Can You Get a Consent Order Without Financial Disclosure?

By Jess 11th May 2026 in Consent Orders

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If you and your ex have agreed how to split your finances and you want to keep things simple, the question of whether you really need a consent order without financial disclosure comes up a lot. It feels reasonable. You trust each other, the assets are modest, and you just want to make the agreement legally binding without dragging Form E and bank statements into it. The honest answer is that you can take a lighter approach, but the court will always need some financial information, and skipping disclosure altogether carries real risk. If you want a deeper view of how a properly drafted financial order works, our guide to ending financial ties after divorce sets out the principles that should sit underneath any agreement, with or without full disclosure.

In this guide, we explain what the law actually says, what the D81 form requires, when you can sensibly waive financial disclosure, and the situations where doing so is likely to backfire.

What the Law Says About Financial Disclosure

In contested financial proceedings, full and frank disclosure is a legal duty. Both parties are required to share a complete picture of their income, assets, debts, and pensions, usually via Form E. The court can draw negative inferences if someone fails to disclose, and orders can be set aside for material non-disclosure.

A consent order is different. It is the court approving an agreement you have already reached, rather than the court deciding the outcome itself. Because of that, there is no statutory requirement to exchange Form E or to attach bundles of financial evidence. In that narrow sense, a consent order without financial disclosure between the parties is possible.

However, the court is not a rubber stamp. Under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, a judge has to be satisfied that the order is fair and within the range of reasonable outcomes a court could have made. To do that, they need enough financial information to form a view. That information is provided through the D81 financial disclosure form.

The D81 Form: The Disclosure You Cannot Skip

The D81 is the statement of information for a consent order. Both parties must complete and sign it, and it is submitted to the court alongside the draft order. It includes:

• Capital: net value of the family home, other property, savings, and investments for each party.
• Liabilities: mortgages, loans, credit cards, and any other debts.
• Pensions: the cash equivalent value (CEV) of each pension you hold.
• Income: gross and net income from employment, self-employment, benefits, or investments.
• Future plans: where each of you intends to live and any anticipated change in circumstances.
• Children: any arrangements for the children, including who they live with.

The D81 is signed under a statement of truth. Putting false information on it is a serious matter, and the figures still need to be accurate even if you have not formally exchanged bank statements with each other. That is the most important thing people miss when they ask about a consent order without financial disclosure: the form itself is disclosure, in summary form, made to the court.

Can You Waive Financial Disclosure Between Yourselves?

Yes, in practice many couples do choose to waive financial disclosure as a formal exchange. They agree the outcome based on what they already know about each other’s finances, complete the D81 honestly, and submit the consent order to court. If both parties are confident in the figures, this can be a sensible, low-cost approach.

A solicitor drafting the order may ask both parties to sign a waiver confirming they understand the risk of proceeding without full disclosure. That waiver protects the drafter and makes clear that the decision was an informed one. It does not, however, protect you from a future challenge if it turns out one of you was not honest on the D81.

When a Consent Order Without Financial Disclosure Can Work

A lighter-touch approach to disclosure tends to be reasonable where:

• Finances are simple: one or two bank accounts, employed income, a single property or rental, and no business interests.
• Pensions are modest or already shared: no large defined benefit schemes, no significant disparity between the two of you.
• You both know each other’s position: long marriages with joint financial management, or couples who have already done their own audit.
• The outcome is broadly equal or generous to the financially weaker party: judges scrutinise unequal divisions more closely.
• There is no allegation of hidden assets: any concern at all is a reason to push for proper disclosure.

In these situations, a clean break order with a properly completed D81 is usually approved without the judge raising questions.

When You Should Not Skip Financial Disclosure

There are situations where pushing through a consent order without financial disclosure is a real mistake. Be cautious if any of the following apply:

• There is a business involved: company valuations, director’s loans, and retained earnings are easy to misrepresent.
• There are significant pensions: defined benefit schemes in particular need proper CEVs and often a pensions on divorce expert (PODE) report.
• One of you handled all the finances: the other party may not actually know the full picture, even if they think they do.
• You suspect anything is missing: gut instinct counts here. If you cannot reconcile the lifestyle with the disclosed income, ask for more.
• There is an unequal division of assets: especially if you are taking less than half. The judge will want to see why.
• One of you is moving abroad: enforcement is harder once a party is outside the jurisdiction, so disclosure now is your protection.

In any of these cases, a structured Form E exchange or financial disclosure through mediation is well worth the time and cost. Our Form E completion service guides you through the form line by line, so you can do disclosure properly without paying solicitor rates.

The Risk of Material Non-Disclosure

This is the part people underestimate. A sealed consent order is not as final as it looks. If one party later discovers that the other hid assets or misrepresented their position, they can apply to set the order aside.

The leading authorities are Sharland v Sharland [2015] UKSC 60 and Gohil v Gohil [2015] UKSC 61, both decided by the Supreme Court. In both cases, financial agreements were set aside because of fraudulent non-disclosure by the husband. The court was clear that fraud unravels everything, and that the duty to provide full and frank disclosure applies just as much to a consent order as it does to a contested case.

In practical terms, this means that if your ex puts inaccurate figures on the D81 and you find out years later, you may well have grounds to reopen the financial settlement. The order does not protect them in the way they hoped. But it also means that you, as the receiving party, may be drawn back into expensive litigation long after you thought everything was settled. Proper disclosure at the outset, even if it feels like overkill, is the best protection for both of you.

Mediation as a Middle Ground

If a full solicitor-led Form E exchange feels heavy-handed but you also want more rigour than a kitchen-table chat, family mediation sits neatly in the middle. A mediator will ask both parties to complete a financial summary, share key documents (payslips, recent bank statements, pension valuations, mortgage statements), and work through the numbers together in joint sessions.

The output is an open financial statement that both of you sign off on. That gives the eventual consent order a solid foundation. You have not technically done a Form E exchange, but you have done structured, transparent disclosure, and you have a record of it. From there, the D81 is straightforward to complete, and the order is far less likely to be challenged later.

A Practical Example

Compare that with a case where one party owns a limited company. The accounts show a low salary, dividends fluctuate, and there are loans between the director and the company. You cannot sensibly draft a fair consent order without an open look at the company books. In that situation, skipping disclosure is not a saving, it is a risk.

How to Decide What is Right for You

Three quick questions to ask yourselves:

• Do you both already know, in numbers, what the other has? If you can each write down the other’s assets, income, and pensions to within a few thousand pounds, you are in a strong position to keep things lean.
• Is the agreed outcome roughly fair? If yes, a judge is unlikely to push back. If one of you is taking significantly less, you need to be able to explain why on the D81.
• Is there anything you are not sure about? Unknown pensions, side income, family loans, or property abroad are all reasons to step up to a proper disclosure exchange.

If you can answer the first two with a confident yes and the third with no, you are probably a good candidate for a streamlined approach. If not, taking the time to do proper disclosure now will save a much bigger problem later.

Frequently Asked Questions