What is a consent order in a divorce?

What a consent order is, and the section 33A power

A consent order records financial terms two spouses have already agreed and turns them into something a court can enforce. The power sits in section 33A of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, which lets the court make the order in the terms agreed, on the basis only of the prescribed information filed with the application, unless it has reason to think there are other circumstances into which it ought to inquire.

Section 33A(3) defines a consent order as one in the terms applied for to which the respondent agrees, and reaches orders under sections 23, 24, 24A, 24B and 27, meaning maintenance, lump sums, property transfers, orders for sale and pension sharing.

It is the ordinary route. The Ministry of Justice counted 12,646 financial remedy applications in England and Wales in January to March 2026, 73% of them uncontested. Ending the marriage and dividing the money are separate exercises, and this is the document that closes the second.

What it costs, £62 by consent against £321 contested

Application	Fee	Fees order item
Financial order by consent	£62	5.1
Financial order other than by consent	£321	5.4
Divorce, nullity or dissolution	£628	1.2

The figures come from the HMCTS family court fees list, form EX50. The £62 buys the court’s approval, and gov.uk says there is usually no hearing.

Drafting is priced separately, and there is no set rate for it. Nothing in the route requires a solicitor, since gov.uk sets out steps both parties complete and post themselves. What a fixed fee or an hourly rate buys is the wording, because a term like a clean break binds only once it is in the order itself.

Form A, Form D81 and the two signed copies

gov.uk’s route is to draft the order, sign it, take two photocopies, complete a statement of information, add one party’s notice of an application for a financial order, and post the bundle to HMCTS Financial Remedy, PO Box 12746, Harlow CM20 9QZ.

Family Procedure Rule 9.26 requires two copies of the draft order, one endorsed with a statement signed by the respondent signifying agreement, plus a statement of information from each party, signed by the other where the two sit in separate forms. Rule 9.26(4) adds that unless the court directs otherwise, neither party need attend the hearing.

The forms are longer than the fee suggests. Form D81, the statement of information, runs to 23 pages, and Form A, the notice of intention to proceed, runs to 20.

The conditional order, the final order and the 6 week wait

Point in the divorce	What is possible
First year of the marriage	No divorce application at all
20 weeks from the start of proceedings	Earliest confirmation the application continues
Conditional order made	Earliest approval of a consent order
6 weeks after the conditional order	Earliest final order
Final order made	The financial order takes effect

gov.uk states that the court cannot approve a consent order before the conditional order. The waiting periods come from section 1 of the Matrimonial Causes Act, which also stops the two together exceeding 26 weeks, and the 1 year bar on applying for a divorce at all is section 3.

Section 23(5) holds back maintenance and lump sums, section 24(3) holds back property adjustment orders and section 24B(2) holds back pension sharing until the divorce order is final. gov.uk adds that applying after the final order may have financial consequences, particularly for pensions.

Those minimums are not the average. Divorce cases under the no fault law took a mean 35 weeks to reach first disposal in January to March 2026, 3 weeks quicker than a year earlier.

What the court checks, section 25 and the clean break duty

Approval is not automatic. Section 25 makes the welfare of any child of the family under 18 the first consideration, then weighs resources, needs, the standard of living before the breakdown, the length of the marriage, disability, contributions including looking after the home, and conduct where it would be inequitable to disregard it. Form D81 puts those facts in front of the judge, which is why a 23 page form sits behind a one page agreement. A judge who does not think the arrangements are fair can ask the parties to change them.

Section 25A carries the clean break duty. The court must consider ending each party’s financial obligations to the other as soon after the order as is just and reasonable, and section 25A(3) lets it dismiss a periodical payments claim with a direction barring any further application. A clean break is a term inside a consent order, not a separate document.

The remarriage bar in section 28(3)

Section 28(3) closes the door on a late application. A party who remarries or forms a civil partnership after the order dissolving the marriage is not entitled to apply, by reference to that order, for a financial provision order in their own favour or for a property adjustment order against the other party.

Under section 28(1)(a) an existing periodical payments order made on or after the divorce order cannot extend beyond the remarriage of the party receiving it, and section 28(1A) lets the court bar an application to extend a fixed term.

Varying a consent order, the section 31(2) list

Section 31(2) sets a closed list of what the court can vary or discharge.

Order	On the section 31(2) list
Maintenance pending suit and interim maintenance	Yes
Periodical payments and secured periodical payments	Yes
A lump sum payable by instalments under section 23(3)(c)	Yes
A deferred lump sum with pension provision	Yes
Settlement orders under 24(1)(b) to (d) made on or after judicial separation	Yes
An order for sale under section 24A(1)	Yes
A pension sharing order made before the divorce order is final	Yes
A transfer of property order under section 24(1)(a)	No
A one-off lump sum under section 23(1)(c)	No

Section 31(4B) adds that no variation of a pension sharing order can take effect before the divorce order is final.

Setting an order aside is a different application. Family Procedure Rule 9.9A allows a party to apply to set a consent order aside where no error of the court is alleged, within the proceedings in which the order was made and under Part 18.

Pensions and the 4 month implementation period

Where the agreed terms include a pension sharing order, Family Procedure Rule 9.32 makes the party with the pension rights ask the provider for the information in Section C of the Pension Inquiry Form and send a copy to the other party, unless the provider has already been served under rule 9.31.

Section 34 of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 then gives the scheme an implementation period of 4 months, beginning with the later of the day the order takes effect and the first day the provider holds the relevant documents and the prescribed information, so the share lands months after the signature, not days.

Mediation, the MIAM and the £500 voucher rule

A mediation information and assessment meeting costs about £120 on gov.uk’s figures, and the document mediation produces at the end is not legally binding. The consent order is what makes it binding.

The Family Mediation Voucher Scheme contributes up to £500 once per family or case in England and Wales, for as long as vouchers remain available, and its eligibility rule catches people out. Where the issues relate solely to a financial remedy dispute, no voucher can be obtained, and one is available only where a child issue is in the case as well.

Consent orders in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland, a minute of agreement instead

Scotland has no consent order. Finances are settled by a minute of agreement, drawn up by a solicitor and registered in the Books of Council and Session, which mygov.scot describes as legally binding and enforceable in the same way as a court order.

Scottish step	Cost
Registering a minute of agreement in the Register of Deeds	£20 including an extract
Simplified divorce application in the sheriff court	£156
Initial writ in an ordinary divorce action	£191

Registration cost comes from Registers of Scotland, the court figures from the Sheriff Court Fees Order 2026. The simplified route needs 1 year of separation with consent or 2 years without, no children of the marriage under 16, and no financial matters left to sort out, which is what a registered minute achieves.

Section 9 of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985 sets five principles, including up to 3 years of adjustment for a substantially dependent party. Section 10(1) makes fair sharing mean equal sharing unless special circumstances justify otherwise, section 10(3) fixes the valuation date as the earlier of separation and service of the summons, and section 16(1)(b) lets the court set aside an agreement that was not fair and reasonable when it was entered into.

Pension sharing runs off the registered agreement under section 28 of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999, and is deemed never to have taken effect if the scheme does not receive the documents within 2 months of the extract of the decree. Divorce is still fault or separation based under the Divorce (Scotland) Act 1976, and the regulator is the Law Society of Scotland. The vocabulary follows the 1985 Act, which is why Edinburgh firms call the work financial provision rather than financial remedy.

Northern Ireland, Article 35A and ancillary relief

The mechanism matches England and Wales and the statute does not. Article 35A of the Matrimonial Causes (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 carries the same words as section 33A and covers orders under Articles 25, 26, 26A and 29, while the Department of Justice calls the subject ancillary relief, run under the Family Proceedings Rules (Northern Ireland) 1996.

Decree nisi and decree absolute vocabulary survives. Article 3(6) makes every decree a decree nisi first, not absolute before 6 weeks, Article 25(5) holds the financial order back until it is absolute, and Article 5 bars a petition until 2 years from the marriage against 1 year in England and Wales.

Fees under the Family Proceedings Fees (Amendment) Order (Northern Ireland) 2026 are £326 to seal the petition and £123 for the certificate of decree absolute, with £407 in a county court or £488 in the High Court charged both to set down and on a notice of application for ancillary relief. Item 7(a) charges £189 to a Master or £244 to a judge for any other application in matrimonial proceedings, but expressly excludes an order by consent, and the Schedule sets no separate consent fee in its place. Belfast solicitors work to that scale and answer to the Law Society of Northern Ireland rather than the Solicitors Regulation Authority.