There is no time limit on financial claims after divorce in England and Wales: the final order ends your marriage, but every money claim between you and your ex-spouse stays open until a court dismisses it. The one event that does close the door is remarriage, and it only closes it on the person who remarries: marry someone new before making your own financial application and you permanently lose the right to claim spousal maintenance, a lump sum or a property transfer from your ex.
Family lawyers call this the remarriage trap, and it sits alongside its mirror image, the ex-spouse who never remarried and turns up years later, as Kathleen Wyatt did 19 years after her divorce from Ecotricity founder Dale Vince. Both risks have the same one-page fix: a consent order with a clean break. If you are pricing that protection, the consent order cost calculator shows what a sealed order should cost, from the £62 court fee to typical drafting charges, which matters if a new wedding date is already in the diary.
No time limit on financial claims after divorce
Divorce and money are two separate legal processes. The divorce ends the marriage; the financial claims each spouse holds under sections 23 and 24 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, for maintenance, lump sums and property adjustment, carry on regardless. As the official guidance on money and property when a relationship ends makes clear, you can apply for a financial order at any point after the divorce. There is no cut-off at the final order, no limitation period, nothing that quietly expires.
In practice that means an inheritance you receive in 2031, a business you build over the next decade, or equity growth in a home bought with a new partner can all still be within reach of a former spouse you divorced years ago. Only two things end the exposure: a court order dismissing the claims, or, for the person who wants to claim, their own remarriage.
The remarriage trap: how remarrying kills your own financial settlement claims
Section 28(3) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 is blunt. If, after the divorce, a party remarries or forms a civil partnership, they are no longer entitled to apply for a financial provision order or a property adjustment order against their former spouse. The bar is permanent, it applies however strong the claim was, and it takes effect at the ceremony.
Two details decide who gets caught. First, the bar stops applications, not existing ones: a financial application made before the remarriage survives it, so filing first preserves your position. Second, only legal remarriage or a new civil partnership triggers the trap. Moving in with a new partner does not bar your claims, although cohabitation can affect how a court assesses your needs.
| Claim | If you have remarried | If only your ex has remarried |
|---|---|---|
| Spousal maintenance for yourself | Barred | Still open to you |
| Lump sum | Barred | Still open to you |
| Property adjustment (including the family home) | Barred | Still open to you |
| Pension sharing | Still available | Still available |
| Child maintenance (CMS) | Unaffected | Unaffected |
What survives remarriage: pension sharing and maintenance for children
The bar does not cover everything. Pension sharing orders, created by the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999, sit outside section 28(3), so a remarried spouse can still apply to share a former spouse's pension, and once an order is made the scheme has a 4-month window to implement it. Child maintenance is separate again: the CMS assessment runs on the paying parent's income and is untouched by either parent remarrying.
Just as important is what your own remarriage does not do: it does not protect you. The trap bars only the person who remarried, so your ex-spouse's claims against you remain fully open, including against wealth you go on to build in your new marriage. If pensions are a significant part of your picture, the pensions and divorce guide explains how sharing works, but relying on the pension exception while every other claim is barred is a weak position, not a plan.
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Wyatt v Vince: a financial claim 19 years after the divorce
The leading case is Wyatt v Vince [2015] UKSC 14. Kathleen Wyatt and Dale Vince married in 1981, separated in 1984 and divorced in 1992, with no financial order ever made. The court file was later destroyed, so nothing proved her claims had been dismissed. Vince then founded the green energy company Ecotricity and built a fortune worth tens of millions of pounds. In 2011, 19 years after the final order, Wyatt applied for financial provision, seeking £1.9m.
The Supreme Court ruled in March 2015 that her claim could not be struck out: there is no time limit on financial claims after divorce, and a claim that is legally recognisable must be heard, however old. But the court also flagged that the award would be assessed on her needs and would be modest against the delay. In 2016 the case settled, with Wyatt receiving a £300,000 lump sum. Both lessons matter: the door never shuts by itself, and walking through it late pays far less than it once would have.
Delay still shrinks a financial settlement
No time limit does not mean no cost to waiting. A court hearing a late claim looks at needs as they stand now, not at splitting what the marriage built decades ago, and wealth one party created alone after separation is generally theirs. Delay also makes the practical side harder: records disappear, valuations become contested, and the structured disclosure process described in the Form E financial disclosure guide gets slower and more expensive when the paper trail is 15 years old. Wyatt's £300,000 against a £1.9m claim is the pattern, not the exception.
For the claimant, that argues for acting promptly. For the wealthier or higher-earning party, it argues for something stronger than hoping your ex never gets round to it.
Why a clean-break consent order is the fix after divorce
The only way to close financial claims permanently is a court order dismissing them. For couples who can agree, that is a financial consent order with clean-break wording: your agreement is drafted into an order, lodged with a statement of your finances and a £62 court fee, and approved by a judge any time from the conditional order stage of the divorce onwards. Once sealed, the clean break dismisses both parties' future claims, so neither the remarriage trap nor a Wyatt-style late claim can ever bite. If you cannot agree and need the court to decide, issuing Form A for a contested financial order costs £321, and making that application before any remarriage preserves your claims even though the case is unresolved.
What a fair agreement should contain is its own question, covered in the divorce financial settlement guide, but the sequencing rule is simple: agreement first, order sealed, then anyone who wants to remarry can do so with nothing left open.
Remarrying soon? Protect the family home, pension and savings first
If a new marriage is on the horizon and your old finances were never closed, work through this order:
- Get the consent order sealed before the ceremony. It is the complete fix, and at £62 plus drafting costs it is trivial next to what the trap can cost.
- If time is too short, apply before you marry. An application made before remarriage survives the bar, so issuing your financial application protects claims to the family home, savings and maintenance even while negotiations continue.
- Do not lean on the pension exception. A pension share alone, with every other claim barred, rarely reconstructs what a full settlement would have delivered.
- Think about the next marriage too. If you are bringing assets into it, a prenuptial agreement addresses the risk at the other end.
The rules here are asymmetric and unforgiving: no deadline ever helps the careless, and one wedding day can erase claims worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Whether you are years past your divorce with nothing signed, or planning to remarry next spring, the answer is the same sealed order. Our financial settlements hub covers how settlements are negotiated and valued, and if you would like to be connected with a vetted family law specialist to get a clean break in place, get in touch. This article is information, not legal advice, and everyone's circumstances differ.