Simplified Divorce Forms in Scotland: SPA, SPB and SPC
There are three prescribed forms for a simplified divorce in Scotland and three more for dissolution of a civil partnership. Which one you need turns on a single question: what is the ground, and does your spouse have to consent to it.
Form SPA is for one year’s separation with your spouse’s consent. Form SPB is for two years’ separation, where consent is not required. Form SPC covers the much rarer case where an interim gender recognition certificate has been issued to either spouse. The forms are free to download from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, and the court fee is £156.
What follows is not a list of download links. It is what each part of the form actually asks you for, what has to be enclosed with it, and the points at which applications get sent back. There is also one section of Form SPA that gives away a legal right, and that is dealt with at length below because a great many people sign it without noticing.
New to this and not sure which route applies to you? Start with how to get a divorce in Scotland, which sets out the whole decision path in order.
Which Form Do You Need?
Which form you need follows from which fact you rely on, and the facts are set out in full on our page on grounds for divorce in Scotland.
| Your circumstances | Form | Consent needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Married, separated at least one year | SPA | Yes, your spouse must sign |
| Married, separated at least two years | SPB | No |
| Married, interim gender recognition certificate issued to either spouse | SPC | No |
| Civil partnership, separated at least one year | SPD | Yes, your civil partner must sign |
| Civil partnership, separated at least two years | SPE | No |
| Civil partnership, interim gender recognition certificate | SPF | No |
SPD, SPE and SPF dissolve a civil partnership. They do not end a marriage. If you are married, they are not your forms.
Before you choose a form at all, check that the simplified procedure is open to you. It is not available if there is a child of the marriage under sixteen, if any financial matter remains unresolved, or if there are other proceedings that might end the marriage. Our guide to DIY divorce in Scotland works through the full list of conditions.
What Form SPA Actually Asks You
The form runs to three parts. Part 1 is yours, Part 2 belongs to your spouse, and Part 3 is sworn in front of somebody else. Part 1 contains eleven numbered sections.
| Section | What it asks for | Where people slip |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Name and address of applicant | Your surname, other names, present address and a daytime telephone number. | Use the name as it appears on the marriage certificate, and follow the form’s directions if you have used another name since. |
| 2. Name and address of husband or wife | The same details for your spouse. | If you do not know the address, see the section on tracing below. Do not guess. |
| 3. Jurisdiction | Four tick boxes: whether you, or your spouse, are domiciled in Scotland on the date of signing, or were habitually resident in Scotland throughout the year ending on that date. | At least one box must be ticked and it must be true. Leaving all four blank is a common reason for return. |
| 4. Details of present marriage | The place of marriage, given as the registration district, and the date. | The registration district is not the same as the name of the hotel or church. Take it from the certificate. |
| 5. Period of separation | The date you separated, whether you have lived together since, and if so for how long in total. | The date is when you stopped living together as husband and wife, which is not automatically the day one of you moved out. |
| 6. Reconciliation | Two questions: whether reconciliation is reasonably possible, and whether you consider the marriage to have broken down irretrievably. | Straightforward, but it must be answered. |
| 7. Consent | Whether your spouse consents to the divorce. | On Form SPA the answer has to be yes, and Part 2 has to be signed to prove it. |
| 8. Mental disorder | Whether your spouse has any mental disorder, with space for details. | The form describes this as mental illness, personality disorder or learning disability. If the question arises at all, take advice before going further. |
| 9. Children | Whether there is any child of the marriage under the age of sixteen. | If there is, the simplified procedure is closed to you and an ordinary divorce is required. |
| 10. Other court actions | Whether proceedings are pending in any country that could affect the marriage. | Any country, not only Scotland. |
| 11. Declaration and request for divorce | You confirm the facts above, declare that you are making no claim for financial provision, make no application to postpone decree, and ask the court to grant the divorce. Signed and dated by you. | Read the financial declaration properly. It is the point of no return, and it is explained below. |
Part 2: The Consent Box Gives Something Up
This is the part of the form that deserves far more attention than it usually gets, and it is worth reading carefully whichever side of it you are on.
Part 2 of Form SPA is signed by the spouse who is consenting. In signing it, that spouse confirms having read Part 1 and having been separated for at least a year, and then states, in the form’s own words, that he or she does not ask the court to make any order for payment by the applicant of a periodical allowance, and does not ask the court to make any order for payment of a capital sum. The same section records that the spouse understands that divorce may result in the loss of property rights, and does not ask the court to postpone the grant of decree under section 3A of the Divorce (Scotland) Act 1976.
The form spells out what those property rights are. It says in terms that divorce may result in the loss of the right to succeed to the applicant’s estate on his or her death, and of the right, where appropriate, to a widow’s pension.
The form then gives its own warning, which is short and to the point: if you are in doubt about signing this form of consent, you should consult a solicitor.
We would put it more bluntly. A person signing Part 2 is renouncing, permanently, any claim to a capital sum or periodical allowance arising out of the marriage, and is doing so in a box on a form that costs nothing to complete and takes two minutes to sign. Under the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985 a claim for financial provision has to be made in the divorce action itself, and once decree is granted it is gone. There is no route back.
If there is a house, a pension, savings, a business or a debt that has not been dealt with, the person being asked to sign Part 2 should take advice before signing, and the person asking them to sign should expect them to. That is not us drumming up work. It is what the form itself tells you to do.
Part 3: The Affidavit
Part 3 is your sworn statement. You swear that the facts in Part 1 are true and that the signature in Part 2 is your spouse’s. It is completed and signed by a justice of the peace, a notary public or a commissioner for oaths, who adds their own name and address.
Two things about it matter. It must be signed in front of that person and not before you get there. And on Form SPA it comes after your spouse has returned the signed consent, not before. Taking the form to be sworn while the consent is still in the post is one of the most common sequencing errors there is.
Form SPB and How It Differs
Form SPB is the two-year form. The substance of Part 1 is the same, but there is no consent stage at all, so there is no Part 2 to wait for. You complete and sign Part 1, take the form to a justice of the peace, notary public or commissioner for oaths to swear the affidavit, and send it to the court. Your spouse does not have to agree, and does not have to sign anything.
If you do not know where your spouse is
An unknown address does not stop an SPB application, but it adds two requirements that catch people out.
First, you enter “not known” and you must take all reasonable steps to find out where your spouse is living, setting out on a separate sheet what steps you have taken. A bare assertion that you do not know will not do.
Second, if you were married in Scotland, the court will want a letter from National Records of Scotland stating that there is no record of your spouse having divorced you. That letter has to be recent: it must be issued within one month before you post the application. Order it in good time, because an out-of-date letter means starting that part again.
Form SPC and the Civil Partnership Forms
Form SPC applies where an interim gender recognition certificate has been issued to either spouse. It is a distinct statutory route and it is uncommon, but it exists and it is the reason the SP series has six forms rather than four.
Forms SPD, SPE and SPF are the civil partnership equivalents of SPA, SPB and SPC. They dissolve a civil partnership rather than ending a marriage, and the same conditions and the same sequence apply.
What Has to Be Sent With the Form
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| The completed form | All parts signed in the correct order, with the affidavit sworn in person. |
| The marriage certificate | The document headed “Extract of an entry in a Register of Marriages”. A photocopy will not be accepted. An official replacement extract is perfectly acceptable if the original has been lost. |
| The court fee | £156, or a completed application for exemption from the fee. |
| A trace statement, if applicable | Only where your spouse’s address is not known. |
| A National Records of Scotland letter, if applicable | Only where the address is unknown and the marriage was registered in Scotland. Issued within the previous month. |
A note on the exemption form. The prescribed forms refer to a form for claiming exemption from the court fee. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service now publishes that form on its court fees pages under a plain description rather than a form number, in a full version and a shorter version for a second application in the same proceedings. If you go looking for a numbered form and cannot find one, that is why. Who qualifies, and which benefits count, is set out on our page on court fees and fee exemption.
Where Applications Go Wrong
Every one of these sends the application back and restarts the checking stage, which is why a returned form is the largest avoidable delay in the whole process. See how long a divorce takes in Scotland.
These are the form-filling failures that cause applications to be returned. None of them is hard to avoid once you know it is there.
Swearing the affidavit before you are in front of the justice of the peace
Part 1 is signed by you in advance and that is correct. The affidavit in Part 3 is different. It is a sworn statement and it must be signed in the presence of the justice of the peace, notary public or commissioner for oaths.
On Form SPA, swearing before the consent has come back
The order is fixed: you sign Part 1, your spouse completes and signs Part 2, and only then do you swear Part 3.
Sending a photocopy of the marriage certificate
The court needs the official extract. This is not about producing the document you were handed on the day, because a replacement extract is fine. It is about not sending a photocopy.
Giving the wedding venue instead of the registration district
Section 4 asks for the place of marriage as a registration district. The name of the hotel, church or register office building is not what the court is asking for. Copy the district from the certificate.
Names that do not match the certificate
Names, dates and the place of marriage must correspond with the extract certificate. Where either party has used a different name since, the form explains how to deal with it.
Treating the day somebody moved out as the date of separation
Section 5 asks when you ceased to live together as husband and wife. Spouses can be separated for this purpose while still under the same roof, and moving out does not by itself fix the date. Getting this wrong by a few weeks can mean the qualifying period has not actually run.
Leaving the jurisdiction boxes blank
Section 3 has four tick boxes and at least one has to apply to you. It is easy to skip because it looks like small print.
Not knowing where your spouse is, and saying nothing further
The trace statement and, where the marriage was registered in Scotland, the recent National Records of Scotland letter are both required. Applicants routinely send neither.
If You Would Rather Not Do It Yourself
We handle the whole simplified procedure for £550 all in, which includes our fee, VAT, the £156 court fee and the cost of intimation. There is nothing further to pay and most cases complete within eight to twelve weeks.
For somebody capable of completing a form and posting it, £156 is plainly better value than £550, and this page is written so that route stays open to you. What the fee buys is the form being right first time, the sequence being correct, and somebody looking at your circumstances before a financial claim is given up for good.
Frequently Asked Questions
What forms do I need for a simplified divorce in Scotland?
Form SPA for one year’s separation with your spouse’s consent, or Form SPB for two years’ separation where no consent is needed. Form SPC covers the rarer interim gender recognition certificate route. Forms SPD, SPE and SPF are the civil partnership equivalents.
Where do I get the SP forms?
Free of charge from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. Always take the current version from the court’s own site rather than a copy hosted elsewhere.
What is the difference between SPA and SPB?
SPA is used after one year’s separation and requires your spouse to complete and sign a consent section, which must be returned before you swear the affidavit. SPB is used after two years’ separation and requires no consent at all.
What does my spouse give up by signing the consent on Form SPA?
The consent section records that the spouse does not ask the court for a periodical allowance or a capital sum, and understands that divorce may result in the loss of property rights, including the right to succeed to the applicant’s estate and, where appropriate, a widow’s pension. The form itself advises consulting a solicitor if in any doubt.
Can I sign the affidavit at home and post it?
No. The affidavit must be sworn in the presence of a justice of the peace, notary public or commissioner for oaths. A justice of the peace does not charge for this.
What do I have to send with the form?
The completed form, the official extract of the entry in the Register of Marriages, and the £156 court fee or a completed exemption application. Where your spouse’s address is unknown, a statement of the steps taken to trace them and, if the marriage was registered in Scotland, a recent letter from National Records of Scotland.
What if I do not know where my spouse lives?
You may still apply on Form SPB. Enter “not known”, set out on a separate sheet what you have done to trace them, and obtain the National Records of Scotland letter if the marriage was registered in Scotland. That letter must be issued within one month before you post the application.
Do the SP form numbers ever change?
The SP series has been stable, but court forms are amended from time to time. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service is the only authoritative source, and the version there on the day you lodge is the one that counts.
This page was written and reviewed by Brian Rooney, Managing Partner of Rooney Family Law, accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in family law. The sections, wording and enclosure requirements described here were taken from the current prescribed simplified divorce application forms published by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and read on 8th September 2026. Court fees are stated as at 1st April 2026 under the Sheriff Court Fees Order 2026 (SSI 2026/74). Forms and procedure change; check the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service before you lodge. This page is general information about Scottish court procedure and is not legal advice on your circumstances.
Last reviewed: 8th September 2026.
If You Would Rather Somebody Else Completed It
The forms are free and the court fee is £156. If you would rather not chance the consent section or the affidavit, a simplified divorce is £550 all in, court fee included.
