On a divorce, clients will always be advised to document any financial agreement they might have reached with their spouse in a formal order of the court, known as a consent order. A question often asked of family lawyers is whether the court simply "rubberstamps" any agreement reached? Even in cases where the parties have reached a full agreement, the court has a duty to consider the overall fairness of that agreement, and ensure that, once implemented, the parties are both going to be in a position to meet their respective needs and those of any children.

When lodging a financial agreement with the court, the proposed order must always be accompanied by a brief statement (known as a D81) documenting brief details of the relationship and the parties' respective resources. The idea being that this statement provides enough information for the court to consider whether or not the agreement reached is fair, and importantly, within the parameters of what a court might have ordered had their involvement been required.  

Another of the (many!) recent changes in family law is an overhaul of this document. The new D81 (to be used on all new consent order applications unless signed prior to 18 February 2022) goes into significantly more detail than the previous version of the form. Practitioners are hopeful that, whilst it may take a little longer to complete, providing the additional information to the court will result in fewer applications being returned with questions about why the assets/income stream have been dealt with in a particular way.