I raised my petition in march 2021, decreee absolute and consent order sealed by end of June. Mind, you can’t do it that quickly now
we spent £1400 in total both of us. This included
- court costs for divorce and sealing consent order
- my solicitor to read through my grounds for divorce ( unreasonable behaviour) to ensure they’d meet criteria.
- My solicitor cost to legally draft our non legal words for our consent order and submit docs for signing to ex and court
- Ex solicitor cost for 45 mins advice on what he was signing - to show court that we had both taken legal advice
but we were very determined to do it without solicitors and both prepared to park anger to get it done quickly and stress free as possible. Ex particularly didn’t want to spend any more than absolutely necessary on legal costs- he only had time with solicitor as I insisted as didn5 want court to throw out consent order on basis he’d not taken legal advice as there were some oddities
we used the ADVICE NOW guides. Link at top in MN comments. They are great, diy guides. Cost to get full guides but at £40 a shot is equivalent to less than 15 minutes with a solicitor
people forget solicitors charge around £200 plus per hour. That’s well over £3 per minute that they’re even thinking about your case even if they do nothing. It’s £3 for every minute they’re explaining stuff to you that you can read on line first, £3 every minute they’re talking or writing stupid responses to stbexs solicitor. That’s why bills mount up.
im horrified at the costs some people rack up. Unfortunately on this MN site the first thing people say is “ get a good solicitor” or “ go to a solicitor asap”. NO😱, read up on divorce, find out how it works, how “ fair settlement “ works legally ( not MNs posters belief it’s always 50:50 starting point). And how fair settlement will work in your circumstances. Seriously, unless you have massive excess of assets, a shit hot or even average solicitor will make very little difference to where your settlement ends up - it’s not that complicated in most cases unless there’s business assets involved, you are dealing with an abuser or someone who is prepared to commit contempt of court by lying on financial declaration . And, you know way more about your assets, your circumstances wrt “ fair settlement “ than a solicitor- so again every minute that both your solicitors are trying to gain that knowledge from you to advise you, you’re both being charged £3.33 plus) 🤦♀️🤷🏼♀️
I know it’s a bit late in the day but do look at ADVICE NOW via link at the top. ADVICE NOW guides are really clear on what you should use solicitor for, when you might, and when you really don’t need one- they specify tasks needed that you can be specific with solicitor about. That’s why I kept our bills low- I didn’t chat, ask random questions- I said “ this is what I need doing- here is information and forms we’ve already filled in”
i wish the women posting had more belief in themselves that you don’t need to be a genius to do this, and it doesn’t actually take that much time . But, admittedly it does take two to tango still- so will be difficult if stbex doesn’t play ball - but that’ll be happening solicitors or not