Shelley Kavanagh knew divorce would be costly. But given that the marital home was a £5.5million seven-bedroom mansion in Surrey, and her husband earned more than £2million a year as a stockbroker, she didn’t expect to be left homeless, financially destitute and contemplating suicide.In fact, justifiably, she had assumed their assets would be divided fairly and she would continue to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle with her three children.After all, she and her husband had accrued their wealth together. They had both worked in the City until she gave up her career to look after their young family.So what went wrong for Shelley? A litigation loan, taken out on her solicitor’s very persistent advice to cover her legal costs, was to blame. Secured against the marital home with an annual interest rate of 18 per cent, by the time the property was sold in 2021 – six years after filing for divorce – Shelley’s litigation loan debt was a ruinous £360,000, wiping out almost all the equity owed to her.Her husband had an even bigger litigation loan, which meant the debt just in loans paid from the equity of the house sale was more than £800,000.‘Worst of all, the process led to me being separated from my three children, then aged 17, 15 and 12,’ says Shelley, now 56.Because of her credit rating being ‘destroyed’ as a result of her debts, she was unable to rent a place of her own and had to move in with her father, where there was no room for her children. Rosie Heys, left, and Shelley Kavanagh were left in a combined £1.3million debt after their divorcesThis caused further distress for them, which she feels could have been avoided had she been given better advice.Litigation funding has grown rapidly in the past decade since the cuts in legal aid. In recent years, a growing number of borrowers have lodged complaints with the Financial Ombudsman Service, some of which have been upheld.It’s an issue that disproportionately affects women, with legal aid cuts meaning funding for most private family law and divorce cases has been removed. Research by economics think-tank Women’s Budget Group shows that women face a ‘double whammy’ from reduced legal aid scope and capacity.The Civil Justice Council published a report in June 2025 recommending regulation, and last December the Government announced its intention to change the law around litigation funding agreements (LFAs) – although details are yet to be confirmed.In the meantime, lawyers and lenders are cashing in, leaving a trail of financial and emotional destruction in their wake. Former MP Seema Kennedy, executive director of the campaign group Fair Civil Justice, says: ‘People facing divorce are already extremely vulnerable. They should not be left with crippling debts from opaque litigation loans carrying rapidly escalating charges.‘Clear cost disclosures, proper affordability checks and effective regulatory oversight are urgently needed to stop access to justice becoming a route into financial ruin.’Shelley says: ‘The risks weren’t explained to me, nor alternatives such as a bank loan or repayment plan suggested, presumably because lawyers can’t make money from them.’ Former MP Seema Kennedy, now executive director of the campaign group Fair Civil Justice, says: 'People facing divorce are already extremely vulnerable'She is not alone in believing that her lawyers exploited her vulnerability and inexperience in such matters, coercing her into taking a loan that would essentially hand them a blank cheque.‘The loan was paid into the law firm’s bank account, never mine, meaning it was basically a licence for my lawyers to charge me whatever they wanted for their services, because the money was effectively theirs,’ she says.‘When you file for divorce, you immediately have to declare every penny. Lawyers are left rubbing their hands when they have a client with considerable assets who they know is likely to make poor decisions because they’re at a low point in life. My solicitor preyed on that and saw me as a lucrative payday.’Shelley had filed for divorce in 2015 with access only to £5,000 because her husband controlled their finances, but her solicitor’s invoices were more than that in the first month. Owing to the acrimonious break-up, lawyers were required.‘She said I needed a litigation loan and introduced me to a lender called Novitas.’Novitas was launched in 2011, claimed to work with 900 law firms and once described itself as the leading provider of loans for people going through divorce. Despite multiple written protests from Shelley that, surely, with her husband’s considerable earnings and the value of their Surrey home, a loan wouldn’t be necessary, she gave in.After Shelley’s initial £150,000 loan was quickly swallowed up by invoices from her lawyer, she was told to borrow another £90,000 to cover ongoing costs, and did so. Now, she is sharing her story to warn other women off litigation loans entirely.When, aged 24, she met her ex, then 25, on a blind date in 1995, he still lived with his parents in their council house, while she was in a shared rented flat in London. They built their significant wealth together, both with financial careers in the City.Their first family home was in Chigwell, Essex, which they sold for a profit of £1.35million, before purchasing the palatial house in Virginia Water, Surrey, where they lived for 13 years. Shelley's former home in Virginia Water, Surrey, where she and her family lived for 13 yearsShelley says: ‘Initially, we were happy but about five years into the marriage I started to notice that things weren’t right. He’d come home in the early hours claiming he’d been working and my instincts told me he was having an affair.‘I’d confront him, asking him where was open until 3am but he’d always turn it round and pin it on me, saying, “Where do you think all our money comes from? I have to go out and socialise, it’s part of my job.”’Eventually filing for divorce in 2015, Shelley’s hopes for a more peaceful life ended with her losing her home, her credit rating and, most painfully, her three children.Though Shelley initially stayed in the family home with her children, while her husband moved out, he paid her just £800 a month in maintenance. Before they separated, he had paid around £2,500 into her account each month to buy food and anything that was needed for the household or the children.Shelley didn’t have access to a joint account so when her ex stopped paying the bills, she was given a county court judgment (CCJ) as a result of her debts – and sold furniture, clothes and handbags to buy food and an old Mini to do the school run because he had taken her car.Although Novitas documentation stated that loans wouldn’t be given to anyone with a CCJ, as it indicated financial vulnerability, it didn’t stop them lending to her.By now financially destitute, she was forced to move into her father’s home in Essex. With no space for the children, they lived with their father and his new partner.‘I was bereft without my children and they without me,’ she says, audibly upset. ‘My daughter was just 12 at the time and she lost years of her life with me as a result. I contemplated suicide during that time because I missed them so dreadfully and as my credit rating was ruined, I couldn’t rent anywhere.’Eventually, a £10,000 loan from her dad enabled Shelley to rent a small house for a year in Essex and she got a job in guest relations in a hotel. Her sons, both adults by then, moved out of their father’s home and into a shared property in London with him as their guarantor, while her daughter continued to live with him.When Shelley complained to Novitas that they had knowingly loaned her an unaffordable amount, they reduced the repayment amount by £50,000. ‘After the litigation loans and other debts had been paid, my divorce settlement was £180,000, which my ex paid in three instalments over a year, so I never had enough to put a deposit down on a house, and wouldn’t have been able to get a mortgage anyway.’She and her new partner now rent a cottage in the Cotswolds.‘I’m rebuilding my life and my relationships with my children,’ she says. ‘They’re certainly not unscathed by those years we were separated from one another. A part of me died during those years apart – I’ve never been the same person since.‘The solicitors are to blame – without them I’d never have known what a litigation loan even was. The whole thing is incestuous between the lawyers and the lenders.‘Behind all the loans, legal documents, companies and court proceedings were real people and a family living through the consequences and pain of it all.’Shelley and fellow divorcée Rosie Heys co-founded their campaign Divorce Without Debt after meeting via Mumsnet when Rosie posted about facing financial ruin from her own litigation loan. Their combined debt added up to an eye-watering £1.3million.Rosie, 59, filed for divorce in 2014 on the grounds of her husband’s unreasonable behaviour, and reluctantly agreed a loan of £100,000 to cover legal costs on the advice of her lawyer. By the time the marital property in Fulham, south-west London, was sold last year, the debt was a staggering £950,000 and accruing at a rate of at least £600 a day.‘Initially, my ex and I were civilised about the divorce,’ says Rosie. ‘The children and I remained in the marital home but alternate weekends I stayed with friends so that he could be in the house with them.‘Then my solicitor instructed me not to talk to him or let him see the children – I ignored the latter part – advised against mediation and was adamant that I needed a litigation loan, pursuing me with daily phone calls like a double-glazing salesmen.‘They told me I’d lose my children if I didn’t do as they said. When they said they’d apply for up to £100,000 from Novitas to ensure this didn’t happen, but the likelihood was that the divorce would only cost £20,000, I agreed.‘Within three months the £100,000 had gone, mostly on admin, and my solicitor insisted on another loan of £100,000. The litigation loan contract from the solicitor claimed that they didn’t benefit financially from the loan, yet they were paid £575 by Novitas for every loan sold and also charged me £8,000 in admin fees to set it up.’Rosie eventually sacked her solicitor and appointed a new one who told her she needed another £200,000 loan to guarantee security for her and her children, this time from lender RateSetter. Again, this was paid straight into the new law firm’s bank account. And so it went on.When her divorce was finalised in 2016, the judge ruled that Rosie would need £840,000 from the eventual sale of the house to ensure she could keep her children in Fulham, close to their state schools.But it took a decade for Rosie to sell the property because the law dictated that as joint owners she needed a signature from her husband in order to do so. All this time, the litigation loan was accruing interest at £600 a day.‘We had an offer of £1.35million for the house in 2017 which I begged him to agree to, but he refused,’ explains Rosie, a freelance book editor who had married her ex, a finance director, in 2000. (She owned a property when they met – he did not.)‘I was drowning in debt, but the loan gave him a means to cause me financial hardship. I’d worked and contributed financially throughout the marriage while also doing all the childcare.’Unwell and under immense stress, in 2023, Rosie was granted a government debt moratorium – designed to ensure that creditors can’t pursue a debt for a specified time, in her case, a year, providing respite to deal with the impact.‘When RateSetter tried to have me thrown out of the debt moratorium, I attempted suicide and was under psychiatric watch for six months. My children and I had bailiffs turning up at the house. The stress was intolerable.’Eventually, Rosie hired a ‘wonderful pro bono barrister’ via Advocate, the Bar pro bono charity who negotiated an 11th-hour settlement with the lender. She adds: ‘I was told I had to buy my husband out of his share of the remaining £320,000 mortgage on the property in order to have sole ownership and control over its sale – money raised by friends and family cashing in their Isas and savings.‘By the time it was sold in 2025 for £1.35million, my litigation loan debt was around £950,000 – it had more than doubled due to interest, charges and legal costs. My barrister negotiated this down to a more manageable £750,000, which I repaid along with the £230,000 loaned from loved ones.’With the remaining equity, she bought a small cottage in Oxfordshire in February last year.After lodging a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman because Novitas was legally bound to lend affordably, which they had not done, the company was ordered to repay £7,000 in interest as it had failed to provide her with regular statements about her debt.A further complaint led the ombudsman to conclude that Novitas had not carried out adequate affordability checks and Rosie was awarded another £50,000 in interest and charges. The loan itself was untouchable as it had been used to cover the solicitors’ fees.In 2017, Novitas was bought for £31million by merchant bankers Close Brothers Group plc and ceased lending to new customers in 2021. According to the Close Brothers website, Novitas is permanently closed, and ‘Close Brothers will continue to support previous customers of Novitas Loans’.Close Brothers was approached for comment.Rosie concludes: ‘These litigation loans stole a decade of my life – the years from age 50 to 60 are a blank during which the only escape I could see was killing myself.‘Even now, I feel physically sick and my hands shake when I open my mail, lest it should be more debt or demands for repayments.‘My abiding feeling now is one of sheer rage that the lawyers who caused this have walked away with no consequences and a colossal increase in their wealth.’divorcewithoutdebt.co.uk