Information and fact sheets

Procedure on Divorce

• Name of the Parties: Plaintiff and Defendant
• The first step to follow, approach Legal Aid South Africa or Private Attorneys for consultations;
• The appointed Practitioner will draft the following:
• Summons;
• Particulars of Claim,
• Notice of Intention to defend,
• Statistics Form and Annexure A (only if there are children born during the subsistence of the marriage);
• After the Summons has been properly drafted, same must be issued with the Registrar and subsequently sent to the Sherriff to serve the Defendant;
  • The Defendant will be given (10) ten days to serve Notice of intention to defend and after having served the Notice of Intention to defend, the Defendant must draft Counter-Claim within (20) twenty days;
  • However, if the Defendant failed to file Notice of intention to defend within the prescribed timeframe, then the Plaintiff can file Notice of Set Down to have the matter to be finalized;
  • After the Defendant have filed Counter-Claim within (20) days, the Plaintiff must file Answering Affidavit to respond to the Counter-Claim;
• If there were children born during the subsistence of marriage and there is dispute over such children’s custody, the matter will be referred to Family Advocate;
• After the whole aforesaid process has occurred, the discovery process will commence;
• After the discovery process, the Practitioners will call the pre-trial conference to discuss issues which are in dispute and not in dispute; 
• After the pre-trial stage, the matter will be closed and ready for trial;
• Eventually the matter will be set down for trial;
• Last stage, finally the verdict will be delivered.
• A court order will indicate how the estate will be dissolved.

For more information contact the Gender Directorate:
Director: Ntibidi Rampete,
Tel: 012 315 1671,
E-mail: NRampete@justice.gov.za