Advice on divorce proceedings

If you have decided that your marriage is over, you will have a number of practical issues to sort out.

You may need to deal with some of these issues, such as where you are both going to live, who is going to look after your children if you have any, and how you are going to manage your finances, before you think about formally ending your marriage.

You can separate informally without going to court.

You can also separate while still living in the same home if you are no longer living together as a married couple and are leading separate lives.

If you want to end your marriage formally, you will have to apply to court to get a divorce.

It is a good idea to try to make some of the practical decisions before you go to court.

This will hopefully make the process less stressful and less expensive.

You can write a separation agreement with your spouse to set out how arrangements will work in the future.

For example, you could agree which one of you will stay in the family home or that one of you will make weekly payments to the other for the support of your children.

You could agree these things with your spouse verbally, without writing them down.

However, it is a good idea to put it in writing as you could ask a court to uphold the terms of the agreement if there is any dispute between you and your spouse at a later date.

You can write a separation agreement with or without the help of a solicitor.

But it is a good idea to get legal advice from a solicitor about the terms of the agreement because it might have long-term consequences for your financial situation.

You may be able to get legal aid to help with the costs of drawing up a separation agreement.

If you are finding it hard to make decisions with your spouse, you may want to use a mediation service or consult a solicitor who has been trained as a mediator or uses a collaborative approach.

Mediation involves you and your spouse working with a trained, impartial mediator to reach agreement.

Collaborative law involves you and your spouse meeting with your solicitors to discuss the issues and try to reach agreement.

You can use a mediation service or consult a collaborative solicitor either before or during divorce proceedings.

Both mediation and collaborative law can help you and your spouse make decisions about the future that you can both accept, instead of waiting for the court to make decisions for you.

At the end of mediation or collaboration, the decisions you have reached can be used as the basis for your divorce settlement or a legal separation agreement.

To find out more about mediation services in your area, visit www.relationshipsscotland.org.uk or call 0845 119 2020.

To find out about family solicitors who have been trained as mediators, visit: www.calmscotland.co.uk or to find out more about collaborative practice, visit: www.consensusscotland.com

In Scotland, there are two legal grounds for divorce – your marriage has broken down irretrievably or you or your spouse have an interim gender recognition certificate.

An interim gender recognition certificate is issued to a transsexual person who is starting the legal process of recognition of their acquired gender.