Consent orders and clean break orders explained

Here is the uncomfortable fact at the centre of every amicable divorce: the final order that ends your marriage does nothing to end your financial exposure to each other. Every year, people who divorced cheaply and cordially discover that a former spouse can still claim against a business that took off, an inheritance that arrived, or a pension that matured, because nobody spent £62 and an afternoon closing the door.

The door-closer is a financial consent order, usually with clean break terms. This guide explains what each is, what they cost, how the process works, and the situations where people wrongly assume they do not need one. For a personalised cost figure, use the consent order cost calculator.

What a consent order is

A consent order is a financial order under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 made by agreement: you and your ex-spouse settle terms, a draft order is prepared, and a judge approves it without a contested hearing, almost always on paper. Once sealed, it is as enforceable as any order made after a fought final hearing. A consent order can contain any combination of:

• Property adjustment: transferring the family home into one name, ordering a sale and dividing proceeds, or deferring a sale (a Mesher arrangement) until a trigger such as the youngest child turning 18
• Lump sum payments, immediate or staged
• Pension sharing or attachment: the only way any pension can be divided; see pensions and divorce
• Spousal maintenance, for a fixed term or (now rarely) joint lives
• Undertakings: enforceable promises covering things the court cannot directly order, such as paying a joint debt or maintaining life cover behind maintenance
• Clean break clauses, dismissing future claims

What it is not: a consent order is not the divorce, does not deal with child arrangements (child maintenance runs through its own statutory scheme for most families), and cannot be created by anything short of a court seal. Separation agreements and solicitor-negotiated deals carry weight but are not orders; a court retains the power to depart from them.

What a clean break adds

Clean break clauses dismiss the financial claims each of you could otherwise make against the other: capital claims, income claims (maintenance), pension claims, and, importantly, claims against each other's estate on death under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. The court is in fact required by statute to consider whether a clean break is appropriate in every case.

Clean breaks come in flavours:

• Immediate full clean break: all claims dismissed in both directions from the order taking effect. The default aim where both parties can support themselves.
• Deferred clean break: spousal maintenance runs for a defined term, with claims dismissed when it ends. A section 28(1A) bar can prevent the term ever being extended.
• Capital-only clean break: capital claims dismissed while maintenance continues, less common.

Terminology in the wild is loose: "clean break order" is usually used to mean a consent order for a couple with no ongoing obligations, often with little or nothing to divide, whose only substantive content is the mutual dismissal of claims. Structurally it is the same animal, and the cheapest version of it.

Why you need one even when there is nothing to split

The no-asset couple is the group most likely to skip the order and the group with the most to lose by skipping it. The risk is not about today's assets; it is about tomorrow's:

• There is no fixed time limit on a first financial claim between ex-spouses. The courts have permitted claims brought many years, even decades, after separation where no order was ever made.
• Claims attach to after-acquired wealth: the business you start next year, the inheritance from your parents, a windfall. The claim's merits weaken with time and new circumstances, but the right to bring it survives, and defending even a weak claim costs real money.
• Remarriage is asymmetric. If you remarry without having applied for financial provision, you generally lose the right to make most claims against your ex, while their claims against you can survive. People discover this in exactly the wrong order.

Set against that, a no-asset clean break order costs the £62 fee plus modest drafting. It is the cheapest piece of certainty in the entire divorce process.

What consent orders cost

Three components, at July 2026 rates:

• Court fee: £62, paid on filing the application for a consent order (it rose from £60 on 13 July 2026; current fees on gov.uk). The Help with Fees scheme can reduce it to nil for those who qualify.
• Drafting: typically £400 to £900 fixed fee from online services and many solicitors for a straightforward agreed order, whether a full settlement or a no-asset clean break. Orders involving pension sharing annexes, staged lump sums or maintenance structures cost more because there is genuinely more to draft and check.
• Advice on the deal itself, if you want it: some fixed fees include a review of whether the agreement is sensible for you; pure drafting services do not. The distinction matters, and cheap quotes often quietly exclude it.

If you cannot yet agree terms, the cost question changes shape: it becomes a negotiation-route question, covered in the cost of divorce and comparable in the mediation vs solicitor comparison. The consent order cost calculator covers the agreed-order routes side by side.

The agreed and contested routes compare like this:

Aspect	Agreed consent order	Contested application (Form A)
Court fee	£62	£321
Typical time	Judge reviews on paper; straightforward orders commonly approved within weeks of filing	Court-timetabled proceedings through directions and hearing stages, typically many months
How it is decided	You agree the terms; a judge checks them against the D81 for fairness	A judge decides the terms after disclosure and hearings
When to use	You have agreed the full financial picture, directly, through mediation or via solicitors	You cannot reach agreement after negotiation or mediation, or need the court's protection

The process, step by step

1. Reach agreement directly, through mediation, or via solicitors, on the full financial picture: property, pensions, savings, debts, maintenance.
2. Exchange financial disclosure. Even in an agreed divorce, both of you summarise your finances on Form D81 (statement of information), covering assets, income, pensions and where each of you will live. The judge reads the order against this.
3. Draft the order. A solicitor or drafting service prepares the order with its recitals, undertakings and operative clauses, plus a pension sharing annex (Form P1) for each pension share.
4. Wait for the conditional order. The court can only approve the financial order once the divorce has reached conditional order stage.
5. File and pay the £62 fee. Both parties sign the draft order and D81; the application goes to the court, in most cases digitally.
6. Judicial review on paper. A judge checks the order for fairness and workability. Possible outcomes: approval; a requisition asking questions or requiring amendments; rarely, a hearing. Straightforward orders are commonly turned around in a matter of weeks, though timescales vary by court workload.
7. Sealing and effect. The order takes effect on the final order of divorce. Pension sharing orders then move into their implementation phase with the schemes, which has its own timetable; see pensions and divorce.

Why judges reject consent orders

Approval is the norm, but rejection and requisition are routine enough to plan against. The usual causes:

• Apparent unfairness without explanation: one party taking nearly everything, or a party with children and low income walking away with nothing. A short recital explaining the context (for example, offsetting against a pension retained, or debts assumed) often resolves it.
• Incomplete D81s: missing pension values, unexplained figures, or the two parties' forms contradicting each other.
• Drafting defects: terms the court has no power to order, missing dismissal clauses, unworkable mechanics, absent pension annexes.
• No clean break consideration: orders silent on what happens to remaining claims invite questions, since the court must consider the point.

This list is the practical case against fully DIY drafting. The judge's scrutiny protects you from an unfair deal, but not from a technically valid order that fails to say what you meant.

Finality: changing, enforcing and unpicking orders

• Capital terms are final. Lump sums, property transfers and pension shares cannot be revisited because circumstances change. The narrow exceptions are material non-disclosure or fraud when the order was made, and rare supervening events that destroy the order's foundation almost immediately.
• Maintenance is variable. Ongoing spousal maintenance can be varied up, down, or capitalised on a change of circumstances, unless barred.
• Enforcement is real. A sealed order can be enforced like any court order: attachment of earnings, charging orders, orders for sale and, for defiance, committal. This enforceability is precisely what a private agreement lacks.
• Honest disclosure protects you. Because non-disclosure is the main gateway to reopening an order, the party who discloses fully is also the party whose order is safest.

Speak to a specialist

A consent order is the cheapest step in a divorce and the one carrying the most long-term weight, which is exactly the combination that deserves professional drafting. Our service connects people across England and Wales with experienced family law professionals who prepare consent orders and clean break orders every day, from no-asset clean breaks to settlements with pension sharing. Tell us a little about your situation for a no-obligation conversation and a clear fixed-fee quote. We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice; we may receive a fee from the firm we introduce you to, which never affects what you pay or the advice you receive.