Clean break order vs consent order: what's the difference?
The short answer
A clean break is not a different kind of order. It is a clause inside a consent order. The consent order is the sealed court document that records whatever you and your ex have agreed; the clean break clause is the part of it that dismisses every future financial claim you have against each other, so neither of you can come back for more.
So the real question is almost never "which one do I need". It is "does my consent order contain a clean break, or does it leave something running". Both versions exist, and both are sometimes right. What you cannot do is have a clean break without a consent order, because a clean break is only worth anything once a judge has sealed it.
Why this is confusing in the first place
Because the market sells them as two products. Search for either term and you will find firms offering a "clean break order" for £179 and a "consent order" for £499, as though you are choosing between them. You are not. You are choosing between two descriptions of the same court application, priced differently because the underlying agreements are different sizes.
There is no separate clean break application form. There is no second court fee. HMCTS does not have a clean break department. There is one route, and it produces one document.
What a clean break actually does
It closes the door, in both directions, on claims arising from the marriage. A full clean break dismisses your claims against each other for:
- Income, meaning spousal maintenance, which the statute calls periodical payments
- Capital, meaning lump sums
- Property, meaning transfers of a house or any other asset
- Pensions, meaning pension sharing and pension attachment
- Your estate, meaning a claim against your money after you die, under section 15 of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975
That last one is the clause most people have never heard of and the one that most often goes missing from a cheap draft. Without it, a former spouse who never remarried can turn up as a claimant against your estate, and the people who have to deal with that are your executors and whoever you left your money to.
Parliament expects the court to think about all of this on every divorce. Section 25A(1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 puts the court under a duty to consider whether it can end the parties' financial obligations to each other "as soon after the making of the order as the court considers just and reasonable". That is a duty to consider, not a presumption in favour, which is why a clean break is common but never automatic.
What a clean break does not touch: child maintenance. A clean break is a clean break between the two of you, not between a parent and a child. Child maintenance runs through the Child Maintenance Service or a private arrangement, and no wording in a consent order signs that obligation away.
What a consent order actually does
It converts an agreement into something a court will enforce. Until a judge seals it, what you have is a private understanding, and a private understanding does not stop either of you applying to court for a financial order later. That is true of a handshake, an email, and a formally drafted separation agreement your solicitor charged you for.
The consent order is where the enforceability comes from. It can contain almost anything you have agreed: the house transferred to one of you, a lump sum paid by instalments, a pension shared 60/40, maintenance for four years, or nothing at all except a mutual dismissal of claims. Our fuller guide to what a consent order is and what it costs walks through the drafting and the reasons judges send orders back.
Procedurally it is one envelope. GOV.UK sets out what goes in it: the draft consent order signed by both of you plus two photocopies, a statement of information (Form D81), and a notice of an application for a financial order. You cannot file it until your conditional order has been granted, and you should not leave it until after the final order. The fee is £62.
The four situations you can actually end up in
Once you stop thinking of these as alternatives, the real choices become visible. There are four, and only one of them is a mistake.
| What you have | What it means | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Consent order with an immediate clean break | Everything is settled now and all claims are dismissed on both sides, including pensions and claims on death. | Most couples with no ongoing maintenance, whether they have £400,000 to divide or nothing at all. |
| Consent order with a deferred clean break | Maintenance runs for a fixed term, then all claims end. The court can add a direction under section 28(1A) barring any application to extend the term. | Someone who needs a few years to retrain or get back into work, where the aim is independence rather than permanence. |
| Consent order with no clean break | Ongoing maintenance with no end date, and claims left open. | Long marriages with a large, entrenched earning gap, or ill health. Uncommon, and it should be a decision rather than an oversight. |
| No order at all | You divorced, you split things informally, nothing was ever sealed. Your claims against each other remain open indefinitely. | Nobody. This is the one that costs people money years later. |
Why you want a clean break even when you own nothing
This is the argument people wave away, and it is the one with the case law behind it.
Kathleen Wyatt and Dale Vince married on 18 December 1981. They stopped living together in early 1984, a little over two years later, and their decree absolute was granted on 26 October 1992. Neither of them had anything worth arguing about, so no financial order was ever made. Mr Vince went on to build the green energy company Ecotricity after the marriage ended.
In 2011 Ms Wyatt applied for a lump sum. That is 19 years after the decree absolute, and 27 years after they had last lived together. He applied to strike the claim out and, on 11 March 2015, the Supreme Court held in Wyatt v Vince that it could not be struck out: her application disclosed a legally recognisable claim, however formidable its difficulties, so it had to be heard. The claim was settled the following year with a lump sum of £300,000 in full and final satisfaction of every form of relief, approved by Mr Justice Cobb at a hearing on 20 May 2016.
The number that should focus the mind is not the settlement. By the time it was agreed he had already been ordered to pay her £200,000 towards her Supreme Court costs and £125,000 back in December 2012. A marriage that produced two years of cohabitation and no assets eventually cost him over £600,000, because nothing was ever dismissed.
The pension is the modern version of the same risk. A pension pot you have been quietly paying into for two decades is often the largest thing either of you owns, and it is the asset most likely to be left dangling by a DIY draft. If your claims were never dismissed, it is still reachable.
Remarriage is not a substitute for a clean break. Section 28(3) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 stops a person who has remarried from applying for financial provision or property adjustment, but it bars only the person who remarried, it does not cover every kind of claim, and it depends entirely on them choosing to marry again. That is somebody else's decision to make about your money.
When a clean break is not on the table
Plenty of the time it is the wrong answer, and any page that tells you otherwise is selling something. The court is looking at whether one of you can adjust to independence "without undue hardship", in the words of section 25A(2), and sometimes the honest answer is no.
An immediate clean break usually works when
- You both have your own income, or the gap between them is small
- There is enough capital to compensate for giving up any claim to income
- No dependent children, or child arrangements that leave both of you able to work
- Short marriage, similar pensions, nothing complicated
Push back on it when
- One of you gave up a career for the children and cannot simply resume it
- The earning gap is large and permanent, after a long marriage
- Your children are young enough that full-time work is not realistic yet
- There is a pension worth more than the house and nobody has valued it properly
- Ill health or disability limits what one of you can earn
A long marriage preceded by years of living together is worth flagging: courts in England and Wales can treat seamless cohabitation that moves into marriage as part of the relationship's length rather than ignoring it, which cuts against the "it was only a short marriage" argument. If that is your situation, it is worth an hour of a solicitor's time before you agree to give up a claim to income.
Where an immediate clean break is too harsh, the deferred version is usually the sensible middle: maintenance for a defined term, then the door closes. Our guide to how spousal maintenance is decided goes through what the court weighs and how long a term tends to be.
What does a clean break consent order cost?
Two numbers. The court fee, which is fixed, and whatever you pay someone to draft it, which is not.
The court fee for a financial order by consent is £62, checked on GOV.UK on 17 August 2026. It does not change because your order contains a clean break.
Drafting is where the spread is. These are advertised prices read off each provider's own page on 17 August 2026.
£62HMCTS court fee, whether or not the order includes a clean break clause. Checked on GOV.UK 17 August 2026.
| Provider | Advertised price | What you are actually buying |
|---|---|---|
| expressdivorce.co.uk | £179 | A drafted clean break order, described as prepared by an experienced divorce lawyer. A "fully managed" upgrade is a further £129. The page does not say whether the price includes VAT. |
| divorce-online.co.uk | £269 including VAT | A fixed-fee clean break consent order service. The £62 court fee is stated separately as extra. |
| familylawservice.co.uk | £499 including VAT | Drafted by paralegals, not solicitors, and the page says so. Explicitly excludes pension sharing, spousal maintenance, a business, more than one property, and any advice on whether your deal is fair. You file it yourself. |
| ols-solicitors.co.uk | £799 plus VAT | Solicitor drafting, review of the arrangement, Form D81, submission to court, and follow-up if the judge raises queries. |
Two things about that table are worth more than the headline numbers.
First, the prices are not like-for-like, and the VAT treatment is where it bites. £499 including VAT and £799 plus VAT look like a £300 gap. At 20% VAT the second is £958.80, so the real gap is closer to £460, and one of the two is drafted by a solicitor.
Second, look at what the cheaper tiers exclude. The £499 service rules out pension sharing and tells you plainly that it does not advise on whether your terms are fair. That is not a criticism, it is an honest scope statement, and it happens to describe precisely the two things that make a clean break risky. If you have a pension worth arguing about, the cheap tier is not cheaper. It is a different product.
If you want the wider picture on where consent order fees sit inside the total, our breakdown of what a UK divorce costs prices every route side by side.
The mistake that undoes the whole exercise: a clean break that forgets the pension. Dismissing income and capital claims while leaving pension claims alive is not a clean break, it is a partial one with a hole in it. If either of you has a substantial pot, this is the point where paid advice stops being optional.
Common questions
Do I need a clean break order or a consent order?
Both, because they are the same document. You apply for a consent order and you ask for it to contain a clean break clause. There is no separate application, no separate court fee and no second trip to the court. If a provider sells you a "clean break order", what you are buying is a consent order whose terms are a clean break.
Can I get a clean break if we have nothing to split?
Yes, and that is the situation where a clean break earns its keep most obviously. Having nothing to divide is not the same as having nothing to protect. Without a sealed order your claims against each other stay open after the final order, so a pension, an inheritance or a business you build in fifteen years' time is still reachable.
Does a clean break stop child maintenance?
No. A clean break ends financial claims between the two adults. It has no effect on what either of you owes your children. Child maintenance in England and Wales runs through the Child Maintenance Service or a private arrangement, and no clause in a consent order can sign that obligation away.
Can a clean break order be overturned later?
Rarely, and the routes are narrow. The main ones are fraudulent non-disclosure, where the Supreme Court decided Sharland v Sharland and Gohil v Gohil on 14 October 2015, and a Barder event: something unforeseen soon after the order that destroys the assumption it was built on. Regretting the deal is not a ground. Take advice before you sign, not after.
Sources
Everything above leans on these. Primary sources where they exist.
- Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, section 25A – the court's duty to consider terminating financial obligations, and the "without undue hardship" test in section 25A(2). Checked 17 August 2026.
- Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, section 28 – the section 28(1A) direction barring an application to extend a maintenance term, and the section 28(3) remarriage bar. Checked 17 August 2026.
- Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, section 15 – the court's power to order that a former spouse may not claim against the estate on death. Checked 17 August 2026.
- Wyatt v Vince [2015] UKSC 14 – the marriage, separation and decree absolute dates, the 2011 application, and the refusal to strike it out on 11 March 2015. Checked 17 August 2026.
- Wyatt v Vince [2016] EWHC 1368 (Fam) – the £300,000 lump sum in full and final settlement approved on 20 May 2016, and the earlier costs awards of £200,000 and £125,000. Checked 17 August 2026.
- GOV.UK – Apply for a consent order – the £62 court fee, the documents you send, and the fact you cannot apply before your conditional order. Checked 17 August 2026.
- Provider pricing pages for expressdivorce.co.uk, divorce-online.co.uk, familylawservice.co.uk and ols-solicitors.co.uk – the £179 to £799 plus VAT range and each service's stated scope. Checked 17 August 2026.