It's a sad fact but as January rolls around many couples will be pondering divorce and all the pain and expense it brings. Last year several divorce battles were lambasted by judges for their hefty price tags.
In December, a couple who had been married for 15 years ran up £920,000 on legal costs between them, a third of the amount they had amassed during their relationship while a judge criticised another for "appalling profligacy" over their £1.3m spend on an argument over a £500,000 house.
If you don't want to follow in those footsteps, it could be worth considering one of the fixed-fee divorce options offered by a raft of law firms.
Via Quickie Divorce you can file a petition online for just £37 or have all your divorce forms completed and sent to court for £67. But filing for divorce is cheap compared with the costs of dealing with financial matters and custody of children, which can throw up tricky issues which you will want legal advice for. Plus, online-only processes can feel unnerving for many.
The options open to you when planning a divorce are solicitor negotiations, mediation, collaborative divorce or arbitration, all of which carry different costs.
Solicitor negotiations
If you have children from the marriage and assets to split, the cost of instructing a lawyer will usually come in three parts.
Filing the divorce papers is the cheapest of these. At law firm Slater & Gordon you could pay a fixed-fee of £1,190, as opposed to the usual hourly rate instruction which can result in soaring costs. The cost breaks down as a fee of £780 with an additional court fee of £410. Irwin Mitchell also offers a basic fixed fee for divorce of £955 including court fee.
The next two stages in the process - children and assets - can also be offered at a fixed fee, with Slater & Gordon offering fixed packages at £3,000 for children matters, where the legal role is only to issue an application at court, and £4,200 for financial matters.
If you are prepared to do some of the work yourself, there are other options. East Sussex-based firm Intelligent Divorce offers a 'solo service' whereby you will work on your own to enter as much information as you can about the personal and financial circumstances of yourself and your ex-partner for £718.80. It also has a 'co-operative service' where you and your ex-partner will work together to catalogue your assets, liabilities and income and to agree their value for £598.80.
If you are the petitioner, you could pay £570 to use Co-Operative's managed divorce service. The service does not cover divorces where the respondent contests the divorce but if your case does include more complex issues the Co-Op offers a 'plus service' that costs £900.
However, if your divorce grows more complex these cost caps will not hold. It is also key to remember the £410 court fee bill added to legal costs.
Kaleel Anwar, a family lawyer at Slater & Gordon, says: "I think that a fixed-fee package would suit a client who knows roughly what to expect."
One halfway house between a single fixed-fee and open-ended hourly rates come in the form of a staged fixed fee. This is offered by Slater & Gordon, which sets costs for predictable stages of the divorce process.
However, with each of these offers, anything over and above the more predictable stages will transfer immediately to the less predictable and more expensive hourly rate.
Arbitration and mediation
If you believe you can come to an agreement with your other half without heading to court and need some isolated issues resolved, arbitration or mediation can offer a way forward. This route can be cheaper than solicitor negotiations and firms are switching on to the potential of fixed fees here too.
"The cheapest possible route is to sit down at the kitchen table and reach an agreement but that's not always possible," says Alison Fernandes a family lawyer at Irwin Mitchell. "The next cheapest route is mediation, although I would always advise clients to take legal advice before attending mediation to advise on what's reasonable. We see clients who think they are willing to negotiate but their starting points are totally unrealistic."
Arbitration is procedurally more flexible, with couples able to select their own judge and determine the range of issues themselves. It can also be speedier than going through the courts.
Hodge Jones & Allen has launched a fixed-fee arbitration service claiming to slash the cost of divorce proceedings. Toby Hales, head of family law at the firm, says: "Legal fees are extortionate and they can be crippling for middle income families but we're also now dealing with such massive delays in the courts that if you want a court to determine your finances after divorce you're probably waiting at least 18 months.
"We could do this for you in four months, we lance the boil and control the fees and the fee would be easily half what you would pay in court."
The firm offers a fixed fee of between £15,600 and £19,200 for the entire process from instruction to arbitral award. The price covers solicitors fees, arbitrator fees and the advocates fee too.
However, there are risks here too. If one party objects to the judge's decision you could end up in court anyway and back on an hourly fee.
If you are thinking about divorce, a fixed-fee could work for you, but don't be fooled: if things stand any chance of getting messy costs won't stay low. The key advice from lawyers here is communication. The more able you are to resolve elements before starting the legal process, the more likely you are to be able to keep costs low.
Costs of solicitor negotiations in court
| Law firm | Basic fee | Total (inc. VAT and £410 court fee) |
| Irwin Mitchell (irwinmitchell.com) | £450 | £955 |
| Slater & Gordon (slatergordon.co.uk) | £650 | £1,190 |
| The Co-operative (co-operativelegalservices.co.uk) | £475 | £980 |
| Intelligent Divorce (intelligentdivorce.co.uk) | £599 | £1,128.80 |
Source: Investors Chronicle, using lawyers' websites.
