Divorce without using a solicitor

[Sukie1971]

H and I have decided amicably to divorce. We've discussed and agreed on child residency arrangements (50/50), finance, house etc and are both happy with the arrangements.

What Im wondering is therefore if we are able to keep solicitors out of this, and just submit the papers to the court?

Does anyone have any experience/advice please?

I divorced my first husband for adultery. We agreed finances, no children inolved. Easy peasy.

I think it can get more complex where children are involved especially down the line if one of you meets someone else and the other gets difficult about it but I think you can always go back to the court to alter childcare arrangements if that subsequently becomes an issue.

The other issue is that if the courts are not involved in financial arrangements (sinc these are quite separate to the divorce itself) there can (I believe) be scope to go back to court in future to adjust financial partion and you could be exposed to that if your DH subsequently tries it on.

But my experience (which is all I cn comment on with any authority) is that it was easy (only problem was the County Court losing nearly every document which was sent to them) so everythig had to be done twice), whole process (even given document losses) took around 8 months and DH and I have had no contact since (3 years now) or disputes over finances etc.

I divorced my husband for adultery. We used solicitors but agreed everything between us sat around the kitchen table and then submitted spreadsheets showing distribution of assetts to our respective solicitors. His then tried to get him to dispute the split but fortunatley my ex made them go with what was agreed. It took about 9 months, but got strung out with his solictor trying to earn more fee by disputing stuff that was already agreed.

It is important that both parties have some form of legal advice over finances as it rtemoves the opportunity for it to be later disputed.

If you can keep solicitors out of it as much as possible, good for you. It cost us about £4k in the end, but there was an awful lot of money at stake.

www.divorceaid.co.uk/legal/collaborative-law.htm

Think this is useful - I'm about to try the same thing.

i did, we agreed everything beforehand re kids/finances, though we did both go for a half-hour free session with a solicitor to make sure neither was screwing the other over and all was fair.

i went to the court and the people there were v helpful when i explained i was doing it all myself (unreasonable behaviour).

paid £250 for the petition (and asked them to check papers again before submitting) and then i think £40 for the absolute.

found www.wikivorce.com helpful

I did my own and the only thing in hindsight I should have looked at possibly was a share of his pension. But as I have my own pension (currently looking good but who knows) I didn't think I had the right to a share.

But perhaps I was wrong?

Otherwise relatively painless - I work near the High Court so easy to trot up in my lunchbreak with papers etc.

And I got someone at work to look at the petiion for unreasonable behaviour - work in a legal type environment

We did it ourselves too, no kids and split assets and finances 50/50 to avoid the unneccesary fights and expense that go with involving solicitors. Done after 2 years' separation on a "no fault" basis.

The total cost was the cost of the petition, £300, which we split between us. Dead easy; by far the best way to go. But you should probably use solicitors to sort out stuff to do with children.

Less than 4 months. Under £1000. No solicitors and no fighting.

We agreed to be independent of each other with just a small child maintenance payment. We didn't go after each others pensions and we split the house 50/50. The debts which were mainly his, were absorbed into joint pot and split between us. I took the pragmatic view that a solicitor fee to fight for it would cost me more.

I don't regret this. He took the expensive car. I took my small car. I kept furniture. If we'd employed sols it would have been much messier and I doubt I'd be happier.

I used wikivorce. The inital petition was hard but once I'd started it was easier

I don't see why sols are needed for children.

The CSA does a good website for calculating payments. We used that and came up with a fair amount that worked for us both.

It is written into the consent order and paid by direct debit

Thanks everyone. I feel reassured Im doing the right thing by keeping stress and fees to a minimum.