An
online divorce company is urging people to get divorced before the Coalition doubles the cost of filing a divorce at court in 2011 following comments from the Ministry of Justice.
There are strong indications that court fees for filing a divorce in England and Wales will double in 2011 as part of the Public Spending Review being carried out by the Coalition Government.
The fee for filing a divorce rose by 14% to £340.00 from £300 on 1st September 2010 and is likely to rise to at least £500.00 in 2011 as the Ministry of Justice implements full-cost recovery fees as part of their 2007 Spending Review strategy. The explanatory note to the Orders states: "This modest increase will provide an effective interim measure to help reduce the family fee shortfall for 2010/11".
In 2009/10 court fees raised about £479 million and covered 82% of the full cost of running the civil and family courts which is currently £619 million a year. The full year income forecast for 2010/11, which takes into account the reduction of work seen in 2009/10, has been calculated as £467m, which shows a £45m shortfall against the target of £512m and divorce filing fees may well be seen as an easy target by the Treasury.
The Ministry of Justice says: "Family fees have historically been set well below full cost and have benefited from subsidies from undefended debt claims in civil proceedings and from the general taxpayer. This position is unsustainable."
Mark Keenan, a Director at Divorce-Online.Co.UK says, “What this means to people wanting to file for a divorce is that the basic cost of getting the petition into a court is probably going to double and anybody who is an a position to file their divorce but has not done so would be wise to get it filed now before this big hike comes in next year. Fees of £500 or more for just filing the petition are going to cause outrage and only those on very low income or benefits are going to be able to get a reduction. The rest of the population is going to struggle with these increases, especially if they have to find money for lawyers as well.
The courts are at breaking point at the moment with a lack of staff and resources which are causing horrendous delays and people are rightly going to say why should we pay even more for a service which is essentially falling apart?”
Mr Keenan believes this increase in court fees will drive more people away from traditional high street law firms and onto the internet where costs are considerably lower.
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