The Divorce and Monetary treatment on-line service permits members of the general public and authorized professionals to make an software to legally finish a wedding or civil partnership and resolve the related monetary points.
It’s been up to date to fulfill the necessities of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 which got here into drive on 6 April 2022.
The service helps the federal government’s strategy to household justice, avoiding battle wherever doable and decreasing its damaging impact on youngsters.
To develop the service, we labored with organisations together with:
Decision
The Legislation Society
Chartered Institute of Authorized Executives
We additionally ran demonstrations for individuals with expertise of making use of for divorce on-line to verify the service actually meets the wants of non-public candidates.
The service has been up to date to permit individuals to use collectively for divorce for the primary time. It gives step-by-step steerage on the appliance course of and hyperlinks to help companies so that private candidates can discover the assistance they want.
1. Vital statistics
In its first month, the web divorce service:
obtained 13,000 purposes from {couples} apply to finish their marriage
obtained 2,771 joint purposes for divorce
obtained 10,207 sole purposes
2. Most important outcomes
The divorce service goals to make the method of making use of for a divorce as simple and intuitive as doable for private candidates and authorized professionals.
We’ve achieved a number of major outcomes to this point, together with:
the creation of a ‘lead applicant’ for joint purposes
in-built steerage prompting candidates for lacking info
step-by-step steerage to assist candidates at each stage of the appliance course of
computerized notifications updating on the progress of purposes
3. How the service offers divorcing {couples} management over the method
Earlier than the web divorce service was up to date individuals couldn’t apply for a joint divorce. This meant that separating {couples} didn’t have a strategy to organise their affairs in a non-confrontational method.
The brand new on-line divorce service permits {couples} to use for joint divorce and features a new lead applicant for the method. The service offers divorcing {couples} management over the method and builds in time for reflection and future planning.
Throughout Autumn 2022, the service will start to challenge its first ultimate orders to substantiate the top of marriages below the brand new act. We hope that at this level individuals will really feel that the brand new service has helped to make the journey to divorce smoother and extra amicable.
4. Trying forward in 2022
By the top of 2022 the web divorce service can have issued its first ultimate orders to substantiate the top of marriages and civil partnerships.
5. Suggestions
Karen Dovaston, Interim Chair of the Legislation Society Household Legislation Committee, mentioned:
I preferred the outdated on-line divorce service which has been improved and added to because it has grown. However the brand new service feels just like the now ‘absolutely shaped little one’ of the outdated model, and I’m certain there can be additional tinkering to make it even higher.
The very best follow, for my part, is all the time a reflective one which seems to enhance on a regular basis. Whereas there was the occasional teething drawback, which is all the time comprehensible with a brand new system of this scale, we now have valued HMCTS’ openness and honesty with us in growing this resolution.
To stay as a paper-based course of by default is now not a viable choice for any modern-day public service, and the brand new system goes to indicate the strides which have been taken over current years.
6. Additional info
Private candidates can apply on-line for a divorce.
Authorized representatives appearing for purchasers can discover steerage on how you can use the brand new on-line divorce service.
Discover out extra about how we developed the brand new on-line divorce service on our weblog.
Electronic mail the group when you have a question in regards to the on-line divorce service.