How does the divorce process work without consent?

There comes a time when a marriage ends in practice, but one of the parties refuses to sign the end of it on paper. This is when many people discover, to their surprise, that there is a legal way to proceed nonetheless: the uncontested divorce process. This topic is daunting because it seems long, expensive, and full of formalities. And it can be. But it can also be an organised, predictable, and much more controllable process when you know what the law requires and how to prepare your case from day one. In this article, we explain how the uncontested divorce process works in Portugal, what the most commonly used grounds are, what documents and evidence are usually relevant, what happens in court, and what parallel decisions you should address to protect children, home, and assets.