Family

Divorce Procedure

A Divorce Petition will need to be drafted, filed and issued at court in order to commence the proceedings. The party instigating the proceedings is known as the Petitioner and your spouse is known as the Respondent.

Once the document is finalised it will be forwarded to the court, with a Statement of Arrangements for Children form. The Statement of Arrangements is a form you are required to complete if there are any children of the family aged under 16 years old, or aged under 18 if they are still at school, college or training. This is necessary as the court will not allow the divorce proceedings to be finalised, unless it can be satisfied that there are no unresolved disputes between you and your spouse in regards to the children. 

Once the Petition has been issued, the court will forward a copy of the documentation to the Respondent, together with an Acknowledgement of Service form. The Respondent will have eight days from the date the documentation is received in order to respond to the court, by completing the form and confirming whether he/she accepts the divorce or wishes to defend the proceedings.  

The next stage is for the Petitioner to apply for a Decree Nisi, which is the name given to the penultimate order of the court prior to finalising the proceedings. It is at this point that the papers are put before a District Judge for the first time and a decision is made as to whether you are entitled to a divorce by determining whether the Petition is legally drafted correctly and whether the ‘fact’ you are relying on has been proven.   

If the District Judge is satisfied that the parties are entitled to the divorce, a date will be set for the pronouncement of the Decree Nisi. There will be no need to attend the hearing on this said date.  You will be entitled to apply for the final order dissolving your marriage, which is known as the Decree Absolute, six weeks after the Decree Nisi has been pronounced. The court will check that the relevant six week period has lapsed and that no objections have been made to the divorce during the interim.  

The process can take as little as six months to complete if the aforementioned stages are dealt with promptly and no obstacles arise. However, if there are still outstanding financial matters at the final stage, it is uncommon for the Decree Absolute to be applied for. Therefore, divorces can take longer to finalise in practice and it is usually dependent upon the resolution of financial matters, which are realistically lengthy and more complex.