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Divorce courts throughout England and Wales have, along with all public services, been subjected to significant reductions in funding for approaching a decade. As a result, as of 2011, steps have been taken to encourage divorcing couples to use mediation to resolve contentious issues through mediation rather than the courts.

This, coupled with the fact that this requirement became more robustly policed after 2014, has led to the proliferation of a myth concerning divorce law, specifically that no application for a divorce will be considered until the couple in question have attended mediation. Something which is simply not true.

Firstly, couples are not required to attend mediation at all before applying for a divorce. Mediation must be attempted in order to try and resolve matters that the court can rule on such as, say, the division of properties or pensions. When an application for a divorce is filed, nothing is contested. It can be contested by the Respondent but this is rare and there is no need for anyone to have attended mediation before they file their Divorce Petition as a result.

Another common misunderstanding is that Consent Orders (you may know them as a Clean Break) will not be approved unless the agreements outlined within have been formulated during mediation sessions. As the purpose of a Consent Order is simply to make agreements legally binding, though, this is not the case. Any agreement, whether reached via the parties unassisted, with the help of a mediator or any other third party will be considered. It is possible that the judge may request written statements from the parties or ask them to attend a hearing in the event that they feel that the agreement is unfairly skewed but this is often little more than a formality and the manner in which the agreement was reached will have no bearing on this decision.

Finally, it’s also assumed that parties must have exhausted the mediation process before asking that the courts to rule on the division of assets. This, considering that mediation was being promoted in order to save the court from the time-consuming task of making such decisions, is also understandable but, one again, false.

In order to successfully request that the court rule on the division of assets, the parties simply need to have attended what is known as a Mediation Information Assessment Meeting. This, as its name suggests, is not even a mediation session but rather a means of determining whether or not mediation would, in the opinion of a qualified professional, help a couple reach an agreement. Even if said professional does believe that the parties would benefit from the process, though, the parties are not obligated to attend and can proceed directly to court if they wish to do so.

To put it simply: you do not need to have attended mediation before you can get divorced.