financial clean break

financial clean break order - no financial transactions

£300

This service is intended only for dismissing any future claims by one party against the other. It is not suitable for couples with children under 18. Where there are children, please see our financial clean break service - with financial transactions. You may think that a financial clean break order is not applicable to you because you have already dealt with all financial matters when you separated. But this would still leave the door open for one of you to make a claim in the future against the other. If you want to be absolutely sure that neither of you will have any future claim against the other, the only way of doing this is to apply for a Financial Clean Break Order in the final stages of your divorce proceedings.

This service is suitable for you if you have already done one or more of the following:

• divorce proceedings have been instituted or are shortly to be instituted
• payment of a sum of money by one spouse to the other
• transfer of the whole (or a share) of the matrimonial home or other property from one party to the other
• transfer of the whole (or a share) of the proceeds of an endowment policy from one party to the other
• sale of a matrimonial asset and the division of the proceeds between you in fixed percentages
• division of the matrimonial assets such as the contents of the former matrimonial home, joint savings and investments, the classic car, etc.

Your Financial Clean Break Order, stamped by the judge, will then:

• ratify the financial provisions in a previously made separation agreement
• confirm that all previous financial agreements are final
• confirm that the parties shall retain their own assets and will not lay claim to those of the other party at any time in the future
• and ensure that neither party will have any claim in the future against the other party (including pensions, inheritances or against the other's estate when he or she dies)

For more information on financial matters please see the financial information section on this website.

How our service works

1 You must have agreed with your spouse that neither of you will have any future claims against the other's income, assets, pension or an inheritance yet to come.

2 You place your order for a financial clean break and will receive our questionnaire by email. When you have completed this, you should return it to us by email, fax or post.

3 We will prepare the Financial Statement of Information needed for a consent order based on your replies in the questionnaire and email this to you for your approval. (Even though there will be no payments or transfers involved between you and your spouse, the judge will still need to have an overview of each of your current financial positions before he is prepared to make a legally binding and final Clean Break Order).

4 We will then finalise the rest of the paperwork and send you hard copies of the clean break consent order in duplicate, together with the final version of the statement of information, the application and the two notices, ready for signing.

5 You and your spouse must check and sign the documents and return them to us with a cheque made payable to 'HMCS' for the court fee (currently £40). We will check all the documents again and then file them in the court office. Our email advice service continues until you receive the final order from the court.

Disclaimer

Please note that in relation to our Financial Clean Break services we will endeavour to obtain from the Court a Financial Consent Order reflecting the terms of a private financial settlement which you have already reached direct with your spouse. However, neither we nor any of our appointed solicitors can advise you with regard to the value of your potential application for ancillary relief (or that of your spouse), nor the reasonableness of any agreement that you may have reached direct with your spouse without full disclosure of income and assets etc, and consideration of the relevant statutory factors. The service we offer is strictly limited to the steps detailed above.