What do you do if you need to get a divorce, but can't afford a solicitor?

[LittleMachine]

My brother's wife had left him (kicked him out) and their marriage is very definitely over. He suspects she has been having an affair. Their relationship has been rocky for a long time, and in my opinion there has been lots of emotional abuse (from her to him), which we have had to witness for years.

Anyway. My brother doesn't earn much and says he can't afford a solicitor. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to help him out at the moment. I think if he doesn't have a solicitor, he could lose out with the sale of their house etc.
They don't have children.
Is a solicitor essential in a divorce? Do any solicitors do payment plan type things?

I've just started the divorce ball rolling & I don't have much money to pay for it. The solicitor has informed me that as I am divorcing on the grounds of adultery (with evidence), then I can make my exH pay the costs. I will have to pay upfront though & then I will hopefully get my money back in the settlement.

It can cost anything from roughly £1300, if it's straightforward up to £10000 each! I don't think my exH will want the costs to run that high though & he will hopefully be quite compliant.

My solicitor charges £170 per hour, £17 for phone calls, letters etc & an initial consultation fee of £60 to talk about the divorce process & get all the details. It was informative & made me realise that I am in a much better position than I initially thought.

I will be funding mine by scraping through - some small savings, credit card & a small loan off my parents if I get desperate.

Is there any likelihood, OP, that they will be able to agree on a fair split of the marital assets - including pensions etc? They're not Scottish by any chance?

Thanks moonface that's very informative. Maybe the costs won't be as high as he is imagining. He doesn't have any evidence of adultery. I'm sorry you're in a similar position, and I hope your divorce goes smoothly.
Cozie, they're not in Scotland. I can't see an agreement being reached easily - at least not in a way where my DB doesn't lose out. I think he would just agree to what she says, which IMO makes him vulnerable.

Right. The rules and potential costs are a bit different in Scotland - although a satisfactory self-processed outcome does depend on being able to achieve an agreement on eg money (with no children to consider) - and I confess to having a reservation or two when you said that she'd kicked him out and that there had been emotional abuse in the marriage.

A solicitor it is then. He needs someone to fight his corner and the sooner he engages someone, the better. Yes he'll have to pay for the service but if he ends up with an appropriate share of the marital assets that will likely be more than offset.

I know you said you aren't in a position to assist - but did that mean financially or in terms of emotional support? Even with a solicitor, the client needs to have at least some determination in an adversarial situation and I just wonder, from what you said, whether your bro is in a mood just to give in and let her walk over him during the ending process?

Could your brother have a free session with a solicitor, just to find out the basics. He can also ring the citizens advice bureau and make an appointment to see them (usually a waiting list so may be a few weeks wait).

Might get more of a response posting on the Legal part of MNs too, then solicitors respond. Also worth looking on there to see if anyone else has posted a similiar post.

Another good website is www.wikivorce.com/divorce/

If you can't tell, i'm divorced, but still in the middle of sorting finances out, earn a low income so can't afford much legal help and have used all of the above.

If your brother files the divorce papers himself, and completes them too, it will cost about £350. To sort the finances he can discuss them with his ex directly, go to mediation or through solicitors. Depends on how difficult and complex the finances are, and are agreeable the partners are to reaching an agreement as to how much it will cost.

I would have thought it would be quite straightforward too as there are no children involved & it should just involve a 50/50 split of equity on the sale of the house or any other assets.

Not necessarily. There are potentially such things as pension assets to be discussed and even the question of any equity in property might be fraught if the other person doesn't wish to move from the house, put down the chump end of the deposit etc etc. It can get quite dirty.

Much depends on reaching a fair agreement and the OP is in a difficult position here. It sounds as if her bro might potentially be a little cowed in the situation and if he's potentially a little vulnerable, she's got to tread a very fine line between being supportive and being bossy.

Thanks for all your further replies, I hadn't thought of the CAB, even though I've had support from them previously.

Cozie, you've given me lots to help him think about. I'm absolutely there for him emotionally, and to be honest, since the relationship ended at the weekend I have been bossy, insisting that he has to find legal support and claiming that the split is 'amicable' is not a good reason not to seek help. (It's not at all amicable by the way - she had changed the porch door lock when he went to collect some clothes the other day).
I will now morph from bossy to just supportive I promise
We don't know yet if she intends to stay in the house, as she isn't being forthcoming with plans yet. As far as I know, my brother doesn't have a pension as he's still in a training role, but she is in a professional role at a senior level so I imagine she does - I'm not familiar with these things so I'm not sure about what impact that has, I was thinking more about what he is entitled to with the house.

I feel so angry - unreasonably so really, as it isn't my relationship, but I have stood by and had to watch her treat him like shit for 10 years (she's treated me like shit too but I'm not bothered about that and for DB's sake I have always risen above it). Now it's finally over I'm almost relieved and I think DB is too, but I don't want that to be a reason for him to walk away at a massive financial loss.
Sorry for the additional vent and thanks again for all your very helpful responses.

If it is an agreeable split of assets, with no tricky pension fund (as your brother doesn't earn much this may be true), then the divorce can be done easily without solicitors. The Family Court will issue an information pack if you phone them.

If she's a senior professional and they've been married for 10 years there's likely a pretty fair amount of money at stake with regard to pension asset division because most of the pension asset will be hers. Most people forget about that. (I'm talking possibly 5 figures here and not a few hundred quid.) It's definitely something he needs to get checked out, if only as a bargaining counter.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that you should never be firm with him. Just that whatever the situation, he'll be grieving at the moment and while that's never a good time to negotiate over money, and he'll need some support, there's that fine line where going over would make him feel a failure because he 'can't even end things properly'. (If she has indeed been having an affair, she could well have 'moral support' of her own.)

Yes, he can do it by himself at lowish cost but in his circumstances, I'd seek at least some professional advice on the matter.

At least I can point him in the right direction now - I had no idea about the family court information, I thought family courts were just if there were children, and I'll suggest the CAB. I can probably help him out with some of the initial costs as well from some of the prices mentioned upthread.
He is indeed grieving, he's devastated and daunted at the idea of 'starting again' as he so wants to settle down and have a family. I hope he doesn't rush into anything, he's a bit free with his heart, he's always been that way.
In the meantime, he is living at my house and looking for a place to rent, and we are lucky to have our parents nearby too.
I'm hoping he can see from my experience that he can find happiness.
I was in an EA/DV relationship for a similar length of time before I managed to walk away. Luckily we weren't married, but I was left in thousands of pounds of debt. Fast forward 3 years and I have an amazing DP and DS and another on the way. That could be him. I hope he sees that. I said to him, it's terrible and incredibly painful now, but there'll be an end to that, whereas the alternative was a lifetime of misery and that is much worse.

Once again, thank you for all the helpful advice. It's much appreciated.

Best of luck to him.

The divorce petition forms are easy to fill in. You can download and print straight off the internet. The financial consent order is the bit that needs to be watertight. If they can agree between themselves that will save any expense on lawyers at that stage. However, I would suggest that the draft consent order is done by a professional: firstly because a judge can reject it if they are not satisfied which will mean extra court fees but primarily because this is the document which will protect your db's future. You don't want to leave any inadvertant loop holes which allow someone to come back later to make a further claim (eg after an inheritance, insurance payout etc). You might have to be persistent ringing around various firms but keep pushing until you find someone who will give you a price for doing it as a one-off job. You could keep costs down by using a pararlegal instead of a solicitor if its a simple split of assets. I would imagine you'd be looking at £250 - £350 for a straight forward settlement.