I want a quick divorce, what are the likely timescales?

[Llareggub]

My husband is an alcoholic and unlikely to change. We have a house, he is self-employed and I have a full time job. We have two lovely young boys and he is probably not able to have them overnight unless his parents are around. We have been living separately for around 3 months or so. He has told me I can have the house and everything in it and he is not capable of caring for the boys.

How quickly can I make this happen? I am so fed up of this. Can I revert to my maiden name ASAP? what do I need to do?

Have had a look around online for something to help, and this should give you the answers you want:
www.terry.co.uk/divorce5.html

It's a long read, but if all you want is a timescale (tl;dr) then: "...may take about 4/5 months from start to finish and you will see that the compulsory delay of six weeks between the decree nisi and decree absolute accounts for a considerable portion of this. How long a divorce takes exactly does rather depend on the speed with which third parties (the court and the Respondent) deal with their respective parts and it is not all dependent upon the Petitioner."

Hope that helps, good luck!

Go onto the HM court service website, download the Petition and Statement of Arrangements for Children Forms, coplete, sign and issue them at your local county court with the fee of £340. You should ideally send copies of the docs to your husband as a courtesy and invite him to raise any objections before you issue them. There's a booklet which you can also download which tells you exactly what you need to do.

You will neeed a solicitor to deal with the transfer of the house (a conveyancer) and also a family solicitor to talk to about the finances.

Thanks both. I will get onto it and hope that things can be resolved as speedily as possible.