UK Documents for the divorce itself
The core requirement is a certified copy of the marriage or civil partnership certificate. If the original has been lost, a certified copy can be ordered from the General Register Office for a marriage registered in England or Wales, or from the relevant registrar or national records office for a marriage abroad or in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Order it early: it is a common and entirely avoidable bottleneck.
You also need your spouse's full name and an address for service. If you genuinely do not know where they are, the court has procedures for that, but they take longer, so raise it at the outset rather than after the application is part-issued.
Where it has to be lodged
In England and Wales the application is made online or by post and the certificate is sent to the court. In Northern Ireland the petition is lodged in the Matrimonial Office and the certificate is one of the documents that must go with it — nidirect lists the full set, which also includes an acknowledgement of service form, a birth certificate for any child under 18, any agreement you want made a rule of court, and any previous court orders about the marriage.
In Scotland the application or petition goes to the sheriff court or the Court of Session, and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service publishes the forms and guidance notes for both the simplified and the ordinary procedure. The forms differ between the two, which is a common source of wasted effort.
Service, and the acknowledgement
Once the application is issued, the other party has to be served and has to acknowledge that service. Keep every receipt: if you serve documents yourself, proof of postage or a signed receipt is what the court will ask for if the respondent later claims never to have received anything.
If the respondent does not respond, the case can still continue. A silence or an acknowledgement that does not dispute the divorce is enough for the divorce to proceed — it is the financial claims, if any, that may need to be dealt with separately, and those can proceed even if the other person takes no part.
The conditional order and the final order
In England and Wales there is a minimum of 20 weeks between the start of proceedings and applying for the conditional order, and a further minimum of 6 weeks and 1 day before applying for the final order. You normally need to file a certificate confirming that what you said in the application is still true.
Northern Ireland kept the older names: a decree nisi and then a decree absolute, with a minimum of six weeks and one day between them. The decree absolute certificate is a document worth keeping safely — it is what proves you are divorced for a passport, a pension, benefits or probate.
The document people underestimate: the financial statement
If either party applies for a financial order in England and Wales, each of them completes a financial statement — Form E, or Form E1 where the application is for a financial remedy other than a financial order. GOV.UK publishes Form E and its guidance notes.
It is a sworn statement of your whole financial position, not a summary. It ends with a statement of truth, and the obligation behind it is full and frank disclosure — meaning disclosure of things that damage your case as well as things that help it. Deliberate concealment is treated seriously: it can amount to contempt of court, and it is a ground on which an agreement or order can later be reopened. That is the practical reason it matters, quite apart from honesty: a settlement built on incomplete disclosure is not a secure settlement.
What goes in it
Broadly: every property you own and its mortgage, all bank and building society accounts, investments, shareholdings and cryptoassets, pensions — including the cash equivalent transfer value of each scheme rather than a statement balance — any business interest and what it is worth, your income from every source, your outgoings, your liabilities including credit cards and loans, and other assets of value such as vehicles, jewellery or art.
Also disclose anything that is going to change: a bonus due, an inheritance expected, a redundancy, a business that is being sold. Anticipated changes are exactly the kind of thing that gets left out and then causes the settlement to be revisited.
If the other side will not disclose
Disclosure is a two-way obligation, and you are entitled to ask for the same information you have provided. If it is not forthcoming, the court can order it, and a party who persistently fails to comply risks costs sanctions and, ultimately, their case being determined on the evidence that does exist. At a financial dispute resolution hearing the judge will look at what has been produced and what has not, and say so.
Do not try to run a financial case on guesswork about what the other person has. The questioning of an incomplete disclosure is a normal part of the process, not an accusation, and your solicitor will expect to do it.
Practical: build the pack once
Gather, in one folder: the marriage or civil partnership certificate, both parties' last two or three years of tax returns or P60s, recent statements for every account, pension scheme statements and cash equivalent transfer values, mortgage statements, and a written list of assets, debts and dates.
Dates matter as much as amounts. The date of separation, the date of any agreement, and the values at those dates can all affect the outcome — particularly in Scotland, where matrimonial property is generally valued at the date of separation rather than the date of divorce.
If your address or safety is a concern
Where there is a risk of harm, the family courts have procedures for keeping contact details off the documents that go to the other party. Ask the court office, or a solicitor, before you file anything — the time to do it is at the start, not after an address has been served. Our guide to protective orders and getting safe covers the orders available and the support organisations that can help.
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