‘Quick divorce’ services investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority

With the divorce laws changing in April 2022, it has now become a more streamlined process to obtain a divorce or the dissolution of a civil partnership. The whole process has moved online with applications being submitted either on a sole or joint basis. There is no reason or requirement for one party to blame the other for the breakdown of the marriage or civil partnership and very little opportunity for the application to be defended.

As a result of this, there has been a trend for clients to move away from using traditional solicitors to deal with the divorce proceedings and instead clients are choosing to either handle the process themselves or employ an online divorce service boasting to be far cheaper or quicker than a solicitor. Now The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation to protect consumers following complaints about various legal services, including online divorce services.

Initial research by the CMA has identified concerns about online ‘quickie’ divorce services including:

• misleading claims about both the simplicity of the process and prices, which leave customers unclear about what they can be helped with or what they are paying for
• inadequate quality of service, including the firms using the wrong forms, entering incorrect details, sending papers to the court late, and not communicating efficiently with customers.

Any service which boasts about the divorce being quick is likely to be misleading. The timeframe for the process has not changed with the new divorce laws. Once a petition has been submitted to the Court, the parties must wait a minimum of 20 weeks before they can apply for a Conditional Order. This is the court granting permission for the divorce to go ahead. On obtaining a Conditional Order the parties must then wait 6 weeks and 1 day before they can apply for the Final Order terminating the marriage. Therefore an online divorce will take a minimum of 6 months (26 weeks) and any service suggesting this timeframe can be shortened is giving the public mis-information.

The CMA will now write to a number of firms that offer these services in order to seek further information about their practices. Any interested parties, like consumer advocates, professional bodies, trade associations or any consumers with experience of using someone who is not a solicitor to provide an online divorce service can send their responses to [email protected] by 4 September 2023.

Whilst many family solicitors, including those at Barker Gotelee, have accepted that more and more people will want to handle the divorce themselves to save money, it is still important that the correct legal advice is being obtained by the parties from the outset so each knows what they are getting into. At Barker Gotelee, we can offer a fixed price initial consultation to discuss all aspects of a divorce or civil partnership dissolution. Contact us today for more information.

Amanda Erskine is a solicitor in the Family department at Barker Gotelee Solicitors in Suffolk.

Suffolk Divorce Solicitors – for more information on our range of legal services, please call the team on 01473 611211 or email [email protected]