Has anyone written their own Clean Break Consent Order?

[BlueBorrage]

Hi,
I'm reaching the final stages of divorce from my DH and as neither of us has any noteworthy assets/ saving we are hoping to do things as cheap as possible, including drafting our own consent order. Has anyone been able to successfully create their own draft consent order and get it approved by court without consulting solicitor? Please note we have always had separate finances, rent privately and can't afford solicitor fees especially as need to look to rent elsewhere and costs associated moving.

Any advise / templates used etc would be much appreciated!

not much to help but i'd be interested too! bumping this thread

Google is your friend!

We came to the agreement ourselves but as I remember we still needed a solicitor to submit to the court. This was a few years ago now though.

Years ago now but my ex and I did a DIY divorce and used a fixed price online service for the clean break consent order.

Can you recommend what site you used? I'm similar to the OP, rented home, always had separate finances, always earnt the same amount so pensions are equal, no assets etc. both happy to walk away without claiming anything from each other etc but it's like a minefield which just looks like it will be £££££ to solicitors just to say I want nothing

I’m sorry, it was too long ago.

There do seem to be plenty of options though.

fixed price consent order

Thank you, I always worry about scams when just googling, always prefer a personal recommendation

I’m away from home at the moment. I’ll see if I can dig out the paperwork when I get back.

We wrote it pretty much, but a solicitor tweaked it for the legal draft.

we used ADVICE NOW guides linked above,

what I would add, is if your consent order is not exaclty 50:50, or meeting all the clauses in the Legal “fair settlement” clauses, a court could throw it out, or at very least ask questions and get you to reword. There are historic posts on here with just that and outright court rejections. One way to give court confidence is to BOTH get legal advice anyway. So in my case, I got my solicitor to do final legal draft from our best attempts. She didn’t need to do much, and she also posted the D81 and consent order online to courts - something the petitioner couldn’t get access to in 2021, only solicitors could. Agian lots of posts here of docs going astray in system using postal method. She charged me £300 in total .
exh , reluctantly, went to solicit for 40 mins “advice “ (he didn’t want to spend money ) so that he could record on consent order the solicitor name and that he’d taken advice, so court could be confident we both knew what we were doing. it cost him £200

in total total fees and solicitor costs came to £1400 ish . Very easy,quick stress free divorce . Advice now guides are brilliant.

We had mediation and they did all the legal side once we'd reached an agreement. Cost tons since ex was a dick and it went on for months, but if you've got an agreement then you'd only need one session. Wonder if this is an option for you?

My Pension Sharing Order and Consent Order were submitted to court just before Christmas. I did the divorce DIY and used a fixed price solicitor for the Consent Order and PSO. If you don't want a PSO its is cheaper. I paid £650 I think all in, think it is £500 for just the consent order.

I randomly picked from a google search. So far so good, the person I was assigned is good, responsive etc. Answered all my questions and been really helpful. Saying that who knows the court haven't approved it yet, she might have made a right cock up, the next few weeks will tell!!!!

Don't mind giving you the details by PM if you want.

Just an update for those planning to write their own consent order. I got a letter today stating in has been approved and stamped copy. Managed in the end to do whole divorce without solicitors, but this only possible as neither had any significant savings/ assets. Used the draft template available on online divorce site (forgot name of site). So goes to show it can be approved as DIY.

Relief.

👏👏👏well done
please would you now consider using your experience on this site to help others, following board etc
myself and Anita steer a lot of folks to good sites like ADVICE NOW, to try to convince women they can do a lot themselves and avoid huge solicitor bills

@BlueBorrage awesome, great news. I considered writing my own but needed a pension sharing order too. My solicitor drafted and submitted to court and will help with any questions from the judge but that's all. I've had to do a fair bit of correspondence with the pension companies as exh is a bit useless and has a CBA attitude to the whole thing.

You didn't get any questions from the court/judge? When did you submit? Mine went in on the 20 December so am on tenter hooks checking email hourly!

We wanted to draft CO ourselves but could not find a single template Mesher Order. Everything online seemed to scaremonger about wasting money if we didn't involve a solicitor to get the legal language right. I had my friend's draft CO to clone, but she didn't have a MO and I could not find a single example to copy. In the end, the MO was like 2 sentences, so simple. Could not find a DIY guide, either. I was so confused the entire time, though, I always wanted & never found a simple flow chart of the steps to do.

We used a Wikivorce service in end only for writing the CO; they were very very very slow but otherwise satisfactory, and good price.

Hope your comes through soon! I posted mine around 18th of December and got final order 11th of January. Glad it didn’t take any longer! I did not get any further questions etc and had it accepted without detailed pension details as explained in the D81 neither had any significant pension funds.

I wanted to tell others that it can be done, as lots of sites (no doubt run by solicitors) make it seem like it wont be possible. Hopefully this will give others confidence to do it themselves IF no significant finances involved.

These are the (de-identified) clauses relating to our mesher order, free to insert in your own CO. Responding party is my xH because I am one who mostly moved out. I suspect we could just name each other specifically, Mr. x-pbkid etc, instead, to avoid the huge confusion I feel about words like "Respondent" etc.

We made the case elsewhere why we wanted the MO, to avoid me getting a CGT penalty. It was only way. Actually rereading this I am happy we used solicitor. I don't understand most of it well, and certainly didn't know to write these things without their help.

15. With effect from the making of this order and the final order the family home shall be held by the applicant and the respondent upon a trust of land for themselves as beneficial tenants in common in equal shares upon the following terms: a. the parties shall both be entitled to occupy the property until the determining event as defined below; b. the property shall not be sold without the prior written consent of both parties or further order until the first to happen of the following events (“the determining event”): i. 1 Aug 2024 when the parties’ youngest child finishes his A-levels at Amazing High School; ii. further order of the court; c. the respondent shall be financially responsible for any routine maintenance and decorative repairs to the property; d. the cost of insuring the property and of carrying out structural repairs shall be the responsibility of both parties equally, provided that no works of structural repair shall be carried out to the property unless agreed by the parties or ordered by the court; e. the respondent will be solely responsible for the household bills; f. on or before the determining event if both parties agree in writing, then rather than selling the property on the open market one party can buy the other party out at a price agreed by both parties, or based on the estimates provide by three estate agents; and g. upon sale of the property, the net proceeds shall be divided in accordance with the beneficial interests declared above.

Order for sale
16. Upon the determining events at paragraphs 15a-15g the family home will be placed on the open market for sale and the following conditions will apply:
a. the property shall be sold for such price as may be agreed between the
parties or in default of agreement determined by the court;
b. both parties shall have conduct of the sale;
c. the parties’ jointly instructed Solicitors shall have the conduct of the
conveyancing work relating to the sale;
d. such estate agents as may be agreed between the parties or in default of
agreement determined by the court shall offer the property for sale; and
e. the proceeds of sale shall be applied as follows:
i. to discharge any monies outstanding to Sovereign Housing;
ii. in payment of the parties’ jointly instructed solicitors’ conveyancing
costs and disbursements in connection with the sale;
iii. in payment of the estate agents’ charges;
iv. in payment of balance in equal shares to the Applicant and the Respondent.

Yes having access to online resources on divorce is so important as these high solicitors' costs shouldn't be the norm.
So glad you could do your divorce yourself and avoid the high costs! I'm glad websites like iamlip.com, advice now and the one you used are around because paying thousands just for emails and correspondence in this cost of living crisis is insane.

In case anyone here needs it, here's another template that may be useful to you x - https://iamlip.com/statements-documents-and-bundles-you-will-need-to-produce-for-the-court/your-draft-consent-order-explained/

Got an email from my el cheapo solicitor today, consent order and PSO was approved by the court on the 16th Jan. No questions to answer. Phew!

Hi! Great to hear you got it done yourself.
I too am now at this stage of life so would really appreciate a step by step on how you did this if you don't mind?
We too will have nothing to share, no pensions, property, bank accounts/savings or children etc. Just a plain clean break.
Thank you!!