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Consent orders in divorce

A consent order is the document that turns a financial agreement into something legally binding. Without one, whatever you and your ex agreed is a conversation, not a settlement.

It costs £62 to lodge with the court. Getting it drafted properly costs a few hundred pounds more. It is, by a distance, the cheapest and most valuable thing in the entire divorce process, and it's the step people most often skip — usually the people who most need it.

Discover more about how much it costs to get divorced here.

What it protects you from

A lot of people don’t realise this, but your divorce does not end your financial ties. The final order ends the marriage. It doesn't touch the money, and it doesn't stop your former husband, wife or spouse making a financial claim against you afterwards. And there’s no time limit on that.

That claim can be made against things you acquire long after the marriage ended - money you earn, property you buy, a business you build, an inheritance you receive. People discover this at the worst possible moments: remortgaging, retiring, or when an ex's circumstances change a decade later and theirs have improved.

A consent order is the only thing that protects you from this.

What it can cover

More or less everything financial:

  • The family home and any other property

  • Savings, investments and other capital

  • Pensions, including pension sharing orders

  • Debts and who's responsible for them

  • Spousal maintenance - how much, and for how long

  • Business interests

  • Child maintenance, in some circumstances

You can agree that one of you keeps the house, that a pension is split in a particular way, that maintenance runs for four years and then stops. Once a judge approves it, those things are enforceable.

Clean break orders

A clean break is the version most people want: it severs the financial relationship entirely, so neither of you can bring a claim against the other in future. It also covers claims against each other's estates, so an ex can't make a claim against your will.

A clean break can be immediate, or deferred - ending financial ties at a set point in the future, which is what happens where maintenance is being paid for a fixed period first.

Not every case can have one. Where there's ongoing maintenance or a significant imbalance in need, a clean break may not be appropriate or achievable. But where it is, it's the tidiest outcome available.

What you file

The bundle is:

  • The draft consent order itself - the agreement, written as a court order

  • Form D81, a statement of information setting out both of your financial circumstances

  • A copy of your conditional order

  • Any annexes, such as the pension sharing annex if a pension is being split

Plus the £62 court fee.

Exactly what else is required can vary a little depending on your court and whether pensions are involved - whoever drafts the order will know.

When you can do it

You can't get a consent order approved until after your conditional order has been pronounced. And you should have applied for it before you apply for your final order - because ending the marriage first can cut across rights that only exist while you're still married, pensions chief among them.

So the sequence that works is: conditional order → agree the finances → consent order lodged and approved → final order.

Discover more about how long divorce takes here.

The judge can say no

A consent order isn't rubber-stamped. A judge reads it, alongside your D81, and checks that what you've agreed is broadly fair and meets both of your needs.

They can refuse it. Most commonly because the split looks unfair, because it doesn't appear to meet one person's needs, or because the financial information given is too thin to judge. Often the court will come back with questions rather than a flat refusal - an explanation of why one of you is taking less, say, or why a particular figure is what it is.

It’s important to have your Form E in order too when it comes to managing your finances during divorce.

How long it takes

Anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on the court's workload and how complicated the order is. Published estimates range from about a week at the fast end to ten weeks at the slow.

It's administrative waiting rather than anything you can speed up, so factor it in rather than planning around the optimistic figure.

What it costs

  • £62 court fee to lodge it

  • From around £400 plus VAT for a solicitor to draft it, for a straightforward agreement

  • More where pensions are being shared, a business is involved, or the terms are complicated

Set against a contested financial application - £321 to issue, and legal costs commonly running to five figures each - this is not a close call.

Can it be changed afterwards?

Mostly no, you can’t change a consent order once it’s decided, and that’s the whole point of it.

Capital orders - who gets the house, how savings are split - are generally final once made. Maintenance can usually be varied later if circumstances change significantly.

An order can be set aside in genuinely exceptional situations: undisclosed assets, fraud, misrepresented valuations, duress, or a major unforeseen event very shortly afterwards. The bar is high, and "I've changed my mind" is nowhere near it.

Which is worth knowing before you sign rather than after. A consent order is designed to be permanent.

Do you need a solicitor?

For the drafting, realistically yes, you will need a solicitor.

A consent order is a court order, written in the language courts expect, and small drafting errors have large consequences - a clause that doesn't actually achieve a clean break, a pension provision a scheme won't implement, a maintenance term that doesn't end when you thought it did. Templates exist, and they're the sort of saving that costs money later.

You don't necessarily need a solicitor to negotiate the agreement. That can happen between you, or in mediation. But once you've agreed, have someone qualified write it down.

If you're in Scotland or Northern Ireland

Different systems. Scotland uses a Minute of Agreement, registered for preservation and execution, which does a comparable job by a different route. Everything above applies to England and Wales.

Last reviewed: September 2026. This page explains what a consent order is and how it works — it isn't legal advice about your settlement. Whether a particular agreement is right for you depends on your circumstances, and that's a conversation to have with someone qualified.

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