The ‘New’ Divorce Laws reviewed
The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 received Royal assent on the 25th June 2020 and the relevant sections of this Act that came into force on the 6th April 2022 are popularly known as creating the "no fault" divorce.
What actually changed and is it working?
Prior to April 2022, a divorce petition required the person issuing the petition to cite a supporting fact which would have included adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion or stating periods of separation. Now the applicant or applicants to the divorce simply need to state that there has been an irretrievable breakdown in the marriage. This has completely removed the need for the ‘blame game’ and accordingly decreases some of the ill-feeling and conflict from the start of the process.
Previously only one person could petition the other person for divorce, now a joint application can be submitted to the court. This means that both parties can feel in control of the divorce, i.e. not that they are ‘being divorced’.
The legal terminology previously used has changed - the petitioner is now known as the applicant, a divorce petition is now a divorce application, decree nisi is now a conditional order and decree absolute is a final order. Family lawyers are already familiar with the terms, but they are not automatically recognisable for the parties.
There is no longer the ability to defend a divorce. This removes protracted proceedings and both parties increasing legal costs unnecessarily. Previously a successful ‘defence’ to a divorce case would still leave the parties married to each other.
The timescales have also extended, which actually can make the process slower. Once a divorce application is issued whether it is a sole or joint application, the conditional order (which replaces the decree nisi) cannot be applied for until 20 weeks later. This requirement was introduced to offer the parties a cooling off period. Whilst this makes sense, it is frustrating for both the parties and their representatives that the time to complete a divorce has increased from approximately 3-4 months to 6 months or more.
You can only issue a divorce application online now unless there is a reason it needs to be issued as an urgent application. Although the divorce process itself now takes longer, the turnaround time for online submitted documents to be processed is generally much quicker. The online portal has certainly encountered some teething problems and when there are technical difficulties that require parties or solicitors to resort to submitting paperwork by post or email this causes huge delays.
Overall, most family lawyers agree that the new law was a long time coming and when the system works it works well. Once applications are flowing through the online portal with less friction, then this will feel like real progress has been made.
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