How much does divorce cost?

[1985jf]

I know that is like asking how long is a piece of string but if were both amicable and agreeable on things, how much would we be looking at?

long marriage
kids school age
no house to sell
both work full time
both have own pensions
both earn the same

divorce petition £550
child arrangement agreement?
? Clean break financial order £

do we need to go via a solicitor??

thanks for any advice

You don’t have to use a solicitor and Dan do paperwork and consent order yourselves

however it is always best to get consent order drafted by a solicitor to ensure it’s watertight

divorce itself us not costly if you can agree - the costs rack up if you can’t

Thank you @millymollymoomoo

You have no property to sell makes it easier.
pensions you say are similar
the only thing will mainly be the children’s needs.
try to come to an agreement.

I divorced last year before law changes.
so did all petition on line -£500 at time , gone up I think? Easy. Rather depressingly easy really
no kids involved ( grown up) so that didn’t come into it

financial agreement: we were amicable and both driven by keeping costs down so put any bitterness to one side. We did the form E together first, and agreed the valuations - butwealready were very financially transparent having been doing our finances together for last 30 years! then agreed how to split. I prepared the D81 and a layman’s version of our consent order. I paid a solicitor to just draw this up into legal draft and then submit to courts online - at time only a solicitor could submit a draft consent directly on line. Ex also paid, at my insistence, for a short solicitor session so we could include that he’d taken legal advice in docs seen by courts.

Our combined legal fees, court costs , and costs were £1600 inc VAT

I recommend you download ADVICE NOW guides on diy divorce processes. They cost £20 per guide but are brilliant. They’ll explain the 10 or so criteria court uses to determine if your agreement is “fair” in order for them to seal it. The guides walk you through process, they tell you which bits you don’t need solicitor for, those you might want to, and those you should. They’re a charity and run by uk lawyers so legit. They even include links to solicitors you can contact that are prepared to do the bits you want only at a fixed type fee. Ex used one of these for his advice session and said they were very good

just Google Advice Now divorce guides and making a financial settlement.

The actual divorce bit on the gov website is relatively straightforward. £593 I believe.
We used 'divorce online' for financial consent order and a solicitor drafted our wishes. Court queried them (settlement was uneven but we knew this!) and the online solicitor helped us word a statement. Whole thing was flat fee of £599 I think, and £50 or so court application cost.
All went smoothly, the important thing is to be able to communicate. For the record, our only dependent child is 15 and we have an access arrangement that works really well, and also gave him the biggest say in it (at his age his wishes very much influence the outcome).

It’s great if you are amicable. Will the children remain living with you?. From experience it’s important to get a financial order before the decree absolute is granted. My divorce was very complicated and cost £20,000 but it was not amicable at all and there were assets in trusts etc

yours on the face of it looks very equal. I think you can get a solicitor to draft something up that you can both sign if you want to sell the house or someone is to remain living in it

you can get a free half hour from a solicitor in most cases to ask questions

Sorry I’ve just seen no house to sell, we’re you both renting