There are many offers on the web that will tell you how to divorce on the cheap and in my experience after signing up to one of these, it can be done even cheaper if you are willing to put a little more effort into it.
First of all, I am not a solicitor, nor am I a vendor for any of the websites that I will link you to if you don't want the extra hassle. However it is fair to say, that if you read the recommendations and comments on all of the internet sites, they all receive good recommendations.
Whatever the sites tell you, there are a number of steps you will have to do anyway and of course they don't tell you what additional charges you have to take into account as I will explain.
At the end of the day, doing it yourself will say you potentially thousands through a solicitor on the high street and that is using a trustworthy and ethical solicitor.
Is the time right to divorce?
So you are ready to divorce then? Well first of all, to do this on the cheap you need to both agree that this is what you want to do. This is obvious of course, but after your divorce comes through, it will be no good to either of you and those around you if you regret doing this too quickly.
Personally, I now regret doing this as soon as I did, but at the time we both had our reasons and we now both agree that we shuold have left it a little longer until we had both come to terms about the reason for seperation.
Once you can discuss divorce in an adult and amicable way, you will need to decide and agree the terms of your divorce before you do anything else. If you can't agree at this stage, then the online way will not suit you and it may not be the time to divorce or otherwise you could lose out in many ways.
If you really get to the point of never agreeing the terms of divorce, then the only way will be to settle this with a solicitor and accept now that this will set you back thousands and one or both of you will be paying for this for years to come. This of course will get in the way of your future happiness and if you are the one that is agrieved do remember that divorce is going to happen anyway, so the quicker you move on and lose your anger the quicker you can pick your life up and regain happiness elsewhere. The only people you do not like amicable divorces are the solicitors who make money from people who can't talk and agree. Solicitors will try all they can to create and fuel disagreement to help keep their fees up (extra letters, redesign agreements etc)
I had an an agreement with my ex that we would do this amicably and show our children and family that we are able to do this in an adult way. Yes there were tense times, but paramount to successful divorce is to keep talking and sorting things as they occur.
The complete divorce process consists of three main elements:
1) Dissolving the Marriage - the formal legal process by which the marriage is ended.
2) Financial Arrangements - the process of dividing up the marital assets and agreeing on maintenance/child support.
3) Childcare Arrangements - the process of deciding who the children of the marriage will live with (residency) and how much contact the non-resident parent will have.
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Of course there are different papers you may or may not need to complete depending on your circumstances. If of course you don't have children or your children are over 18, the childcare arrangements do not apply.
Getting Started
Anyway discussion over and agreement on the arrangements, the search for a quick and cheap divorce took place and after watching a TV programme about the increase in online divorce settlements, we decided to look. There were several sites offering divorces for about £70 and above. What you will find from these sites is that the fee will purchase you the paperwork (that you can get for free) and an idiots guide of how to complete and when and where to send it ( again completely free elsewhere).
Have a look on as many internet sites that you can - Google cheap divorce and there will be loads of available sites. What these sites don't usually tell you is that the fee is just for you to download the paperwork. This paperwork you can get free anywhere, but if you need me to I can send you the paperwork if you contact me a small donation would of course be appreciated.
The one that I used was http://www.clean-break.co.uk for £95, but in reality it cost more than this. We also thought we would pay for the clean break order - yes at another additional cost. The reason for choosing this site was the good feedback it had and of course the price. The actual service was minimal and I wondered what I got for this really apart from documents that you can get for free anywhere. I still paid an additional £60 on top for a solicitor to review the documents. So the choice is yours and the key parts of the process I describe below.
The 'managed' divorce offere you a managed divorce by the internet site and you can pay from around £100 to £300 usually for this service. I am not saying this is a con, but at the end of the day they will just provide you with an idiots guide on what to do. They will ask you for lots of information about you both and what agreements you have made and they just complete those forms on your behalf.
Yes I went for the managed divorce and after realising that I was just providing them with the information that I could just as easily put on the form, kicked myself, just before my ex kicked me!
Whether it is managed or not, you still have to do a certain amount of running around yourself as will be apparent a little later.
Managed or Self-Managed Divorce
If you have looked at some of the websites and have decided to go for the managed divorce then good luck to you and this blog may no longer be of use to you. The only use it may provide is that you will be aware of what may be in store for you later down the line.
If you have decided to self-manage your divorce, then be prepared for a little hard work and some expenditure that the divorce sites don't tell you about.
At some stage, you may want to check the wording out with a solicitor and this can be done for less than £60 for you piece of mind.
Whatever you decide to do, you will face some challenging obstacles which you could get charged a few hundred ppounds for. The key part is drawing up a consent order. It is not essential as part of a divorce, but again the paperwork is free and what you write in the document is essentially what you have agreed to stick to after the divorce has been gained. We decided and agred to do this and paid in excess of £300 for this and since have found I could have done this for £0.
Support and guidance
There are some forums out there that provide support for people doing this in the UK, however I never found them that much help when completing the forms, it was all a little confusing, (yes I still had to do form filling even though it was a managed divorce).
The key things you need to think about when considering you divorce terms are the obvious, children and maintenance payments. Other less obvious things are pensions, equity etc
I am of course happy to answer any questions I ca having been a survivor of this. And I assure you whichever party you are, you feel like a survivor at the end of this.
The First Paper to complete - The Petition
So you have talked rationally about this and have agreed the best way and the only way forward is to divorce. I will do another blog about ending relationships if you are interested, because in later life you may or may not want to live with your regrets - as there was something that brought you together in the first place.!
Anyway for those of you who have agreed to do this amicably then the first bit you would think is the easiest bit. Well you can't put on the form that you are wanting a divorce because you both agree it is in both your best interest. We had to discuss what to put on the form and decide who was going to petition and who was going to be the respondent. At this stage, you will have to trust one another that this is not going to get nasty, it is just a means to an end - the Divorce.
My advice is that you can't be 'wolly' about this sort of thing and yes, you may need to exaggerate. For example, I agreed to be the respondent and my ex although unhappy, claimed that I was sleeping with prostitutes ( if I had the money to do that, then I wouldn't waste it on that!). So she also claimed that this was causing her distress anxiety etc.
So now you have filled this in and what the Quickie Divorce and Cheap Divorce websites don't tell you is that you now have to trot along to your local court and file the petition and letter accompanying the petition along with a payment -in 2011 it was about £45.
I will calculate for you along the way, but if you are doing this on the chaepest website that I found (and used £69) then your current total is £114
So a bit like a cooking recipe, you leave it and wait until a little letter from the court drops through your door giving you your case number.
If you do happen to sign up to one of the websites and you do want to complete the consent order, don't be conned into doing it at this stage - This does not need to be completed yet and you still have plenty of time to think and talk about what is and needs to be included. And please don't be fooled into to paying £150 + for this (some charge in excess of £500 for a piece of paper).
I have this piece of paper on my PC and will happily share it for £10 donation to help recoup for this advice and for my paying for it in the first place. In fact I have all the paperwork you need to complete this and happy to share for a reasonable donation.
Acknowledgement of Service
This basically means that you will both receive a letter through the post confirming the petition has been heard and you will receive a case number that you will need to use in all future correspondence. You will have to sign a copy of the letter you receive and return it within the given time-frame. Simply at this stage you are agreeing to what you have already agreed to - the grounds for divorce and the costs of divorce ( you should have discussed who is going to pay for this.
This part of the process takes just a couple of weeks at most.
Decree Nisi
The court will send a copy of the acknowledgement to the petitioner who should then take the process forward by completing two documents - 'the request for directions' and an 'affidavit in support of petition'. Again these documents you can get free, but this is what you are paying the websites for.
When the court gets these documents they will check the petition and make a decision on whether they agree with the grounds for divorce, hence the reasons need to be very good and not just that 'we agree to get divorced'
This part seems to take ages and it takes a month or so for you to receive your decree nisi certificates (sounds grand, but I assure you they are not. You can attend the court if you wish to hear the case or make an objection, but it is well noted that it is unusual for anybody to attend.
Decree Absolute
Whoever petitioned can then apply for the decree absolute on or after 6 weeks from the date on the decree nisi. When you apply for this part you have to pay an additional £40 to the court. This part can take what seems forever but when you get the next letter - you are divorced and you can do what I did and go and celebrate it by having a nice meal with your ex!
The Kids
If you have kids involved under 18 you will of course need to cover this with another form for the arrangements for them and of course you will have agreed this at the earliest stage. Of course these forms should be freely available.
The Financial Arrangements / Consent Order
Basically this is the part where you should have discussed and agreed what you financial arrangements post-divorce are going to be (or already are probably). This is the part where some sites charge over £300 but generally most are around £170 - £200. Again this is something I have now found you could have done for free with support from someone who has gone through this - the paperwork is free and if you have enough intelligence, then I am sure you will understand what needs to be considered.
In spite of what were told, you do not need to complete or send it to the court until after the decree absolute has come through. In fact, my ex queued up at the court to hand this in before the absolute came through and was told she could not submit until after we received the absolute. This bit costs nothing and all it involves is a judge casting an eye over what you have agreed to make sure things are fair. and will only take a few weeks.
Other helpful sites
I have tried to make this as an easier read as possible after being very confused myself with some of the sites out there that will make you pay before you get to read about the process. There is one site that does offer a more in-depth step-by-step guide Wikivorce http://www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Step-By-Step-Guide/Divorce-Guide/Introduction.html. Again, on this site it is so tempting to click on the link to just get someone else to do it for you. Invariable they won't, you just provide them with the information to fill in the forms which you could have done anyway and you will find that you fill some of it in anyway.
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