Following on from Caroline Saunders’ previous interview on the importance of getting a financial order in place, this interview focuses on the necessary divorce papers that you will need as you go about filing for divorce.
Caroline Saunders is a Family lawyer and keen supporter of family mediation. She is the founder of Independent Legal Services where she helps couples complete their divorce papers and drafting the all important financial order agreement.
Couples can do their own divorce but after down loading the divorce forms online and do the actual divorce part Caroline will check them and most importantly will also draft their financial order which she does from Memorandum of Understanding that their family mediator will have prepared.
This document, the Memorandum of Understanding, sets out the background to their case and the details of the agreement that they have reached.
Caroline also drafts another very important document which is a financial document which is a summary of their financial and personal circumstances. Both documents are required by the court.
The making of the financial order is not a rubber stamping operation. It goes before a judge whose role is to be a judge and not just to stamp documents. This means that he or she will check through the draft of the financial order against the financial summary and personal summary to see whether in his or her opinion, that order is practical, workable and most importantly fair.
If the agreement seems unfair and/or the judge has some questions, the judge will contact the couple so that they can clarify any issues but should the agreement be clearly unworkable it will be rejected.
What are the grounds for divorce or the reasons for divorce? There’s only one which is that the marriage has irretrievably broken down but you have to substantiate that on the basis of one of the following further five reasons for divorce:
- Unreasonable behaviour
- Sexual relationship with someone else
- Lived apart for the period of two years and the other party consents
- Lived apart for a period of two years because the other party has left the marriage
- You’ve lived apart for 5 years
The divorce forms are different for each basis or case and you can download the necessary divorce papers from here https://www.gov.uk/divorce/overview
Caroline is a seasoned family lawyer and a member of Resolution which follows a strict code of practice and code of conduct so as to promote amicable and conciliatory divorce. You can contact Caroline on:
cs.independentlegalservices@gmail.com
Phone: 07518178977
[…] are various online divorce kits for simple divorces. It is still prudent to have a solicitor check over these forms before submission. In Scotland the sheriff’s court has these forms and the CAB will assist you in filling these […]