Online divorce applications (Uncontested)

After filling out our online form, we will complete your application for divorce.

Your application for divorce will then be forwarded to you and your spouse for signing.

Upon receipt of the signed Application, we will then file the application with the Court.

A copy of the original application will then be forwarded to you and your spouse and the Court will set down a hearing date. The Court will keep your original application for divorce and give you and your spouse a sealed copy of the application.

You will not be required to attend court for a joint application for divorce, regardless of whether or not you have children.

If your divorce application is successful, the Court will grant the divorce order and the order will become final one month and one day after it was made.

Yes, a member of our Family Law team will manage the application for your divorce.

All contact will be via email, phone or video conferencing, providing a quick and hassle-free approach to divorce.

To file your divorce application online, we will require you to:

1. Fill out this online form; and
2. Provide a copy of all documents requested, including but not limited to:

• A copy of your Marriage Certificate (the official certificate issued by Births, Deaths & Marriages or the relevant state body);
• A copy of any financial or children’s orders previously made between you and your spouse;
• A copy of any domestic violence orders currently in place;
• A copy of your passport or citizenship papers if you were not born in Australia.

In addition to submitting a completed form, we include an allowance of up to an hour to discuss the online divorce application via phone, email, video conferencing or in person. During this time, we can address any issues that may arise when completing your online Application for Divorce. Note: The Court will not accept the commemorative marriage certificate.

If you cannot locate your original marriage certificate, you should supply your lawyer with a certified copy of this document.

If you do not have a certificate of marriage because it was irretrievably damaged, lost or never issued in the first place, you will need to present proof of the marriage along with an affidavit. This Affidavit should include information about the time and place of the ceremony and state that both parties recognised it as a marriage ceremony.

Our fixed-fee online divorce service is for couples who have mutually agreed that they wish to be divorced. If your spouse does not agree to obtain a divorce, we can still assist you. However, we will be unable to assist you on a fixed fee basis and we invite you to contact us to discuss your matter further.

Divorce matters do not resolve any children’s matters or property settlement matters. These matters are separate and we recommend that if you have separated, you immediately obtain legal advice to discuss these matters with one of our family lawyers.

If you have separated but are living under one roof, you are required to file statements with the Court. These will be charged on an hourly basis to draft if required.

Once we receive an application for an online divorce, the first step for us is getting the application signed by both consenting parties. This can occur in a matter of days or it can take a couple of weeks, depending on how easy it is for us to get in touch with both parties and how fast they respond to us with a signed divorce application.

Once both parties have signed the application, we file it with the Court (the $1,060 fee) and the matter is then listed in about six weeks (on average) for a divorce hearing. Provided the divorce is granted, a divorce order is issued one month and one day after the date of the divorce hearing.

In short, the divorce becomes absolute and final approximately 10-12 weeks after we get a completed and signed divorce application.

Our fixed fee is only $1,020. We will manage your entire divorce process.

During this process, there is also an additional mandatory court filing fee of $1,100. Therefore, the total cost of a divorce is $2,120.

When filing an Application for Divorce online, the Court charges a filing fee, which is currently $1,060. This fee is independent of our firm and is charged to every individual applying for a divorce online or offline in Australia.

In certain circumstances, you may be eligible for a reduction of this filing fee to $280. You will only be eligible for this reduction if you receive any of the following means-tested pension or benefits:

1. Health care card;
2. Pension and concession card;
3. Commonwealth senior health card;
4. Any card issued by Centrelink or the Department of Veteran Affairs that certifies an entitlement to Commonwealth health concessions;
5. Youth allowance or Austudy payments;
6. Abstudy benefits.

However, for you to receive this reduction, both parties in the divorce need to be on a pension or benefit.

In most cases, the above process occurs without difficulty. In some cases, however, there may be additional issues that need to be resolved and we do charge extra for this work on an hourly basis if required.

Examples can be:

• If the other party refuses to sign the application;
• Difficulties regarding the jurisdiction to apply for a divorce, ie. if you or your spouse are not Australian citizens; or
• If the other party denies receipt of the application.

If you decide to make an application for divorce, we recommend that you speak to your spouse before making contact with our firm so that these difficulties can be identified as soon as possible.

Once you have submitted your application for divorce using our online form, a member of our Family Law team will contact you to verify that you still want to move forward with the application and they will also double-check that all of your answers are correct.

Once our team member has received confirmation that you would like to proceed and all of your details are correct, you will be required to pay our low fixed-fee of $1,020 and the court filing fee of $1,060 ($2,080 in total).

Alternatively, you may choose to pay only our fixed fee ($1,020) up-front and pay the remaining court filing fee ($1,060) when our Family Law team is ready to file your application with the court.

Payment typically occurs over the phone when a member of our team gets in contact with you, following the submission of your application. However, if you would prefer to make the payment later, our team member will provide you with our account details to facilitate that.

Yes, our online divorce application service is available Australia-wide. We cover New South Wales (NSW), Queensland (QLD), Victoria (VIC), South Australia (SA), Western Australia (WA), Northern Territory (NT), Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Tasmania (TAS). This includes online divorces in all major cities and surrounding towns (including Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Newcastle, Maitland, Gold Coast and Hobart).

If you haven’t been married for at least two years, you have two options.

1. Counsellor certificate – You will both need to see a court-approved marriage counsellor (either in person, over a teleconference or via a video call) to discuss the reasons for your divorce. If the counsellor is satisfied, they will issue you with a certificate, which we will file with the Court in conjunction with your online divorce application. There will be additional charges associated with seeing the counsellor.
2. File an affidavit – We can draft and file an affidavit with the Court which clearly outlines the reasons for your divorce. There will be additional charges associated with this (estimated 1 hour of the lawyer’s time).

If you have both been living in the same residence, while separated, we can draft and file an affidavit with the Court which clearly outlines that, despite your living arrangements, you have been separated for at least 12 months.

This is a more complex affidavit than the one above and therefore will bring additional charges (estimated 1.5 hours of the lawyer’s time).

It should also be noted that when you are relying on a period of separation where both parties are residing under one roof, both parties are required to file an affidavit with the Court. We are unable to draft the affidavit for both parties.

What happens if your spouse does not consent to the divorce depends on the unique situation. Because of this, we recommend giving our Family Law Team a call.

The main factor is whether there are children involved.

1. Sole divorce (no kids) – If there are no children involved, you will not need to go to Court. We will need to file an ‘Affidavit of Service’ with the Court. To do this, we arrange for a process server to serve the divorce application on your spouse (in person). Once served, your spouse will sign an ‘Acknowledgement of Service’, which is a personal acknowledgement that he/she is aware of the pending divorce. There will be additional charges associated with us engaging a process server. If your spouse refuses to sign the application as a joint applicant our fixed-fee online divorce service will not apply. We can still represent you however as a sole applicant.
2. Sole divorce (with kids) – If there are children involved, you will have to go to Court, in which case there will be increased fees involved and our fixed-fee online divorce service will not apply. Contact our Family Law Team for further information.

1. Children – If you have children with your spouse, your divorce application will need to include, in detail, parenting arrangements for your children. These arrangements can be sorted out formally (parenting orders) or informally (parenting plans). Either way, we cannot process your divorce application until you have made arrangements for your children. We can assist you in making these arrangements, call our Family Law team to find out how.
2. Property – As mentioned in the header of this page, we always recommend focusing on the property settlement first, before filing for divorce. The main reason for doing this is to avoid a 12-month time limit, which will be placed on you by the Court once you have filed for divorce, in which to initiate your property settlement. We can assist you with your property settlement, call our Family Law team to find out how.

The Court requires that both you and your spouse have an Australian mailing address on your application for divorce.

Solution 1: If you don’t have an Australian mailing address, you can use the address of a friend or relative who lives in Australia and arrange for them to forward your mail to your residential address.

Solution 2: If you don’t have an Australian mailing address, you can get one by utilising the services of a mail-forwarding company.

Your divorce and property settlement are two separate processes. You don’t need to do them both at the same time. Getting divorced, although emotionally draining, is a legal process that doesn’t involve discussion about finances, property or assets. It’s about simply formally ending your marriage.

A property settlement is a complex legal process that provides the financial base for your future… and once you divorce, you only have 12 months in which to apply for your property settlement. Therefore, if your divorce is pending, we recommend you consider initiating your property settlement as soon as you possibly can (before your divorce).

Yes. You can withdraw an online divorce application if you have had a change of heart since filing and the hearing has not been held yet. In this case, you can retract your application by submitting a Form 1D – Notice of Discontinuance to the Court.

Once the divorce order has been issued, withdrawing your application is not possible. In such a scenario, the sole means to reconcile with your spouse is through remarriage.

If you are contemplating withdrawing your divorce application and reconciling with your spouse, it is imperative to seek legal counsel. Our family lawyers can assist you through this process and offer advice on any legal complexities that may arise.