Simple Consent Orders?

Hi all, looking for some advice on the Consent Order once we get to that stage…So my wife (53) and I (56) have very amicably applied for a divorce (after 30 years) through Gov.UK digital service and it has been recently accepted. Will be October before we can apply for Conditional Order.
We both work fulltime, and our salaries are very similar. NO mortgage, our kids are over 18 and we are in full agreement to support them until they finally fly the nest(s)
My wife is in the final stages of purchasing a house (similar value to the marital home)
We have drafted up the Land Registry documents for me to buy her out of the marital home 50%
We have enough savings to split 50/50 and for myself to buy her out.
The new house purchase, splitting of savings and Land Registry docs will be complete in the next month or so.
We have agreed that our pension pots are very similar and we are more than happy to leave these alone.
Any other assets like cars, jewellery etc will be split fairly, even down to the IT equipment we use in our jobs.
So… from this you can probably deduce that we will ‘highly likely’ be fully separated and all finances agreed/split by the time we get to October. Question is, how simple can a consent order be? Can it be a simple line in the sand that states that from a certain date forward we have no recourse into each other finances etc? Or, do we need to itemise what we have already done?
We have drafted the D81 form and it looks very balanced.
Any help and advice would be very welcome so that we can complete this whole thing as painlessly as possible.

Well done on being able to reach a settlement with which you are both happy.

The answer to your question is that a consent order can be really simple e.g. the parties retain what they already have and all claims against each other are dismissed.

However you still need to use the court template which, for reasons I won’t bother to go into, is entirely reasonable.

I work in the law and if I was in your position I would pay somebody to draft the order (or at the very least ask a friendly family lawyer to draft the order).

If I wanted to build an extension to my house I would employer an architect rather than present a child’s drawing to a builder with a fist full of cash. The same sort of detail is required for a court order.

The skill to drafting an order is knowing what to leave out AND what to leave in. A family lawyer can whittle down the template in minutes and have a working copy to tweak as required.

Have a look at the template and see if it’s worthwhile paying a fixed fee for the service (such as that offered on this site): www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022...-Order-1-Mar-22.docx

Charles

Thanks Charles, appreciate the response.
I'll take a look at the fixed fee service, probably a great way of sorting this, without the hassle of finding a solicitor.

To be honest, the simple consent order example on this website is perfect for us.
divorce.wikivorce.com/guides-financial-s...-simple-example.html
All property and possessions will already be divided, my wife will own her house outright as will I. We already agree to leave each others pensions alone... and we have no 'dependent' children.

If I transpose the above example into the template it should be fine with the courts?

Does it 'have' to be witnessed by a solicitor or can we use a mutual friend? As per the TR1 Land Registry form.

The order that you draft is to send to the court with your application for an order in the agreed terms. You don't need your signature witnessed.

When the application is submitted to the court with the draft order and court fee, a judge will look at the proposed order and the statement(s) of information and assess whether the order is fair. If so, it will be approved.

Charles

Charles, you are a star, thanks again for the enlightenment!

Another quick question if I may Charles?

There is a section for 'Children of the family' ... Do I still fill this out if they are both over 18?