FAQ's - The costs of divorcing your spouse

Divorce

A high street solicitor will charge between £500.00 and £1000.00 plus VAT (and court fees), depending upon where you live and if you are starting proceedings. Divorce Rights will charge you £300.00 plus VAT (plus Court fees) or £150.00 plus VAT if you are replying to a divorce.

If your divorce is "simple" and there are no problems with your spouse defending the proceedings, or refusing to acknowledge that he/she has received the petition then the fees will be as follows:

The Court fees are:-

• £300.00 which you will need to pay to issue the divorce proceedings,

• £40.00 when you ask for Decree Absolute, the final certificate in divorce proceedings which brings your marriage to an end.

We will ask you to pay us £415.00 when you ask us to issue divorce proceedings on your behalf.  From this sum, we pay the Court fee of £300.00, and the balance of £115.00 (£100.00 plus VAT), is a payment towards our fees to draft the petition for divorce and associated forms to issue proceedings on your behalf.

We will ask you to pay the balance of our fees of £200.00 plus VAT, and the final Court fee of £40.00, across two equal payments.  There is no time constraint to this.  We take the next step in the proceedings when you can afford to pay us.

If you claim that it is your spouse's fault that the marriage has broken down, either because of an affair, or behaviour that you find unreasonable, it is more likely than not that your spouse will be ordered to pay your legal costs including the Court fees when the Court certifies that you are entitled to a divorce.  If your spouse does not pay, you make take enforcement action or, ancillary to the divorce, ask for these costs to be paid to you as part of an overall financial settlement.