Zora means ‘dawn’ or ‘daybreak’, and that’s what this is. Your new era, the dawn of a new life.

Zora is a helpful and supportive guide to the practical business of ending a marriage in the UK. What happens, in what order, what it costs, how long it takes, and - eventually - who to call when you need a person on your team. We’re here to empower, encourage and support you as you embark on the next stage of your life.

Why it exists

There is an entire industry devoted to the beginning of a marriage. Thousands of people whose full-time job is making sure that one day goes well, and an enormous amount of writing about how to do it: what it costs, what the order of events is, how to tell people, what to do about the difficult relative, how to enjoy it.

There is almost nothing equivalent for the end of one.

What exists instead splits three ways. There's GOV.UK, which is accurate and gives you nothing you didn't ask for. There are law firms, which are competent and are also selling something. And there are forum threads from 2013, which are the only place anyone talks about how it actually feels, and which are usually out of date.

Between them sits an obvious gap: the practical, unembarrassed, reasonably warm explanation of what is about to happen to you. Not advice about whether to do it. Just a straight answer about how it works, from someone who isn't trying to sell you an hour of their time.

That's what this is.

How this site works

We can't ask you to take our word for things, so we've tried to build it so you don't have to.

Everything is sourced. Court fees come from the official HMCTS fee schedule. Legal process comes from GOV.UK and the legislation itself. Not from other people's blog posts, which is where most of the wrong numbers on the internet come from. Sources are linked at the foot of every page so you can check, or within copy where relevant.

Every page is dated. You'll find a "last reviewed" line on all of them. Divorce law changed substantially in 2022 and court fees change most years - a page that won't tell you how old it is isn't worth reading.

Where we don't know, we say so. If something is uncertain, or a scheme's status has changed, the page says that rather than guessing.

Nothing is written to sell you anything. No page here exists because a term was expensive to advertise against.

We correct things. If something is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it and say that we have.

What this isn't

We're not solicitors, and nothing here is legal advice about your situation. There's a real difference between explaining what a consent order is and telling you whether you need one, and we stay on the first side of it.

For the decisions that turn on your particular circumstances - what you're entitled to, whether to accept an offer, anything involving children - you want someone qualified who knows your case. Several of our pages will tell you exactly that, at exactly the point where it becomes true.

The directory

A directory of solicitors, mediators, counsellors and financial advisers is coming.

When it does, it will be vetted, and the standard for being listed will be published. We'd rather have twenty people we'd send a friend to than four hundred who paid to be there. If that makes it a smaller directory, it'll be a smaller directory.