A "divorce hotel" has been opened in the Netherlands offering couples the ability to get a divorce in just three days.

Clients who check in are welcomed to the Sofia suite, where they meet a lawyer, mediator estate agent and various other professionals. Prices range from between roughly £2,000-£6,000, depending on the complexity of the couple's financial arrangements.

The couple at the centre of the proceedings sleep in separate rooms.

Dutch entrepreneur Jim Halfens started up the business less than a year ago, and has provided 17 divorces in six hotels across the country. Halfens stated that he wanted to shine a positive light on ending a relationship.

"Of course it's still negative that the marriage failed, but you should go on with your life. That's what we do here - people come to Divorce Hotel, they come on Friday, they leave on Sunday and in three days they are divorced."

Divorce Hotel
Website homepage for Divorce Hotel. They claim to offer an "easily accessible, affordable manner of getting a divorce, that is of high quality."

But mediator Marie-Louise Van warned that the procedure is not for everybody.

"If you realise that getting a divorce is like going through a mourning process with different stages in it - anger and denial and expectation - then you have to realise that not everybody is ready for a divorce weekend, so it can be possible that we meet our clients in the stage that they are very emotional or angry, and then our advice mainly will be that they are not yet ready for the hotel."

Halfens wants to take the radical scheme to the masses, with plans afoot for a reality TV show about his unusual divorce service to be screened in the US.