Divorce figures rise – processing backlog causing delays

There was a steep rise in divorce cases amongst opposite sex couples in 2019. The figures recently released by the Office of National Statistics show an increase of nearly 20% on the previous year.

At first glance these figures are surprising, particularly coming before Covid-19 turned the world upside-down, but one of the main reasons for the growth in cases was down to a backlog at divorce centres which, ironically enough, were set up with the aim of processing divorces more efficiently. Family lawyers continue to be frustrated by delays in processing divorce applications with the average time from application to decree absolute taking over a year in 2018, rather than the 4 – 6 months’ as they had in prior years.

The launch of online divorce services for individuals and lawyers has improved the situation, but there are teething problems with the system, including being unable to cope with a respondent who has legal representation. In these situations the case is then pushed back to the divorce centres to be dealt with in the normal way, with the knock-on effect of yet more delays.

In 2019, the average duration of marriage at the time of divorce was 12.3 years for opposite-sex couples, a small decrease from 12.5 years in 2018.

Unreasonable behaviour continues to be the most common reason cited for divorcing couples, but this will not be the case for much longer with the introduction of ‘no fault’ divorces which are expected from Autumn 2021 – this should be positive step forward in enabling couples to divorce with dignity and without blame.

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