Divorce – How Difficult Can It Be?

People often ask themselves why they should’t themselves issue or respond to divorce proceedings rather than instructing a Solicitor to help them to deal with it. It might be cheaper in terms of what you would have to pay a Solicitor immediately, but it could easily lead to much larger legal bills and financial losses later. So, what might you miss?

I should preface the following comments with a warning that this does not constitute legal advice – it’s more a question of pointing out that things may be more complicated than you think.

You might miss the fact that the proceedings ought not to have been taken in England and Wales at all because, for example, you both live in another country and are in the UK temporarily.

You might miss the fact that it turns out that you’re not legally married at all, so divorce proceedings are not the appropriate solution (more common in ceremonies which take place out of the UK).

You might miss the fact that you could ask the Court not to make the final divorce order until it has dealt with any financial claims.

You might apply for the final divorce order before the court has approved any financial consent order and find yourself in difficulty because your former husband or wife dies. You may then lose the chance to make a claim against your former spouse’s pension, which has just died with them and to which you have no claim because you are not a widow or widower. 

You might find yourself having to ask the Court to make a consent order which reflects an agreement which had been reached before the death. This is a different, more complicated type of application and likely to be more expensive than the usual financial application in divorce proceedings.

If your former spouse dies, you have a get out of jail card in the form of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, but it won’t be a free one. You could well find yourself with a more expensive legal Bill with the Court being less generous to you than it might have been in divorce proceedings because there are other people whom the Court thinks should share in your late former spouse’s estate.

So the bottom line is, stick to your day job and ask someone whose day job is dealing with problems like this to look at it for you.