Help to Buy has closed to new buyers, but the equity loans it left behind have not gone away, and they surface in divorces across the Greenwich Peninsula, Kidbrooke Village and the Royal Arsenal, where thousands of flats were bought with one. The loan is repaid as a share of the sale price rather than a fixed sum, so a flat that has risen in value owes the government more than was borrowed, and one that has fallen may leave little after the mortgage. Divorce solicitors in Greenwich have to build a settlement around that before anyone can say what the couple actually own.
The divorce itself has been simple since the no-fault reform of April 2022: an online application by one spouse or both, a twenty-week wait before the conditional order and six more before the final order. What takes time is the financial order, and the borough's couples bring very different balance sheets to it. In Eltham and Shooters Hill the house is often owned outright by a couple in their fifties, with pensions from the council, the NHS or the army to be valued and shared. In Woolwich, Plumstead and Thamesmead the main asset may be a council or housing association tenancy, which can be transferred by order, and arrangements for the children matter more than money.
An agreed settlement is approved as a consent order on paper; a contested one follows a mediation information and assessment meeting and the timetable of the family courts serving south-east London. Legal aid is confined to cases with evidence of domestic abuse.
Greenwich firms usually charge a fixed fee for the divorce and hourly or staged fees for the finances, with a free first meeting common.
Divorce firms serving Greenwich are listed below, verified first. Read the divorce process and how much a divorce costs, see the general divorce solicitors guide, and for the children see family law solicitors in Greenwich.
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