This service is suitable for people who find themselves in the position of having to go to court over a divorce related financial settlement. 

We often get new clients starting this service because they:

• are being taken to court by their spouse (or ex) over divorce finances. Usually they will have received a letter from the other parties solicitor or directly from the court to notify them of court proceedings.
• have reluctantly decided that they have to start court proceedings because mediation or other negotiations have broken down, often because their spouse is taking an entirely unreasonable position and is asking for far too much.
• cannot afford to spend £20,000 plus on a solicitor for help with the financial court process.
• have been using a solicitor but costs have escalated quickly and/or the are unhappy with the solicitor
• are concerned about the difficult and stress of dealing with the court process alone without support 

Can anybody use this service?

This service is best suited to people who have the inclination and aptitude to be closely involved in the management of their case, with guidance and support from our Consultant.

In particular you should:

• have internet access
• have a phone and an email account
• have access to a computer or tablet
• have a good level of spoken and written English
• be able to organise paperwork
• be comfortable with form filling (guidance will be given)
• be able to deal with written correspondence
• be willing to take on board our guidance and advice

What alternative services are available?

Situations where you do not need this service include:

• If you have already discussed and agreed a deal with your spouse (or ex) then you can skip this service and move to to arranging a Consent Order.
• If you and your spouse (or ex) would be willing to talk about a fair financial settlement with a mediator then you can use our Financial Mediation service.
• If your spouse (or ex) is not willing to mediate, but is open to back and forth negotiations, then we can support you to do this through our Help with the Financial Settlement process.
• If you are going to court and have a high level of assets (over £1 million) then we recommend that you book a free appointment to discuss whether you should use this service or hire one of our expert family solicitors.

This service provides you with access to one of our Divorce Consultants, who are full-time professional divorce experts who specialise in supporting litigants in person through Financial Remedy proceedings.

This service provides expert support from one of our consultants.

You can use this time on any aspect of your case:

• understanding how the whole legal process works
• getting advice and information on what you are legally entitled to
• assistance in responding to solicitor letters
• applying to court for a financial settlement (e.g. filling Form A)
• completing your financial disclosure (e.g. filling in Form E)
• completing other documents for the First Hearing (e.g. Questionnaire, ES1, ES2, Position Statement etc)
• coaching to help prepare you for the day of the hearing
• negotiating with the other side

The 3 hours of support is a pre-paid allocation of time that you can use as and when you need support.

Depending on how often you choose to contact your consultant, a typical client might need:

• around 6 to 9 hours of support to prepare for the First Directions Appointment (1st hearing).
• another 6 to 9 hours of support to prepare for the Financial Dispute Resolution (2nd hearing).

A major feature of this service is that, in addition to the one to one contact, our consultant can also provide you with materials and templates that will enable you to manage your case effectively and with much reduced cost.

This service is most suited to clients whose total assets are less than £2 million. If your assets are above this then it is probably worth your while engaging a full service solicitor - due to the high amount at stake. If this is applicable to you then please call us on 01202 805020 - we absolutely can still assist in your case - however we would assign you an appropriately senior solicitor to manage your case.

This service is only applicable to people whose divorce/separation is taking place in England/Wales and/or who have financial assets in England/Wales.

The initial case review costs £150 (including VAT).

Ongoing support costs £299 (including VAT) for 3 hours of support from a Divorce Consultant.

This compares very favourably to the £300 (plus VAT) charged per hour by a typical Family Solicitor.

In addition to our rates being 3 times cheaper than a solicitor - this service saves you a lot more money due to the approach that we take. 

A solicitor usually takes over the whole case and does all of the necessary work for you. This means that you pay £300+VAT per hour for all these tasks:

• legal advice
• letter writing
• reading emails from you, the court and the other party's solicitor
• photocopying
• filing
• filling in forms
• checking forms that you or the other party filled in

Our approach is very different, we aim to work with you as a team - and will enable you to complete many of the more straightforward tasks yourself (with a little support and guidance from our consultant). As a result we typically find that our clients are able to complete more than half of the work themselves.

For an example case that requires 12 hours of work to be completed - a solicitor would charge (12 x £300) totalling £3600 plus VAT. We would only charge for 6 hours (with you doing 6 hours yourself!) and therefore the cost would be £598.

In practice, having provided this service for many years, the typical bill for our clients is usually a few hundred pounds, whereas clients who use a solicitor to negotiate their financial settlement will usually end up with a final a bill of a few thousand pounds. 

Financial Remedy court proceedings typically take around 6 to 9 months.

There are two main factors affecting the timescales:

1) Court Scheduling / Backlog

The process begins when one party applies to court (on a Form A). A couple of weeks later the court will write to both parties informing them of the scheduled date for the First Appointment. This hearing is typically scheduled around three months after the Form A was originally filed. But in some courts during busy periods it can be a longer wait.

After the First Directions Appointment the court will schedule the second hearing called a Financial Dispute Resolution hearing - this is typically held two to three months after the first hearing, but again it can be longer, depending on the court and their backlog of cases.

2) At what stage the parties agree a settlement?

Cases can settle at any time, in a small number of cases the two sides are able to reach an agreement through early negotiations before the first hearing (so after 3 months).

Most cases will settle at the Financial Dispute Resolution hearing (so after about 6 months).

Couples who do not agree at the FDR hearing then face another few months waiting for a Final Hearing (so around 9 months in total).

This service is provided by Wikivorce - the UK's largest and most visited family law website. We have been operating since 2007.

Our Divorce Consultant team is comprised of highly specialised divorce experts whose full time role is assisting client's to negotiate financial settlements.

Our experts have in depth experienced in a wide range of negotiation methods including out of court negotiation, mediation as well as the formal court hearing process.

Unlike many high street solicitors, we operate using modern efficient remote working practices and the latest communication technologies, including:

• a focus on email (rather than posted letters)
• individual or group phone calls
• skype or Zoom in place of live face to face meetings
• document sharing
• plain simple English rather than archaic legal language

For many years there have been two main options for people trying to negotiate a financial settlement, either a) use a costly solicitor or b) struggle through the process on your own. 

For many people - neither of these options sounds very attractive.

Our Divorce Consultant service has been designed to provide a modern, user-friendly, cost effective alternative to solicitors or DIY.

Key benefits of the Divorce Consultant service compared to using a solicitor:

• Cost: As detailed earlier on this page, the Divorce Consultant approach costs 'hundreds' whereas solicitors cost 'thousands'.
  
  
• Convenience: We use modern technology and working practices as opposed to paper files and snail mail.
  
  
• Accessibility: You can access our service from anywhere in the UK or beyond, we don't depend on local face to face meetings
  
  
• Communication Style: We use plain, simple English and are happy to explain any aspect of the process to you. Unlike traditional lawyers who can sometimes come across as pompous and distant.
  
  
• Involvement: Our methodology is to key you closely involved in the case, whereas solicitors can completely take over the case leading to clients feeling lost and peripheral to the whole process.

Key benefits of the Divorce Consultant service compared to doing it all yourself:

• Expertise: Whilst it is possible to DIY your case, there are many pitfalls and traps lurking for anyone who is not familiar with the law and legal proceedings and it is all too easy to make costly errors. Our consultants can help you avoid these problems.
  
  
• Time: To build up the level of knowledge required to represent yourself takes a huge amount of time and energy.
  
  
• Confidence: People struggling on their own can end up being bullied by the other parties solicitor or the courts which can result in accepting a very unfair proposal. Having a Divorce Consultant on your side will prevent this.
  
  
• Result: Perhaps the greatest risk of trying to handle everything yourself is that you get through the process - but the final financial outcome is a significantly worse one than you might have achieved with better legal support and advice.