What are the main types of costs you may pay?

Fees fall into three main categories: What you pay your own lawyers for the work they do. This may be a fixed fee, an hourly rate or a combination of the two. What you may pay for external advisers, for example a barrister to represent you in court, a property valuer or a pensions or medical expert. Court fees. These are payable whether or not you have a lawyer. They include £550 for issuing a divorce petition, £255 for a financial application and £215 for a Children Act application.

Who is responsible for paying?

You'll usually be responsible for paying your own costs as you go along. If you don't have access to funds of your own, or can't arrange personal borrowing, we can put you in touch with specialist commercial lenders who may be able to finance your case with repayment coming at the end from your financial settlement. Failing that, it may be possible to get a court order for your partner to fund your costs as your case proceeds. If you have to get a court to make the final decision on your divorce financial settlement, or any specific disputes along the way, and the judge believes that one of you has not acted reasonably, for example by hiding assets, not attempting to negotiate or failing to make sensible offers, the court has the power to order one of you to pay the other's costs. This is not the usual position though and you should plan on paying them yourself. Our standard practice is to ask for an up front payment on account of £1,000 for clients based in this country and £5,000 for clients abroad.

Costs & divorce

The cost of divorce will always be a concern. We will be up front with you about our fees and our settlement-focused approach will help keep your costs down.

At the end of the day what you and your partner spend on lawyers will usually be coming out of the family pot. You'll want to know where you stand on fees and be confident that you're getting value for money.

The level of costs in a divorce depends on many factors, such as the complexity of the issues and the experience of the lawyers advising you, but the main thing is the time your legal team spends on your case. Essentially, the more work that has to be done the more the costs will be. And conflict and court battles increase costs. That's one of the reasons we're so committed to a non-confrontational approach and the search for agreed outcomes.

We will be transparent about our costs by:

Offering fixed fees where appropriate for all or some of the work we're doing for you
Providing clear estimates at the outset and keeping them under constant review
Providing a breakdown with each bill (usually monthly) of what's been done

We will work with you to ensure you make the best use of the budget you have.

Divorce costs FAQs

What are the main types of costs you may pay?
Fees fall into three main categories:
- What you pay your own lawyers for the work they do. This may be a fixed fee, an hourly rate or a combination of the two.
- What you may pay for external advisers, for example a barrister to represent you in court, a property valuer or a pensions or medical expert.
- Court fees. These are payable whether or not you have a lawyer. They include £550 for issuing a divorce petition, £255 for a financial application and £215 for a Children Act application.
Who is responsible for paying?

You'll usually be responsible for paying your own costs as you go along. If you don't have access to funds of your own, or can't arrange personal borrowing, we can put you in touch with specialist commercial lenders who may be able to finance your case with repayment coming at the end from your financial settlement. Failing that, it may be possible to get a court order for your partner to fund your costs as your case proceeds.

If you have to get a court to make the final decision on your divorce financial settlement, or any specific disputes along the way, and the judge believes that one of you has not acted reasonably, for example by hiding assets, not attempting to negotiate or failing to make sensible offers, the court has the power to order one of you to pay the other's costs. This is not the usual position though and you should plan on paying them yourself.

Our standard practice is to ask for an up front payment on account of £1,000 for clients based in this country and £5,000 for clients abroad.

Costs & divorce

Further reading