applicants in an uncontested divorce. For a respondent, this amount is less and we will be able to deal with your matter for a fixed fee of £700 plus VAT.

Please note that if you are the applicant in the divorce, you will also be paying an additional £593 which is the Court application fee which is payable directly to the Court. As we conduct all our divorce matters through our dedicated solicitors court portal, we will be taking the sum from you and paying out of our solicitors account. An invoice from the Court will always be provided to you when the Court issues the divorce application.

You should be aware that divorce in England and Wales is the formal process in ending a marital relationship between parties only. This does not automatically discharge you from your financial commitments to each other. This leaves both parties vulnerable and exposed to a future claim against one another for financial remedy.

A financial clean break consent order ensures that a fair division of matrimonial assets is attained and separates both parties from each other form a financial perspective.

Determining your finances is crucial for everyone who is going through a divorce. Without settling your finances, you will left to restart your life from the beginning and with the anxiety of potential future claims from your partner.

Call our dedicated family lawyers to discuss how we can help you in your financial remedy matter on 0121 690 4000.