Divorce can be an expensive business (I should know) but one UK firm from Wiltshire thought that it doesn’t have to be. They’re offering long standing marriage sufferers the chance to break for freedom for as little as £23.99.

Sign me up guys!

The idea came about when they realised that divorce was very expensive, and people always use the Internet to find cheaper alternatives to services and products, so why not get divorced?

Mark Keenan runs the company, Divorce-Online.

We have seen a 48 per cent increase in couples seeking a divorce using the web compared to the first six months of 2007.

And in a survey of 100 clients, 85 said the main factor was cost.

To be honest, cost would be a factor for me, but I’d want to ensure I wasn’t going to lose out long term in any financial settlement. Yes you could save a few quid on your solicitor’s fees, but if they can’t negotiate the right deal you’ll end up losing far more than you could be saving.

There is a need to save money in every walk of life and it’s cheaper to go online rather than heading down the high street to instruct a solicitor.

The cost of using a solicitor can be more than £900 plus court fees. This has driven couples to the web to find cheaper alternatives.

Their prices start at £65 for a divorce that goes without incident, as in an uncontested divorce.

Since the year 2000, they have handled nearly 50,000 uncontested divorces. Recently they’ve moved to bigger offices and taken on more staff, so even with their cheap fees, they’re still profiting nicely from people’s misery.

Nice for them.

Sadly the divorce rate has fallen over the last decade, but Mr Keenan reckons things will pick up again soon. As we’re in a time of economic slowdown, he expects the divorce rate to skyrocket, as it did during the period of 1990-94, when we had our last recession.

Clive Bellmore