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Have you recently filed for a divorce and paid the full filing fee only to later discover that you’re eligible to a remission? Don’t worry – you can claim it back, and the process is very straightforward; the only caveat being that you’ll need to claim it back within three months of you having paid it.

In order to reclaim your fees, you’re going to need to complete and submit a form known as and EX160 along with payslips, bank statements (these can also be used to provide proof of you having paid the court fee) and, if you’re self-employed, your most recent tax return. As you’ll already have filed for a divorce, you’ll need to ensure that the relevant section of this form references the case number your application has been assigned. You’ll be able to find this on any piece of correspondence you’ve received from the court. In the event that the court have not yet contacted you, you can call them directly in order to query this and also ask them to provide the number required. Whilst it’s unlikely that it will take the courts as much as three months to get this information to you, we’d recommend you contact them if you haven’t received this information within one month of you having filed for your divorce as a precautionary measure.

Why it’s worth reclaiming fees

As obvious as it may seem, it really is worth following this process and recovering your fees. People often have a tendency to assume that the refund they’ll receive will be relatively small when, with the exception of the UK’s highest earners, the actual figure ismore than likely going to be far from insignificant.

Provided you had less than £3,000 in savings and earnt less than £5,085 before tax (£5,245 if you live with a partner (you’ll need to include their income) plus an additional £245 for every child that lives with you and was under 18 years-of-age) when you filed for your divorce, you’ll be entitled to a discount. The further your monthly income is from this figure, the greater your discount.

In order to work out the refund you’ll receive, you’ll first need to work out a base figure. This starts at £1,085 (again, this increases to £1,245 if you live with your partner) plus an additional £245 for each dependent child that lives with you. Once you have this figure, you should deduct it from your monthly income, then round the resulting figure down to the nearest ten and divide it by two. This is the court fee you should have paid.

So, if you brought home £1,800 each month before tax and lived alone with your two children aged 15 and 12, you’d use the following formula:

£1,800 minus £1,575 = £225 (rounded down to £220 divided by 2 = £110)

This means that this individual would be entitled to a refund of £440 – a substantial figure, we’re sure you’ll agree.

Do you have further questions concerning the court fee for divorce? Maybe you’d like to know more about the divorce process? Our advisers can help with anything divorce-related and are available from 9am to 9pm.