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If you wish to divorce your spouse but are unaware of their whereabouts, then it’s understandable that you may assume that this will prevent you from obtaining a swift divorce – or even that you will be unable to bring your marriage to a legal end. Happily, however, neither is necessarily the case.

Private detectives are often considered to be expensive, but they needn’t be. Many will charge less than £100 to trace missing spouse and the vast majority will not charge you if they are unable to locate your husband/wife, either.

If they are able to locate them, then you are able to contact them and enquire as to whether they would be willing to consent to a divorce. If they are, then filing and obtaining one should be straightforward. Even if they are not, however, you should still be able to proceed without your spouse’s consent if you have been married for over five years and they do not defend the application which, due to the fees payable when filing a defence, is extremely rare and therefore unlikely. It should be noted that you will be required to pay an additional fee to the court in order to proceed as they will need to appoint a bailiff to redeliver documents on your spouse in order to ensure that your spouse is aware of the fact that you have applied for a divorce from them.

Finally, even if you are unable to locate your spouse, you may still be able to proceed with an application for a divorce by completing and filing a D13B (also known as a Request to Dispense with Service form) with the court along with all other paperwork. You will be required to describe all that you have done to try and locate your spouse within this form and, provided that the court are satisfied with your efforts, will allow you to divorce your spouse without them knowing.

Contact Quickie Divorce for more information on how to divorce an absent spouse.