Step by Step: New Divorce Procedure
2 August 2022
The Divorce Procedure changed on the 6th of April 2022 which introduced a huge change to the divorce procedure for the first time in 50 years.
With the old procedure, the marriage still had to have retrievably broken down. If one party believed that the marriage had broken down they had to rely on 1 of 5 reasons which included: two years’ separation, five years’ separation, desertion but the main grounds would often be unreasonable behaviour of one party or adultery of one party.
For many years there were solicitors and bodies such as Resolution who were campaigning to introduce a No-Fault based Divorce. It was introduced in other parts of the world some time ago.
So from April 2022, the law completely changed and the only ground that you have to state now is that the marriage has broken down. You no longer have to give any sort of reason. In fact, it is now possible for both parties to do a joint statement stating that the marriage has broken down.
Step by Step of the new No-Fault Divorce Procedure:
This can be done online or on paper, you will need an original marriage certificate because that has to be uploaded to the online system.
You need to look at paying the court fee. The court fee as of July 2022 is £593. There is also an online form that you can complete to try and reduce the court fee, depending on your income and savings.
So once you have the marriage certificate uploaded you would need to log on to the court server and then look at completing the online application for divorce.
Once you have done that the other party would then be notified and they will be asked to set up their own online account to be able to respond to the divorce or do so on paper. From the date of the court issuing the application, there is a waiting period of 26 weeks. Any time after 20 weeks, it is possible to apply for a Conditional Order previously known as ‘Degree Nisi’ and after a further 6 weeks, you can apply for a final order previously known as ‘Decree Absolute’.
Can my ex-partner still defend the divorce?
With a petition under the old procedure, it was possible for the Respondent, to defend the divorce. They could state for example that they did not feel that the marriage had broken down or not for the reasons that you set out in your petition.
Under the current procedure it is no longer called a petition, it is called an application. It is not possible to defend the application and that is because there is no stated reason for the divorce.
It is possible, in very limited circumstances to dispute the application but you can no longer defend it.
It is really important still to have some guidance when dealing with the divorce procedure. When filling out the online application you have to be careful to think about the costs of the divorce and to think about the financial side of it. So although it is a step that you can take alone, it is always advantageous to have some advice about the process, either before or at the time of completing the application.
Here is a video recorded by Head of Family Law, Sharon Mckie:
Our Family team are experts in dealing with the new No-fault divorce procedure. If you have any questions or enquiries, don’t hesitate to contact the team on 01302 341 414 or by filling out our online enquiry form!
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