In 1992 a couple divorced. The decree absolute was granted on 26 October that year. There was no financial order, and whatever file the court held has since been mislaid.

Nineteen years later, in 2011, the former wife applied for a lump sum of £1.9 million. By then her ex-husband had founded a wind power company and become wealthy. He argued the application was an abuse of process after so long. In 2015 the Supreme Court disagreed, unanimously, and allowed her claim to proceed.

That case is Wyatt v Vince, and it is the single best argument for doing a piece of paperwork that most separating couples assume they can skip.

The thing almost nobody is told

A divorce ends your marriage. It does not end your financial claims against each other.

Those are two separate processes in England and Wales, with separate applications, separate fees and separate documents. You can be fully, finally divorced, with a final order in your hand, and still be financially exposed to your ex for the rest of your life.

The only thing that closes the financial side is a financial order made by the court. When you have agreed the terms between you, that order is called a consent order.

There is no time limit on making a financial claim after divorce. Delay weakens a claim. It does not kill it.

What a consent order actually is

Section 33A of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 is short, and worth reading once in its own words. On an application for a consent order the court may, "unless it has reason to think that there are other circumstances into which it ought to inquire, make an order in the terms agreed on the basis only of the prescribed information furnished with the application".

Two things follow from that sentence.

First, the court is not re-running your negotiation. If you agree, and the paperwork is in order, a judge approves the terms you brought.

Second, that approval is not automatic. The judge retains the power to inquire. A consent order that leaves one party with nothing, or that looks engineered to defeat a creditor or the Child Maintenance Service, can and does come back with questions.

What goes to the court

That is it. No hearing in most cases, no attendance, no cross-examination.

The £62 is fee 5.1 on the current court fee list, for an application made by consent. For comparison, a contested financial order application is fee 5.4 at £321, and the divorce application itself is £628. Against those numbers, the cheapest document in the whole process is the one that finishes it.

Help with Fees can remit the £62 in full or in part if you are on a low income or qualifying benefits.

Form D81 is where the honesty requirement lives

The statement of information is the document people underestimate. It is where both of you disclose what you have: property, savings, pensions, debts, income, and where each of you intends to live.

The duty of full and frank disclosure is not a formality you discharge by filling in boxes. An order obtained on incomplete disclosure can be set aside years afterwards, which puts you back where you started with legal costs on top. If you are tempted to leave a pension off because it feels like yours, that single omission is the most common route to an order unravelling.

Pensions are the asset most often forgotten and the most valuable one after the house in a great many cases. We go through the mechanics in how pensions are split in a UK divorce.

The clean break is the part worth paying attention to

A consent order can do two different jobs, and most people only think about the first.

The first job is to divide things: who gets what share of the house, who keeps which savings, what happens to the pensions.

The second job is to dismiss the claims that are left. That is the clean break. Without clause wording that dismisses future claims for income, capital, property and pension sharing, the order divides the assets and leaves the door open behind it.

A clean break is not always appropriate. Where one of you will need ongoing income, the order carries maintenance instead and the clean break is deferred to a later date. That is a deliberate choice, made with advice, and we cover how the court approaches it in spousal maintenance in a UK divorce.

What is never appropriate is having no order at all because you both felt the conversation was finished.

Why people skip it

Having sat with a lot of people at this point in a separation, the reasons are always the same four, and none of them survive contact with Wyatt v Vince.

"We have nothing to divide." Today. A consent order deals with what either of you acquires later as well, which is the whole point of the case above.

"We trust each other." Probably true now. The order is not insurance against your ex. It is insurance against their next partner, their business failing, their death, their change of mind in fifteen years, and their solicitor in a situation neither of you has imagined yet.

"The divorce is already final." The final order ends the marriage. Nothing in it touches money.

"We can sort it later if we need to." Later is when the asset exists and somebody wants a share of it. That is precisely the fight an order prevents.

Timing: after the conditional order, before the final one

The sequence matters and catches people out.

You can agree terms at any point. The court cannot make the financial order until the conditional order has been granted in the divorce. In practice the consent order is usually lodged after the conditional order and takes effect on or after the final order.

Which means the moment to be dealing with this is while the divorce is still running, not after it has finished and everybody has moved on. If you are at the start of that process, how do I get a divorce sets out the timetable the financial side has to fit inside.

Where coaching fits, and where it does not

A consent order has to be drafted properly. That is a solicitor's job, and this is one of the few places in a separation where paying for the drafting is unambiguously worth it. A badly drafted order is worse than a late one.

What a coach does is the part before that. Most couples who cannot reach agreement are not stuck on the numbers; they are stuck on something underneath the numbers that neither of them has said out loud. Getting to a position you can actually instruct a solicitor on, without six months of correspondence at £300 an hour, is the work. Mediation does the same job from a different angle, and the two sit together well.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a consent order if we have already divorced?

Yes, and the sooner the better. There is no deadline, so the absence of one leaves both of you exposed indefinitely. You can apply for a financial order after the divorce has concluded.

How much does a consent order cost?

The court fee is £62. Solicitors' fees for drafting are on top and vary, but this is the cheapest part of the whole process. Help with Fees may cover the court fee.

Can I write a consent order myself?

You can, and the court will consider it. It is the one document in a divorce where DIY most often goes wrong, because the clean break wording and the pension clauses are technical and a defect only shows up years later when you need the order to work.

Will a judge just rubber stamp what we agreed?

Usually, but not always. Section 33A lets the court inquire where it has reason to. Orders that look unfair on their face, or that appear designed to defeat a third party, get queried.

Does a consent order cover child maintenance?

Not usually. Child maintenance is handled through the Child Maintenance Service calculation, and a court order for it has limited effect. The consent order deals with capital, property, pensions and spousal maintenance. How child maintenance is worked out covers the separate system.

Can a consent order be changed later?

Capital orders, including lump sums and property transfers, are intended to be final. Maintenance can be varied. That asymmetry is exactly why the drafting matters.

What if my ex refuses to sign?

Then it is not a consent order, and you apply for a financial order the contested way, fee 5.4 at £321. Mediation first is normally required and often resolves it.

The short version

• A divorce ends the marriage. Only a financial order ends the money claims.
• There is no time limit: Wyatt v Vince was a claim 19 years after the decree absolute, and the Supreme Court let it proceed.
• The court fee is £62, against £628 for the divorce itself.
• Make sure it carries a clean break, or it divides the assets and leaves the door open.
• Full disclosure on Form D81 is what keeps the order standing up.

If you and your ex are close to agreement but keep stalling on the same conversation, that is the thing to fix before the solicitors start drafting. Book a free call and we will work out what is actually in the way.

Section 33A is on legislation.gov.uk, and the current fees are in the family court fee list, last updated 13 July 2026.