Civil Partnerships

Civil Partnership Lawyers

In order to end a civil partnership, one of the civil partners must petition the Court for a dissolution order. These proceedings cannot start until one year after the civil partnership was registered.

To obtain dissolution by court order, it is necessary to prove that your civil partnership has irretrievably broken down. Irretrievable breakdown can be established by providing one of the four grounds for dissolution:
 

• Unreasonable behaviour;
• Separation for two years with the consent of the other civil partner;
• Desertion for two years; or
• Separation for five years.
   

Stages of Dissolution

Timescales in dissolution proceedings can vary for a number of different reasons. If there are no unexpected delays, the process may be completed in 6-8 months and follow the below steps;

• Application for dissolution filed at Court in the form of a petition;
• Respondent is served with the dissolution papers;
• Respondent has the opportunity to acknowledge receipt of the dissolution papers (if the Respondent fails to acknowledge service of the papers, the Applicant may take various steps to enable the dissolution to proceed);
• the Applicant swears or affirms an Affidavit in support of his or her petition and applies for directions for trial;
• the Court makes a conditional order of dissolution (at which point the Court is able to make orders in relation to the financial side);
• at the expiry of 6 weeks, the Applicant can apply for the condition order of dissolution to be made final, at which point the partnership is dissolved and the parties can usually enter into a different partnership in the future.

You should talk to a Solicitor about your civil partnership dissolution options, especially if there are financial matters or care arrangement for any children of your partnership to resolve.

In some areas of family law, we offer an introductory meeting with a member of our legal team. This meeting is free and designed for you to get to know our firm, your solicitor and to discuss your case. By completing this initial meeting, you can make an informed choice about how you want to move forward to get the best results.

This initial meeting is up to 30 minutes long and free of charge. This meeting is not designed to offer advice. If specific advice is required and you’d like to continue past the 30 minutes, please let your solicitor know and you may be able to carry on into a more detailed consultation. This time will be chargeable, but your solicitor will tell you how much it will be.