How much will the divorce cost me?

[thirtyseven37]

Just seen that the lawyer I'm having a free 30min consultation with charges £225 an hour.

I earn £11.44 an hour. How on earth am I going to afford this??

You can file your self on line, costs about £500/£600 I believe.

I won't know how to split our pensions or sort out child maintenance

Child maintenance you can work that out via cms calculator

hiw big is the pension ( do you think) ie if 10k. Leave it if 200k spend money on a cetv etc

you can educate yourself online to principles of financial separation and do a lot of it yourself to reduce solicitor fees

ir some solicitors will take payment ( at least some of it) out of your final settlement.
in your 30 mins ask what payment assistance they have

keep correspondence/letters/emails/etc to a minimum. Try to work it out with your ex as much as possible and both compromise and negotiate as much as you cam

attend mediation to try to get a view

or be a litigant in person

these realistically are the options

Thank you

Take a look at Wikivorce. Don’t pay someone those amounts to do sums. Get your ex to understand it’s in both your interests to be reasonable and honest rather than spend everything you have on lawyers. Post questions on here. Good luck.

Go and see a mediator and try to agree a split without the lawyers. Then if all agreed you can file the paperwork yourselves or just geta solicitor for the final bits

It is cheaper to agree between yourselves. Find out what everything is worth before agreeing to anything. Personally I have agreed I get a bigger house equity share rather than touch his pension to ensure a quick and easy clean break. I might be slightly worse off but by the time solicitors are involved/paid I would be more than slightly worse off. No point in spending £30K to get £20K back (but worth it to get £200K). So find out roughly what the pot is after all savings, pensions, house equity, investments, and valuables such as cars, bikes etc are added together. The actual divorce can be done online by yourself but get a solicitor to guide you through the financial side. Guide, not take over. Also don't use them to vent over his unreasonableness, keep it factual, as they charge by the minute. Pay separately for a therapist as that is a lot cheaper!!

The next cheapish way is via mediation. Then via solicitors. Then via court. But you can break it into bits so you handle the divorce, CMS handles the maintenance, either you or mediation handles the financials. Do most of the legwork yourself and just get the solicitor to draw up the court papers. Good luck!

Thank you so much for the advice. I really don't know anything about this and it's completely overwhelming for example how do you figure out how to split a pension when that doesn't even happen for another 20 years time?

A pension is a promise for the future but it has a value now -- equivalent to what it would take to purchase such a promise.
So, you either use that value to offset other assets, or you become a member of that scheme in your own right.

To OP

Are you the applicant for the divorce, or the respondent? If you are the applicant, then you will likely have to do most of the legwork if there is a dispute as the burden of proof will be on yourself.

If you and your ex can settle amicably you will save a fortune on fees. However, if you or ex make it a contest it could drag on and court costs and fees wil take a big bite from the pot of assets.

You can apply to the CMS by phone, but have as much information as possible about your ex to hand before you call. Full name, date of birth and ideally their National Insurance number.

For pensions, both you and your ex should contact the pension providers for a valuation. That pensions maybe be higher or lower in the future is not relevant as it will the value of assets on the day the split is made.

Good luck.

Am I the applicant or respondent? I don't know. I'm the person who has been cheated on and doesn't want to be married to an emotional abuser anymore. So I guess I'm the applicant.

The applicant applies for the divorce. The respondent responds (replies) to the first person's paperwork.

EDIT - The applicant decides on the timings really, remember NOT to apply for the final order (originally decree absolute) until the financials have been sealed by the court (rubberstamped and accepted by a judge). If your H applies then he could force the divorce through and leave you financially exposed. However it does mean you have to pay the £600 court fee.

You are the applicant then

Is he likely to be amicable and give you financial details such as pension and savings? If so, you can do most of it yourself.
When you're jn the right heads pace, go on line and have a look. Obviously male sure it is a uk site though as other countries have different rules!!

If you believe he will treat you fairly then you could do it yourself but make sure you do it in the right order.

If he already has another woman I would work on the basis he won't treat you fairly and will try to get away with paying as little as possible in any settlement. Does he earn significantly more than you?

If in the latter situations lawyer up.

I would've trusted my now ex with my life, then found out he'd been cheating for a year. Wouldn't trust him to tell me the right time now.
For that reason, plus our ages, length of marriage, dcs & size of pensions i decided to use a solicitor for the financials (i filed for divorce online myself, that cost £600). I'm glad i did as i've received his 1st settlement offer, and if i accepted it would see me some 200k worse off than him. Er, i don't think so pal. I reckon by the end of it the solicitor will have cost c 6k, but for me that's going to be money well spent.

@airforsharon

6K sounds fairly cheap. However, if there is a difference of opinion to a sum of 200K, be prepared for your ex to make a fight as they make share the same view as yourself in that a solicitor will ensure they get them what they want.

My ex turned the divorce into a contest and fees after 18 months of back and forth plus 5 court hearings exceeded 35K in 2015. Barrster was 400/hour and solicitor was 175/hour.

Good luck.

Mine, assuming the Consent Order doesn't get knocked back in court, will have cost me about £7.5k when all done including the £593 application fee and about £500 for the mediation. I accepted early on I needed to pay solicitors as there are 3 properties involved and it was not just my children that needed to be considered in the housing equation but another family member as well as £350k of pensions. There was a lot of back and forth as his solicitors made mistakes in the process which hasn't helped the final bill. This was for an "amicable" divorce that isn't quite finished.

It's worth noting that if you end up with 50/50 custody, you may not get CM - my ex earns about 2x my salary, we have 50/50 and I don't get any CM.

Thank you :)

35k?! Bloody hell :/
Yes, I'm inwardly gritting my teeth as i honestly thought he would want to do things are fairly and quickly as possible. We had a really good relationship despite his extra marital, and he's obviously now keen to move on, so for both those reasons i wasn't expecting him to start playing silly buggers.

My solicitor has been great and has a core of steel so i do feel supported/well represented but i'm very conscious that I'll run out of money before him. Just hoping he decides to play fair and/or he doesn't have the stomach for a fight.

So the first solicitor I've contacted on a recommendation is £231 +vat per hour. I would have to work 27 hours to afford one hour of their time. It's a joke.

You don’t need to use a solicitor. I didn’t.

However, my divorce was straightforward with no children involved and we both agreed on the split of assets, which the court approved.

There are several online services that will help you through the process if you don’t feel confident doing all yourself.

For example…

https://www.quickie-divorce.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6PGxBhCVARIsAIumnWbCvPWBYEBWq-es9V2vVRuDSCycEWAgnE-akFN0__onuUUsteespCEaAiQpEALw_wcB

Mine didn’t cost alot and we did most of it ourselves

its possible
we did gave kids and lots of assets however,

we both knew what assets there were
we both didn’t want to screw the other over ) of course we didn’t always agree what that looked like)
we’re able to discuss/argue/talk/negotiate and compromise on both sides between us
we both ended up worse off but overall ok with the split ( you have to let done things go)

it is possible to do it yourself even if you can’t do the above but will be more stressful of course.
everyone on here says straight to solicitor etc but that’s not always the best outcome ( can be in some cases)

@millymollymoomoo

Solicitors can only be avoided if both parties act sensibly. However, if one, or both, turn the divorce into a contest or make unrealistic demands, the court route will follow.

One couple spent £600K and ended up with £5K each. Link is

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?q=www.stratfordfamilymediation.com/couple-who-spent-600k-on-divorce-left-with-5k-each/&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjWk6-gpI2GAxXyhf0HHfgnD5sQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1VMmruACBPgkty7DsLlHqy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.google.com/url?q=www.stratfordfamilymediation.com/couple-who-spent-600k-on-divorce-left-with-5k-each/&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjWk6-gpI2GAxXyhf0HHfgnD5sQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1VMmruACBPgkty7DsLlHqy

There's two parts of divorce, the main legal process which you can do yourself, make him pay it's around £600. Then there's the financials. Cheapest option is to discuss, agree and get a consent order drawn up, next best if you need help is a mediator. Solicitors negotiating will be very expensive and potentially divisive

Your best chance is that he feels really guilty so makes a generous offer without need for a solicitor. My exh offered me 60% without me even asking, in the end I took 60% of house, spousal maintenance for 5 years until dc finished university and 20% of final salary pension on retirement (this is more unusual and due to it being final salary rather defined contribution). I crunched the numbers on these he just said yes, it's pretty fair considering circumstances and I would potentially have got more if I'd taken it to court but I'm not vindictive (quite unusual circumstances so being vague)