Going through a divorce can be a painful, difficult process. Whether you were married for five years or 15 years, dividing up your life with your former partner isn’t going to be an easy task – and the last thing you’ll want to do is drag the process out.
The best divorce is a quick divorce – long divorces are both emotionally taxing and expensive, and obtaining a quick divorce will allow you to move on and rebuild your life faster.
While the changes to divorce legislation in 2022 have made the process longer, there are still several ways you can speed up your divorce. From understanding the UK legislation to opting for a managed divorce service, here are 10 ways to manage your divorce so you can move on quickly.
Get a quick, managed divorce
One of the easiest ways to get your divorce finalised quickly is by opting for a managed divorce. In simple terms, this means that a third party, such as Easy Online Divorce, handles all the paperwork and administration for you. Not only does an online divorce make it easier for you to manage the administrative side of things, but it also means you’re able to work on rebuilding your life and moving on, rather than finding yourself entangled in documents and court phone calls for at least 7 months.
Online divorce services also offer fixed-fee divorces, which means that you’ll understand the cost of your divorce upfront.
What is the cheapest way to divorce in the UK?
An online divorce, managed by a divorce provider, is probably the cheapest way to divorce in the UK in 2023. And if you and your former partner share dependent children or several assets and are having difficulties reaching an agreement, a mediator is a good way to agree on various settlements before finalising your divorce. Unlike costly family lawyers, these two services offer to handle your divorce and settlement negotiations, respectively, usually at a fixed price.
Moving on during the divorce process
Since no-fault divorce was introduced across England and Wales in April 2022, the process for divorce is now slightly longer than it was before. This is because the legislative changes included the introduction of a 20-week ‘reflection period’ following any application for divorce. This 20-week waiting period must be completed before couples can apply for a conditional order.
Between the time taken for paperwork administration, and the 20-week reflection period, it now takes at least 7 months for a couple in the UK to finalise their divorce. But when it comes to moving on emotionally from your divorce, you shouldn’t feel obliged to follow the same timeframe. You should allow yourself the emotional bandwidth to grieve for what was lost, and find positive ways to channel your emotions both throughout and after the process. Sport, therapy, and spending time with loved ones can all help emotional wounds heal faster.
Protecting your current and future finances
Another way to draw a line under your former marriage is to protect your assets and any potential windfall from future claims. Without a clean break order included as part of your financial settlement, a former spouse will be able to claim their right to any inheritance windfall or future business successes.
If you don’t share any assets and neither one of you is committed to spousal or child support payments, you can apply for a clean break order and sever all financial ties. If you and your former partner do have financial commitments to one another post-divorce, you can add a clean break clause to your financial order. This keeps all your financial obligations in place, but prevents your ex-spouse from making claims on any future windfall.
Get an online divorce
Online divorces are perhaps the easiest way for you to obtain a simple, managed divorce, without having to entangle yourself in complicated paperwork and endless phone calls with the court for 7 months. Online divorce is 100% legal in the UK, and simply means that the administration of your divorce is handled by a third party, such as us, rather than the £200-an-hour cost of your average high street solicitor. What’s great about an online divorce is that your third party will be able to offer an efficient service that handles everything from filing court documents to helping you negotiate with a difficult former partner – all without the sky-high legal and court fees that you could expect to pay if you hired lawyers.
Don’t forget your marriage certificate
Your marriage certificate is going to be perhaps the most important document in your divorce proceedings, so it’s important to ensure that yours is on hand and ready to email to the court when you file for divorce. Do note that if you decide to do a paper rather than an online divorce application, your marriage certificate will be kept by the court and replaced by a divorce certificate when the marriage is over.
You won’t be able to apply for a divorce in the UK without a marriage certificate, so having this document ready (and kept in a safe place) will help you to speed up your divorce so you can get on with rebuilding your life.
Understanding the legal procedures
In the UK, there are various legal requirements that must be met before a couple is able to apply for a divorce. Firstly, you and your partner must have been married for at least 12 months before you can begin any legal proceedings for a divorce. If you’ve been married for less than 12 months, you can either opt for an annulment or simply separate without the intervention of the law.
Your marriage must also be valid in the eyes of UK law. For example, polygamous marriages and unregistered religious marriages are not valid under UK law, so you would not be able to obtain a divorce for this type of partnership.
Things you need to know legally before filing an online divorce
Before beginning any divorce, managed or otherwise, it’s important to understand how the UK law works, and how a divorce is finalised between two former partners. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind before beginning any divorce application:
- If you’re unable to negotiate a financial settlement with your former partner, it may be left up to the court to split your finances fairly. This is why it’s always better to get a managed divorce, and reach an agreement first with your former partner.
- You’ll be required to pay the £593 court fee upfront if you apply for your divorce online from the UK government website directly.
- It’s a good idea to opt for a managed divorce service if you want to avoid extortionate legal fees. Some divorces can end up costing couples thousands of pounds each in solicitors fees, but this can easily be avoided if you opt for a managed process instead. With a managed divorce service, you’ll be able to obtain a quicker divorce, and the efficient service is less stressful.
- Couples with lots of assets may need an experienced mediator’s help to reach an agreement, and then they can use a managed divorce provider to make their agreement legally binding by way of a consent order.
Key takeaways
Overall, there’s no way to take the pain out of divorce completely. That being said, there are ways to ensure that the proceedings are quick, seamless, and carried out with minimal impact on your own day-to-day life.
When going through a divorce, it can help to spend time with your friends and family, and seek support either through therapy or loved ones. There’s no timeframe for how long it’ll take you to move on from your divorce: channel your emotions positively, and don’t hesitate to reach out to your loved ones for support.
