Divorce Financial Orders in the UK: A Complete Plain-English Guide

When a marriage ends, dividing finances fairly is one of the most important things you need to get right. A divorce financial order is the legal document that makes your financial settlement binding and protects you long into the future. Without one, your ex-spouse could make a financial claim against you years after your divorce is finalised, even if you have both moved on completely.

What Is a Divorce Financial Order and Why Does It Matter?

A divorce financial order is a legally binding court order that sets out how a couple's finances and assets will be divided when they separate. In England and Wales, these are formally called financial remedy orders, though many people still refer to them as financial orders or financial settlement orders.

The order can cover a wide range of financial matters, including the family home, savings, investments, pensions, business interests, and ongoing maintenance payments. Once approved by the court, both parties are legally required to stick to its terms.

The reason a financial order matters so much is simple: a divorce decree alone does not protect your finances. Even after your divorce is finalised, your ex-spouse retains the legal right to make financial claims against you unless a court order is in place. This means that if you win the lottery, receive an inheritance, or build up significant savings in the future, your former partner could still apply to the court for a share of it.

This is not a rare or theoretical risk. There are well-documented cases in England and Wales where ex-spouses have made successful financial claims many years after a divorce simply because no financial order was ever obtained. Getting a financial order is the only way to achieve what lawyers call a clean break, which formally ends all financial ties between you and your former spouse.

You can read more about the overall divorce process in our complete guide to divorce in England and Wales.

Types of Divorce Financial Order Available in England and Wales

There is no single type of financial order. The court has a range of tools available depending on your circumstances, and your final order may include one or several of the following.

• Clean break order: This ends all financial claims between you and your ex-spouse immediately. It is often the simplest outcome when finances can be divided outright and neither party needs ongoing support.
• Property adjustment order: This transfers ownership of a property from one spouse to the other, or orders it to be sold and the proceeds divided. It is the most common way of dealing with the family home.
• Pension sharing order: This splits pension savings between the two of you. Pensions are often the most valuable asset in a marriage after the home, so this type of order is increasingly common.
• Pension attachment order (earmarking): Rather than splitting the pension now, this order directs the pension provider to pay a portion of benefits to the ex-spouse when the pension is eventually drawn. This is less commonly used than pension sharing.
• Spousal maintenance order: This requires one spouse to make regular payments to the other, usually for a fixed period or until a specified event such as the recipient remarrying.
• Lump sum order: This orders one spouse to pay a single cash payment to the other.
• Child maintenance: While child maintenance is generally handled separately through the Child Maintenance Service, in some cases the court can make orders relating to children's financial needs as part of wider financial remedy proceedings.

For a deeper look at how financial remedy orders work in practice, visit our dedicated guide on financial remedy orders in divorce for England and Wales.

How to Get a Divorce Financial Order: The Step-by-Step Process

There are two main routes to obtaining a financial order in England and Wales. The route you take will depend on whether you and your spouse can agree on the terms or whether the court needs to decide for you.

1. Apply for a consent order (if you agree): If you and your ex-spouse have reached an agreement on how to divide your finances, you can ask the court to approve it as a consent order. You will both need to sign the agreement and submit it to the court along with a summary of your financial positions on a document called a Form D81. A judge will review the agreement to make sure it is fair before approving it. You do not need to attend a hearing in most cases.
2. Apply for a financial remedy order (if you cannot agree): If you cannot reach an agreement, either of you can apply to the court to make a decision. This is a more formal process involving full financial disclosure from both parties, followed by a series of court hearings. The process typically takes between 12 and 18 months and can be costly.

The financial remedy court process in England and Wales generally follows these stages:

• First Directions Appointment (FDA): An initial hearing where the judge sets out what financial information is needed from both parties.
• Financial Dispute Resolution (FDR): A without-prejudice hearing where a judge gives their view on a likely outcome and encourages both parties to settle. Many cases resolve at this stage.
• Final Hearing: If no agreement is reached, a judge hears full evidence and makes a binding decision.

Throughout this process, both parties are required to provide full and honest financial disclosure. Hiding assets is a serious matter and can result in the court setting aside the final order.

What Factors Does the Court Consider When Making a Financial Order?

The court in England and Wales does not divide assets automatically on a 50/50 basis. Instead, it considers a wide range of factors set out in the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and aims to reach an outcome that is fair in the circumstances of the specific couple.

The first consideration is always the welfare of any children under 18. Beyond that, the court will look at:

• The income, earning capacity, property, and financial resources of each party, both now and in the foreseeable future
• The financial needs, obligations, and responsibilities of each party
• The standard of living enjoyed during the marriage
• The age of each party and the length of the marriage
• Any physical or mental disability of either party
• The contributions each party has made to the marriage, including non-financial contributions such as raising children or managing the home
• The conduct of each party, though this is rarely relevant unless the conduct was particularly serious
• The value of any benefit, such as a pension, that either party will lose as a result of the divorce

In longer marriages, courts tend to start from the principle of equal sharing. In shorter marriages or where one party brought significant pre-marital assets into the relationship, there may be a departure from that starting point.

Our free divorce financial calculator can give you a rough idea of how assets might be divided in your situation, though it is not a substitute for legal advice.

Consent Orders: The Most Common and Cost-Effective Route

For the majority of divorcing couples in England and Wales, a consent order is the most practical way to secure a financial order. If you and your ex-spouse can agree on the terms of your financial settlement, you can submit a draft consent order to the court for approval without the need for lengthy or expensive court proceedings.

The consent order process is significantly cheaper than contested financial proceedings. A solicitor will typically charge £150 to £400 or more per hour to draft a consent order on your behalf, and the court filing fee is currently £53. The total legal cost for a straightforward consent order can range from a few hundred pounds to several thousand, depending on complexity and how much solicitor time is involved.

It is worth noting that while you can draft a consent order yourself, most people find it helpful to at least have a solicitor review the agreement before submitting it to the court. The court will check that the order is fair, but it is not acting as your adviser, and a poorly drafted order can cause serious problems later.

If you are managing your divorce on a tighter budget, resources like our guide to divorcing without a solicitor can help you understand where you can save money and where professional input is genuinely worth the investment.

Once a consent order is approved, it is just as binding as any other court order. If either party fails to comply, the other can return to court to enforce it.

What Happens If There Is No Financial Order in Place?

This is one of the most important questions in divorce law, and the answer surprises many people. In England and Wales, simply getting divorced does not close off financial claims between former spouses. Unless a court order is in place, your ex-partner can make a financial claim against you at almost any point in the future.

This risk does not disappear with time. There is no automatic limitation period that cuts off financial claims after a certain number of years. Courts have the discretion to consider claims made well after the divorce, particularly if there has been a significant change in one party's financial circumstances.

Real-world examples include cases where ex-spouses have successfully claimed a share of lottery winnings, inheritances, or business growth that occurred years after the marriage ended. These cases are not common, but they are entirely avoidable with a properly drafted financial order.

The only way to achieve a definitive clean break is to obtain a clean break order from the court. Even if you and your ex-spouse have informally agreed to have nothing further to do with each other's finances, that informal agreement has no legal standing without a court order to back it up.

If you are concerned about the costs involved in getting a financial order, our guide on how much divorce costs in the UK breaks down typical costs in plain English, including options for keeping costs down.

Divorce Financial Orders in Scotland: Key Differences

It is important to note that divorce financial law in Scotland is quite different from England and Wales. Scotland has its own legal system, and financial settlements on divorce are governed by the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985 rather than the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.

Some key differences include:

Feature	England and Wales	Scotland
Governing law	Matrimonial Causes Act 1973	Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985
Division principle	Fairness, starting from equal sharing	Equal sharing of matrimonial property is the default
Matrimonial property	Broadly defined, includes pre-marital assets in some cases	Strictly limited to assets acquired during the marriage (with some exceptions)
Conduct of parties	Rarely considered	Generally not taken into account
Time limits	No time limit on financial claims after divorce	Financial claims must generally be made within one year of divorce

The Scottish system is generally considered more predictable, because the starting point is clearly defined in statute and the scope of what counts as matrimonial property is more tightly drawn. For example, assets owned before the marriage or received as a gift or inheritance during the marriage are generally excluded from the pool to be divided.

If you are divorcing in Scotland, our complete guide to divorce in Scotland covers the process and your financial rights in detail.