What divorce actually costs
Filing fees, solicitor rates, mediation, expert reports, and what it really takes to keep total spend under twenty thousand.
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Filing fees, solicitor rates, mediation, expert reports, and what it really takes to keep total spend under twenty thousand.
I kept a spreadsheet. It started as a tax-tracking habit and became, by month four, a ledger of grief. Every Westpac line item that began with the name of a law firm went into a column labelled DIVORCE. By the end I'd spent $14,200. That was a 'cheap' Australian divorce. Most aren't.
Money is the single most under-discussed dimension of separation. People talk about kids, dating, identity. They don't talk about how much it costs, partly out of embarrassment, partly because the numbers genuinely shock. Here's what 'normal' looks like in 2026.
These are the line items you can't avoid.
Total non-negotiable cost just to get divorced and lock in a settlement: roughly $1,500 to $1,800. That's the floor.
This is where the variance lives. The same matter can cost $5,000 or $80,000 depending on the path you take and the cooperation you get.
Solicitor hourly rates in 2026, broadly:
Most matters are billed in 6-minute units. A 5-minute phone call gets billed as 6 minutes. A 1-hour conference where the partner brings a junior gets billed at both rates simultaneously.
Mediator rates:
Where contested issues exist, experts are engaged. Costs add up fast.
Add valuations of vehicles, art, collectibles, super interests if there's a defined-benefit fund involved. The bills accumulate.
Bringing it together, here are realistic combined cost ranges for the whole matter (property and parenting):
These are 2026 Australian numbers and they assume no significant complicating factors. Add a contested business valuation, a relocation dispute, or interstate proceedings and they grow.
The bills that don't come on legal letterhead but still hit:
A standard estimate: budget another $5,000 to $15,000 in non-legal divorce-adjacent spending in the first year.
A common (and naive) hope: the court will make my ex pay my legal costs because she behaved badly.
Reality: in family law, the default position is that each party pays their own costs. Costs orders against the other side are made only in narrow circumstances, typically where one party has acted unreasonably, refused reasonable offers, or wasted court time. Don't budget for a costs win. Budget for paying your own bill in full.
If your matter settles via consent orders, costs are usually noted as 'each party to bear their own'. That's the norm.
It is genuinely possible to come out the other side of an Australian divorce with all-in legal and adjacent spending below $20,000. The pattern that achieves it:
The single biggest determinant is whether you and your ex can operate as adversarial cooperators rather than active enemies. If you can, you save tens of thousands. If you can't, the system will eat your money.
Common funding sources for divorce costs:
Avoid putting legal costs on credit cards if at all possible. The interest stacks fast and you end up paying for the divorce twice.
Most expensive single decision in any divorce: choosing to fight a battle on principle when the dollar value at stake is smaller than the cost of fighting it.
Examples I've seen:
The decision tree before any escalation: what is the maximum I can win on this point, what is the realistic likelihood of winning it, what will it cost me to fight it, what does the expected value calculation say. If the expected value is negative, take the deal. Save the money. Move on.
Money you spend on lawyers is money you don't spend on kids, retirement, or the next chapter.
Spend deliberately. Settle quickly. Keep the rest.
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