⚠ You need everything on this list before you start, not while drafting
Stopping mid-draft to phone a pension provider or dig through the loft for a mortgage statement is why people leave the tool for a week and never come back. Gather everything first. Draft second. If both of you gather your own side in parallel, the whole thing takes an afternoon.
1. Divorce case details
The Consent Order sits on top of an existing divorce case. The court needs to link them.
What to gather
- Divorce case number (starts with the year — on your Certificate of Entitlement or your gov.uk online divorce dashboard)
- Court name that issued the divorce (e.g. "Bury St Edmunds Regional Divorce Centre")
- Date of the Conditional Order (you can't apply for a Consent Order before this)
- Whether it's a joint or sole application (and if sole, who's the applicant)
- Marriage date and marriage location (from the marriage certificate)
- Separation date (the date you started living apart, even under the same roof)
2. Both parties' personal details
The order needs to identify both parties precisely — court files with mismatched addresses or names get queried.
For each spouse
- Full legal name (as on the marriage certificate)
- Current residential address (post code, not just street)
- Date of birth
- Occupation and gross annual income
- Solicitor details (if either party has one — otherwise "Litigant in Person")
- Number of dependent children and their dates of birth (children under 18, or 18–20 in full-time education)
3. Family home
Even if the house is being kept by one party, the order records what's happening to it.
What to gather
- Full property address
- Names on the title deed (both spouses jointly, one spouse, or a third party)
- Current market value (estate agent letters, RICS valuation, or a Zoopla estimate if the split isn't contentious)
- Outstanding mortgage balance (latest statement — 3 months old max)
- Mortgage lender and account number
- Monthly mortgage payment
- Whether it's the primary residence or a rental / second home
- Agreed outcome — sale (with % split), transfer to one party (with any buy-out figure), or deferred sale (Mesher)
4. Any other properties
Second homes, buy-to-lets, holiday properties, land, garages — anything jointly or singly owned.
For each property
- Address
- Legal owner(s)
- Current value and outstanding mortgage
- Whether it's kept by one party, sold, or transferred
5. Pensions
This is where most drafts get stuck. Pension figures take longest to get because you have to ask the provider.
For each pension either party holds
- Pension provider name (e.g. "Aviva", "USS", "NHS Pension Scheme")
- Policy or member number
- Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV) — request one from each provider; free once every 12 months, takes 1–3 months to arrive
- Date of the CETV valuation
- Whether it's a defined benefit (final salary), defined contribution, or state pension
- Agreed outcome — pension sharing order (with %), pension offsetting (one party keeps the pension, the other takes more of another asset), or mutual renunciation (neither party claims on the other's pension)
💡 Request CETVs early — they're the long pole
Most pension providers take 4–12 weeks to issue a CETV. Request them the day you decide you're proceeding, not the day you sit down to draft. State Pension forecasts are free and instant from gov.uk. Workplace pensions vary — some take a week, some take three months.
6. Savings, investments and lump sums
What to gather
- All current accounts (bank, account number, balance) — including sole and joint
- All savings accounts and ISAs (provider, balance)
- Investment accounts (Stocks & Shares ISAs, GIAs, Premium Bonds) — provider and current value
- Cryptocurrency holdings (exchange, current GBP value)
- Any lump sum payment agreed between you (amount, who pays whom, when, how — e.g. "£25,000 by cleared funds to the Applicant's solicitor's client account within 28 days of the sealed order")
7. Debts and liabilities
Any debt in either spouse's name — the order specifies who's responsible for what.
What to gather
- Credit card balances (issuer, current balance, whose name)
- Personal loans (lender, outstanding amount, monthly payment)
- Car finance (lender, balance)
- Overdrafts
- Tax liabilities (HMRC arrears, self-assessment owed)
- Anything owed to family members (formal loans only — informal "we'll sort it out later" arrangements don't belong in a Consent Order)
- Agreed outcome for each — one party takes responsibility, or split X/Y
8. Maintenance, if any
Skip this section if you're going for a full clean break — no ongoing maintenance either way.
If maintenance is agreed
- Who pays whom
- Amount per month
- Frequency (monthly, weekly)
- Duration (fixed-term e.g. "5 years", until a trigger e.g. "until the Applicant remarries", or nominal e.g. "£1 per year")
- Payment method (bank transfer, standing order)
- Any variation triggers (e.g. inflation index)
- Whether it's capitalised (paid as a single lump sum instead of monthly)
9. Clean break
The last big decision — do you sever all future financial claims?
Confirm
- Capital clean break — neither party can bring capital claims against the other after this order (yes/no)
- Income clean break — neither party can seek maintenance from the other after this order (yes/no)
- Pension clean break — neither party can claim on the other's pension after this order (yes/no)
- Whether the clean break is immediate (on the sealed order) or deferred (e.g. on the sale of the family home)
💡 Default to a full immediate clean break unless there's a specific reason not to
In an amicable case with no ongoing dependency, a full clean break — capital, income and pension — is standard and expected. It stops a future change in circumstances (inheritance, business success, lottery win) triggering a claim from an ex-spouse. Deferred or partial clean breaks are for cases with ongoing maintenance or a house being kept until the children finish school.
Documents you'll want to have to hand
- Marriage certificate — for names, marriage date and location
- Certificate of Entitlement to a Conditional Order — for the case number and court
- Latest mortgage statement — for the outstanding balance
- Recent property valuation — estate agent letters (three is standard) or RICS report
- CETV letters from every pension provider — for pension figures
- Latest bank / savings / investment statements — one per account, no more than 3 months old
- Debt statements — credit cards, loans, HMRC
- Payslips or SA302 — for income figures (for maintenance calculations)
⚠ Figures on the Consent Order and figures on the D81 must match exactly
The D81 you file alongside the Consent Order restates the same numbers. If the D81 says the house is worth £425,000 and the Consent Order says £430,000, the judge will send it back. Gather each figure once, agree the exact number both of you will use, and stick to it across both documents.
How long the drafting takes once you have everything
With all of the above to hand, drafting an amicable Consent Order using an online tool typically takes:
- Straightforward case — no children, no pensions, one home, clean break: 30–45 minutes.
- Typical case — one home with a mortgage, one or two pensions, a couple of joint savings accounts, clean break: 45–75 minutes.
- More complex case — multiple properties, pension sharing order, spousal maintenance, business interests: 90 minutes to two hours.
The D81 that goes with it takes another 20–30 minutes if you're using a tool that pulls from the same figures.
Ready to draft? Everything gathered = one sitting
With everything on this checklist in hand, Consent Order Online drafts the legally worded Consent Order in one session. The Amicable Bundle adds the D81 builder so the figures flow into both documents from the same source.
- ✓ Legally worded Consent Order in Word format
- ✓ Two free AI Assisted Reviews before you buy
- ✓ D81 builder included with the Amicable Bundle
General information only. This checklist covers the typical information needed for an amicable Consent Order in England and Wales. Individual cases may need more (business valuations, trust interests, overseas assets). Not legal advice. DivorceCompanion is not a law firm. For advice specific to your situation, contact a family law solicitor at solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk.