UK:
Online Divorce – An Update
To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com.
In July HMCTS confirmed that the use of its online divorce
portal will be made mandatory for legal representatives from 13
September 2021 (although it will remain possible for some types of
application to be made on paper). This follows from it becoming
mandatory last August to file financial remedy applications for
consent orders online (again, with some limited exceptions).
The aim of the online service is to reduce the potential for
error and so speed up the progress of applications. According to
HMCTS, fewer than 1% of online divorce applications need to be
returned because of user error, compared to 40% on the previous
paper system. Our own experience of submitting applications through
the online portal is that they are dealt with far quicker than
their paper counterparts: with divorce petitions issued in less
than a week; Forms A, in some cases, issued and orders for
directions made that same day; and consent orders generally
approved and sealed in around four weeks. This is a significant
reduction in the processing times for paper applications, which
also often varied significantly based on the particular court
dealing with the matter.
Looking specifically at divorce, the use of the digital service
continues to rise, and in the last family court statistics that
covered the first quarter of 2021, 70% of all petitions were
digital, up from 41% in the same period in 2020. Although the
service will only be mandatory for legal representatives, its use
is already high amongst personal applicants with around 80% of
applications being made online.
Clearly there are extensive benefits of using the online
service, but where we have experienced issues these tend to be
difficult to resolve with those operating the online portal. There
can also sometimes be circumstances where it is impossible to give
a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, in which case you cannot
progress your application: matters in family law are not always as
black and white as the online system needs them to be.
A major drawback to the online portal is that users do not have
automatic access to all of their teams’ matters. In order to
give access to a particular case to another registered user in your
team, you need to manually ‘share a case’ with them. This
is impossible to do if the user who is originally assigned the case
is unable to access the portal for technical reasons, or suddenly
and unexpectedly is called away from the office.
Despite this, our experience of using the online portal is
overwhelmingly positive and it is of significant benefit to our
clients. It results in less costs because we spend less time on
paperwork, and less time chasing various courts to see where that
paperwork is in the system. It also offers reassurance as
applications are dealt with promptly, and you can confidently tell
clients where their application is in the process, and how long it
will take to move to the next stage.
Looking ahead, HMCTS aims to finish development of the financial
remedy contested application digital journey. The pilot scheme was
expanded in June 2021 and it looks likely that in time, it will
also become mandatory for practitioners to file Forms A online. It
will also be interesting to see how the introduction of
‘no-fault’ divorce in April 2022 will affect the use of the
online divorce service, and whether it will cause a further rise in
digital applications.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
POPULAR ARTICLES ON: Family and Matrimonial from UK
Credit: Source link
