A divorce on Wimbledon Parkside and a divorce on the Phipps Bridge estate look nothing alike on paper and are decided under exactly the same law. In one, the argument is about a house worth several million, a City pension, school fees and perhaps a holiday home; in the other it is about whether a council tenancy can be transferred to the parent who keeps the children, and how two households can be run on one income. Divorce solicitors in Merton deal with both, often in the same week, and the skill is working out what the family needs rather than what either spouse wants.
The process is the same for everyone. Since April 2022 there has been no need to blame anyone: an application, singly or jointly, a twenty-week wait before the conditional order, and a further six weeks before the final order. The financial settlement runs alongside and matters more. Pensions are routinely overlooked by couples who negotiate between themselves, and a pension built up at Merton Council, in the NHS or in a City job may be worth more than the house in Raynes Park. A solicitor will make sure both are valued before anything is agreed, then record the agreement in a consent order so that it binds.
Where agreement is impossible, a mediation information and assessment meeting is normally required before a court application, and the case then runs through the family court serving south-west London. Children arrangements follow the same route and are usually resolved first.
Fees are generally fixed for the divorce application and charged hourly or by stage for the finances; legal aid is confined to cases involving domestic abuse.
Merton's divorce solicitors appear below, verified firms first. The guides to the divorce process and the cost of a divorce are a good start, the divorce solicitors page covers the service generally, and for children and unmarried couples see family law solicitors in Merton.
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