Right above your post, in the header, is a link to ADVICE NOW.
Go to link. Download all the relevent guides on diy divorce. You can use even if not totally diy.
READ THEM. then read them agian. Pass them to your stbex and get him to read them
These guides tell you exactly what you don’t need solicitor for, what you do and where you might.
they explain “fair settlement “ - despite what folks say here it does not start with 50:50. It starts with fair settllent criteria. You need to understand how these apply to you and stbex situation.
they explain the legal financial disclosure forms and how to complete yourselves. Obviously if you have business thst may be more complex but need not be if you trust each other, and can work cooperatively
bear in mind a solicitor will charge ~ £200+ vat/hour for every second there picking your file up, listening to your concerns, or trying to get hold of the other solicitor. That’s unproductive work, even before they charge you for their productive work. Do NOT see a solicitor until you’ve read these guides, answered your own questions for nearly free rather than get a solicitor to explain it and charge you for privaledge- and they won’t explain all of it otherwise it’ll mean less chargeable work for them. Only instruct solicitor when you KNOW EXACTLY which specific tasks you want them to do.
your “free” 30 mins with a solicit will tell you little of he process and is mainly them understanding complexity of your case and then positioning a sales pitch frankly. Better to use your free 30 mins armed with knowledge and you interviewing them when your ready
there are people on this board racking up charges of £30k and taking years to divorce. It does NOT have to be like that. I divorced in 2021, took 4 months (ok can’t do thst now as all divorces take min of 26 weeks) and it cost us in total £1500. We did that by parking anger, agreeing we didn’t want to fritter more money away by using solicitors where we didn’t have to, and by both reading these guides and using them to guide us through process. ok, we didn’t have dependant kids anymore and there was no business. But a lot of it really isn’t that complicated.
the government web site on divorce is also extremely good and made to be very clear - go on line and download forms like the divorce petition, form E and D81 and start to read through what information you’ll need to gather and plot out the processes.