Divorce culture is everywhere these days.  It’s easier to get married than ever in places like Vegas, and it’s getting easier and easier to get divorced, too.  Even in very conservative cultures like deeply religious Italy, which recently had its first divorce fair, and China, where a massive new divorce culture is breaking out thanks to the surplus of men for every woman.  Divorce rates are going up all the time, and it’s not surprising that someone’s trying to make the process quicker and easier.  In The Netherlands, an entrepreneur has set up the concept of the divorce hotel, a quickie two-day negotiation that ends with a legal divorce for all involved.

“When they leave the hotel, all work is done,” said Jim Halfens, the parent behind the divorce hotel brainchild.  “The only thing that happens then in Dutch law is that they have to show the agreement to a judge in the Netherlands and that takes a couple of weeks.  They walk divorced out of this door and to make it official takes a couple of weeks.”

Basically, you take a divorcing couple and book them into a nice hotel with mediators, arbitrators, lawyers, and all the other song-and-dance you need to settle a dispute.  They pay their fee, split their assets, decide custody of the children and who gets what, and in two days, what normally costs hundreds of dollars in courts and thousands in legal fees is done, and nobody is worse for wear.  The couples are prescreened so that those who may be violent towards one another or who don’t get along aren’t invited to participate.  Amicable divorces are easiest, and thus, they’re the ones Divorce Hotel handles.

Unsurprisingly, the country that invented reality television is also looking to turn the divorce hotel concept into a reality show called, get this… “Divorce Hotel.”  Rather than a reality show, producers are calling it a documentary series and are pitching it to US television networks as we speak.  I have no doubt it will be picked up.

Tags: divorce hotel, the netherlands, divorce hotel in the netherlands, weekend divorces, unusual divorces, Jim Halfens, reality television pilots, unusual ideas, unusual legal services, law and order, marriage and divorce, quickie divorces, quick divorce proceedings

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