Divorce-Online Blog

With Autum 2011 being announced as the start date for Alternative Business Structures, the time has come for Divorce-Online to consider what we want to do as a company to maintain our current strong growth.

We are not a law firm, we are in effect a software and ancillary services provider and not providing reserved activities as defined in The Legal Services Act 2007, yet we look like a legal service.

The question will be what would we achive by becoming an ABS and would all the red tape be worth it, considering we are doing quite well with our existing model?

Well the answer to that question is no if we just carry on doing what we do now, but a definate yes if we decide to expand into providing advice and conduct litigation.

The model of the virtual law firm starts to become attractive with Solicitors and other licenced practioners working either as employees or on a self employed basis under our brand umbrella from their own homes or offices around the country. We alreasy know where our clients will come from as the vast majority of visitors to the Divorce-Online website do not use our uncontested document services and just want information.

Those visitors would be able to be converted into leads for our own mediators, counsellors, lawyers, IFA’s etc so we launch with a ready made brand  that does what it says on the tin and thousands of potential new clients for the ABS from day one.

My vision is to have a national family law service that can provide a one stop shop for clients from giving advice to dealing with their pensions and investments and this could only happen under the new rules.

We will become a law firm owned by non lawyers who understand how to run and market a commercial business and will use our ten years of experience as an e commerce operation to build Britain’s most succesful family law firm for generations to come.

Our use of technology and effective administration will mean that our overheads will be low and our fees will  be lower than people can find on their own high street without compromising the quality of the service we can give to the consumer.

We have already appointed our Head of Legal Practice and Head of Finance and have been in discussions with  the senior management of the LSB and are looking forward to reviewing the proposed licencing regimes from both the SRA and the CLC who have indicated they will apply for licenses to regulate ABS firms.

The board of directors will be primarily succesful business people but with the counterweight of lawyers who will be able to ensure that the commercial aspects of the business do not interfere with the duties we have to the client and to the court.

I am hopeful that the title of ABS will be renamed as we will be the model to follow and not alternative within a very short period of time.

The Supreme Court reinforced yesterday London’s reputation as “divorce capital of the world” after it found in favour of a Nigerian woman who took her case to the UK courts after disputing the divorce settlement she was awarded by a Nigerian court.

Family lawyers said the judgment could open the floodgates for wealthy spouses in “big money” divorce cases who are unhappy with divorce awards made by overseas courts to seek a bigger payout in the UK.

Family Lore have a more in depth take on the result here

Related articles by Zemanta

• London’s role as divorce payout capital confirmed (telegraph.co.uk)

Former England goalkeeper David Seaman’s wife was granted a quickie divorce today on the grounds of adultery.

District Judge Richard Robinson pronounced a decree nisi at the Family Division of London’s High Court, taking just three minutes 25 seconds.

In documents released by the court, Debbie Seaman said she first became aware of the adultery last July.

In response to the question “Do you find it intolerable to live with the respondent?”, she replied: “Yes.”

The documents showed the former footballer admitted the adultery.

The couple were married at Castle Ashby House in Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire on July 15 1998.

Neither party attended court.

After a divorce, it is vital for a woman (and also for a man) to make sure all their appropriate documentation is altered to reflect the new status – and in the case of a woman who’s taken her husband’s name and is reverting to her maiden name, it’is doubly important after separation.

Why Changing Documentation is Vital After a Split

These days, when so many transactions are carried out online and identity theft is rife, your documentation is who you are, and after a divorce you become someone with a different status, whether a man alone, or a woman with a child – you’re no longer a family.

It’s important to inform companies and authorities of your new status as a good way to protect your credit rating, since it prevents your former spouse from possibly signing joint credit agreements (i.e. as a family) that could leave you in debt following a split.

While that won’t  happen in most cases, it’s better to safeguard yourself against a vengeful former partner rankled by the separation, rather than have your credit rating ruined as you try to build a new life. Although it won’t alter your responsibility on any joint credit agreements that existed prior to the separation or divorce, it can save you a lot of trouble in the future.

It also means you can establish a new credit profile if you’re a woman who’s changing her name. That’s important in the long term for you, since credit and your credit report is vital for almost every financial transaction these days, be it obtaining a mortgage or simply getting a credit card. But having the documentation changed to reflect the new marital status is equally important for men.

Changing Your Name After a Divorce

If you’re a woman who’s taken her husband’s name, you might well want to revert to your maiden name after an irrevocable split in the family. In fact, you don’t need to wait for a divorce to do it. You’re free to change your name at any time by Deed Poll (unless you’re doing it for illegal reasons), so the divorce laws have no say in the matter (in fact, divorce laws don’t address the matter in most instances) – although you can’t change the surname of your child without the husband’s permission, if he has the husband’s last name. When the child is of age, though, he could change his name by Deed Poll, as, indeed, anyone can at any time.

You can also use your marriage certificate and absolute decree to change your name, but the most common and easiest way is by a Change of Name Deed, and it’s accepted by all authorities. It does bring responsibility though, since you need to inform people of the post-separation name change – everyone from the Passport Office to the DVLA as well as banks and credit card companies, and many will need to see the original deed poll document or a legal copy of it (a photocopy of the certificate will satisfy the others). The Deed Poll Service actually has a pack with advice on making sure everyone’s informed.

The sooner you accomplish a change in documentation, whether it’s in name or relationship status, the safer you will be.

You can change your name online for just £19.99 at ChangeYourName.Uk.Com

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AEK can deal with process serving all over the UK and nationally, tracing enquiries, debt collection as well as matrimonial and insurance investigations having dealt with many large UK and international insurance companies.

For more information about their services call 01202 578381

We received an e-mail today from a contact, flagging up a blog which relates to alleged fraudulent practices being carried out by data recovery companies owned and marketed by the people who also own Quickie-Divorce.Com Limited nameley Dr. Richard Cable and Daral Hamilton-Wallis.

Apparently they have been using sharp practice and misleading advertising to get people to use their services for a low fee and then directing them to more expensive services where they are overcharged or not given any service.

It also appears that one of the companies has CCJ’s against it and has not filed any accounts.

It also appears that Mr Cable bought his Dr. title from an online university that is not recognised anywhere.

The blog is called http://www.data-recovery-blog.co.uk blog and goes into great detail how these gentlemen allegedly run their operations.

We at Divorce-Online make no assertions either way about these claims and are just reporting what we have read on this blog and on numerous complaints forums and other websites which are also linked to from the blog.

We do this as we feel it is important for consumers to know what kind of company they may be dealing with when deciding on how to proceed with their divorce.

Nobody goes into a marriage looking at the reality of divorce a few years down the road, but it happens with many marriages these days. The first thing you need to do is make sure that both you and your spouse have agreed that divorce is your best option.

If both you and your spouse agree that divorce is your best option, and that marital counseling is just going to delay the inevitable, then you may be a candidate for what is known as an uncontested divorce. Are any and virtually all assets that you jointly own able to be easily divided, where you and your spouse can mutually agree on how to divide them? If so, then an uncontested divorce might be your easiest option and your most cost effective option.

But one of the things that you must make sure you fully understand is the divorce is final. It is not like a trial separation where a couple separate for a while to understand how life works for them without the other one around. Yes, you can change your mind before the proceedings are finalised, but that is going to cost you even more money, not to mention the personal time you will have used to get to this point.

The other thing you need to fully understand is exactly what is meant by the term uncontested divorce. Generally speaking, it means that both parties agree that a divorce is their best option and nothing will be argued about, either in terms of the divorce itself or in the division of assets. Typically, a couple who are doing an uncontested divorce may have already split their assets and may not even be living together, so the divorce for them is almost just a formality.

Should you do it yourself or consult with a divorce lawyer? A lot of the answer to that question is how far you trust your spouse. If it is truly uncontested and you are 100% confident that no skeletons will jump out of the closet during the proceedings, then you can probably do it yourself and save some money. But if you do not have that level of confidence, even though on the surface it would seem that the divorce would be uncontested, you may want to protect yourself by consulting with a divorce lawyer first before you proceed to the divorce stage.

A good divorce lawyer may be just a consultation or two, where the lawyer lets you know what your rights are and what you can expect. If you truly expect the divorce NOT to be uncontested, you may want to consider actually hiring the lawyer to be with you every step of the way. While the latter option is of course going to cost you more, consider how much more it may cost you if your spouse pulls a rabbit out of the hat during the proceedings, where you are not prepared for something which is going to definitely turn out to NOT be an uncontested divorce. This is a judgment call on your part, but especially in financial terms, it may be better to err on the side of caution to ensure that you do not get hosed in the process.

If you do use a lawyer, do your research carefully. Make sure that the lawyer you choose is an expert in family law and is a member of Resolution, the orginisation that promote good practice and ethics for family lawyers in England and Wales.

Since you are considering divorce, things have not been good up to this point. Make sure that you do everything you can to make your divorce go smoothly and allow yourself to restart your life on the right foot.

Divorce-Online can help you achieve your uncontested divorce with a range of self help packages starting at just £69.00

HUSBANDS and wives are flooding a new government online divorce service which critics say makes marriage break-ups too easy.

Figures obtained by The Advertiser show one in 10 South Australian divorcees are using an online submission at www.divorce.gov.au which provides a free 24-hour-a-day service without any referral to counselling.

The system, introduced late last year, replaces a person or lawyer appearing to file for a divorce or application by hand or mail.

Australian Family Association spokesman Jerome Appleby said the Government should be doing more to keep couples together and that the service made a “mockery of marriage to promote the idea that it can be ended online”.

Family Law Courts figures obtained by The Advertiser show 142 of the 1477 people seeking a divorce since the system was introduced in September used the online option.

SA Law Society president Richard Mellows said there should be more emphasis on the system referring couples to counselling.

There are links to counselling on the Family Law Courts website but people filling out the online form do not have to go through these windows to get to the application.

Applicants are advised to read a link about the practical considerations of separation and divorce but it is not compulsory.

Mr Mellows said the Law Society was very supportive of counselling provided by the courts. “I can understand why (the online service) attracts interest because it is a fast-track of the administrative process but the court process has to be followed,” he said.

Mr Appleby said the fact that a later court process must be followed was irrelevant because people could start the process online and were unlikely to reverse their decision.

Under the system couples must still make a final court appearance if they have a child under 18. Once the form is filed the applicant can pay $432 online and even print off a completed application and serve it on their partner. They then turn up at the court date provided online.

A revolution in the way people deal with their divorce cases is about to launch in the UK.

The web based system entitled “ DivorceTrak” has been developed over two years by Online Legal Services Ltd the company behind the Divorce-Online.Co.UK brand which they claim is responsible for 1 in 20 of all the divorce petitions filed in England and Wales.

DivorceTrak has been developed to enable litigants in person to conduct their own divorce proceedings from the comfort of their own home with virtually no knowledge required.

The service gives the consumer their own case management portal where they can follow the progress of a divorce from start to finish using a system of flow diagrams and key milestones.

All documents required in a case can be downloaded ( and uploaded) from the portal.

The system was written using asp.net 2.0 with C#, html, xmal. css, javascript and of course Ajax with an sql server back end over a secure link. the service is designed to work in all browsers.

Each milestone in a divorce case comes with an explanatory guide and updates by e-mail to keep the client informed every step of the way and giving instructions on what to do and when with the documents and information they receive.

The key to the system is to give clients as much information they need as they progress which will reduce the time they need to call  with queries.

The system has also been designed to automate the process of communication between the Case managers and clients thereby increasing the efficiency and productivity of the service.

Here are some screen shots of the screens

Welcome Screen

Divorce Trak Case management Screen

Message screen

download screen

Guide Screen

My Account Screen

Children and divorce

In many cases when a married couple decides to get divorced, the children can often be forgotten. It is not that the parents have purposely forgotten about their children, they have just become so caught up in the tension between each other that how their fighting and divorce is affecting their child can go unnoticed.

A divorce does not simply mean an life altering change in the parents lives, it also means a life altering change in the child’s life, especially for children who are very young and do not understand why their parents are moving away from each other.

Divorce is a stressful event that has a major impact on the entire immediate family and it must be stressed that if the parents are going through a divorce, they might want to consider getting some counseling for the children so that they don’t suffer as a result of their family being torn apart.

When a family is whole, the child has a stable existence created by the attention they receive from their parents. This world is shattered if two parents can not get along, fight constantly and eventuallydivorce .

To a child, this may seem like something that is their fault and that they are in some way responsible for the family falling apart. This is a common reaction from a child who does not have a clear understanding about adult relationships and how mum and dad would probably be better living apart.

Taking the child to a family counsellor can help the child because the counsellor will hopefully be able to help the child understand that the break up was not his or her fault, and that the world is not coming to an end. There is family counseling available at clinics or even on the internet. A parent can communicate with the online counsellor and get suggestions on how to help his or her child cope with what is happening.

The important thing for parents to remember when going to their divorce is that this is going to impact their children who may not entirely understand what is going on.

It is not only the parents who are going to be flooded with negative emotions as a result of what is going on. Often, the younger the child is, the less they will probably understand and the more negative emotions and upset they are likely to experience. It is a stressful process forthe parents as well, which can often make it difficult for them to push away their own feelings and help their child through their own emotions.

This is where a family therapist can help. A family therapist, either online or in person, will work with the parents and the children together to help them work through the stress of what is going on. Therapy or counseling can help everyone make it through with more confidence, less blame and less guilt, which are three of the most devastating emotions family members can feel after the parents have gone through a divorce.