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After a divorce has been finalised, it’s all too easy to get caught up in excitement, relief, hope or any other number of emotions. Sadly, this means that people regularly forget that there are a number of things they’ll need to take care of as a result of their marriage having been legally dissolved.

With this in mind, Quickie Divorce thought we’d provide you with what are, in our opinion, the five most important things you’ll need to do after your divorce:

Update your will

You’d assume that any claim your former spouse had to your estate is dissolved along with your marriage, but it’s sadly more complicated than that.

If your will was prepared during your marriage, it’ll remain legally valid until you update it. We’re assuming that your spouse is the main beneficiary of this so you’re going to need to amend it if you want to ensure that the right party/parties inherit your estate.

Contact the Department of Work and Pensions

If you receive benefits of any kind, you should contact the Department of Work and Pensions and inform them of your new marital status immediately.

It’s entirely possible that nothing will change but, once it’s done, you can rest assured that you won’t be accused of benefit fraud and have to deal with all of the nasty consequences that come with it.

Contact your Service Providers

Following your divorce having been finalised, you should check your old records and if any accounts of any kind are still in both your and your former spouse’s name, contact the provider and request that either you or they be removed from the account accordingly.

Tell your Insurers

With a divorce bringing such significant change, it’s only logical to conclude it could affect any number of insurance policies.

Granted, some are far more likely to be affected than others (life and medical policies are the most obvious examples) but we’d recommend you check any policy you have just in case.

Change your Name

If you took your spouse’s name following your marriage, you’re going to need to get a document called a Deed Poll in order to prove that you’re now divorced and that your name’s changed so that service providers, your local authority, the DVLA etc. can update their records accordingly.

Yes, some organisations will accept your Decree Absolute as proof of the fact that your name’s changed but some won’t and, as you can prepare your own Deed Poll (you can find instructions here), we think getting one is a no-brainer.