Reaching agreement with your former partner about property, superannuation or parenting arrangements is a significant achievement, and it deserves proper protection, particularly given the practical realities of separation in Australia. Consent orders are how you make that agreement legally binding. You file your agreed terms with the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, a registrar reviews them, and once approved they carry the same legal force as orders made by a judge after a hearing, without either party attending a Sydney courtroom.

The filing fee is $215. Approval usually takes between four and twelve weeks, and in NSW there is a further reason to formalise your agreement: property transferred under consent orders is generally exempt from transfer duty. On a Sydney home, that single exemption often exceeds the entire cost of preparing the orders.

Key takeaways

• Consent orders give a private agreement the force of a court order, enforceable in the same way as orders made by a judge.
• The court filing fee is $215 from 1 July 2026. One application can deal with property and parenting together.
• Property transferred under consent orders is generally exempt from NSW transfer duty, often the largest saving in a settlement.
• A registrar decides most applications on the papers. Neither party attends court.
• Time limits apply: 12 months after a divorce order takes effect, or two years after a de facto separation.

What are consent orders?

Start with what the court actually does. You and your former partner settle your terms, lodge them with the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, and a registrar reviews the application under the Family Law Act 1975. There is no trial. The registrar reads the papers, applies the legal tests, and either makes the orders or raises a requisition asking the parties to address a concern. That approval is what turns a private agreement into consent orders, and it is the core of our consent orders service.

That step matters more than it may first appear. Until orders are made, a signed agreement offers limited protection: your former partner could comply with it for years and still bring a property application later, because nothing in the document extinguishes the right to do so. Court approval extinguishes it. From that point the terms are enforceable, and a party who ignores a parenting order, or refuses to sign a transfer required by a property order, can be brought back before the court.

What can consent orders cover?

Most applications deal with the division of property, and for good reason: property orders are where the transfer duty exemption and the finality provisions do their work. Superannuation splitting usually sits alongside, since a fund trustee will only act on binding orders or a compliant financial agreement. Parenting arrangements can be included too, covering where the children live, how they spend time with each parent and, often the most carefully negotiated point, who holds responsibility for major long-term decisions. Spousal maintenance and liability for joint debts complete the usual scope. A single application for consent orders can cover all of it, for one filing fee.

Are consent orders legally binding?

Yes. Once approved, consent orders have the same legal effect as orders made by a judge after a contested hearing, and the court’s enforcement powers apply to them in full.

For property matters, orders made under section 79 also finalise the financial relationship between the parties. Neither party can bring a further property claim in the future, other than on very limited grounds. This finality is precisely the protection an informal agreement cannot provide.

Consent orders vs the alternatives

Couples who have reached agreement usually consider three other options. Two of them offer considerably less protection than they may appear to.

Binding financial agreement vs consent orders

A binding financial agreement (BFA) is a private contract that the court never reviews. That independence is both its purpose and its principal weakness. Consent orders are assessed by a registrar against the “just and equitable” test before they take effect. A BFA depends entirely on strict technical compliance, including certificates of independent legal advice for both parties under section 90G, and agreements that fall short of those requirements are set aside with some regularity.

In practice, a BFA suits circumstances in which the court cannot or would not make orders, such as arrangements made before marriage, or terms a registrar may consider one-sided. For a standard separation where the agreement is broadly fair, consent orders are less expensive, more secure, and attract the same duty treatment. When we advise clients on a binding financial agreement vs consent orders, the orders are the appropriate choice in the majority of matters.

Consent orders vs a parenting plan

A parenting plan is a written, signed agreement about the children, and it is not enforceable. If one parent stops following it, the other parent’s only recourse is to begin the process again. Parenting consent orders, by contrast, can be enforced through the court.

A parenting plan may suit cooperative co-parents who value flexibility and expect goodwill to continue. Where informal arrangements have previously not been honoured, orders provide certainty and a clear framework that both parents can rely upon.

Consent orders vs an informal agreement

An informal property agreement, however amicable, does not finalise anything. Your former partner remains entitled to file a court application years later, and the asset pool is assessed at its value at that time, including everything you have built since separation. An informal transfer also forfeits the stamp duty exemption on any property transfer. If you have reached agreement, formalising it is the prudent course.

How much do consent orders cost in Australia?

Three figures are relevant: the court fee, the legal fees, and the stamp duty you avoid paying.

The court filing fee

The government charge is $215, current from 1 July 2026. Court fees are indexed each July. One fee covers a combined parenting and property application. Full fee exemptions are available for eligible concession card holders and applicants experiencing financial hardship.

Fixed-fee vs hourly legal costs

Legal costs are where quotes differ most. Hourly billing on a consent orders matter typically ranges between $2,500 and $6,000 or more, depending on the extent of negotiation and disclosure involved, and costs increase with each round of amendments. Fixed-fee consent order packages, which our firm offers, price the drafting, advice and filing in advance. For a couple who have already agreed on terms, a defined piece of legal work is generally better suited to a fixed fee than to hourly billing, and the same applies to our broader property settlement work.

Stamp duty on property transfers under consent orders

This is the saving many separating couples are unaware of. In NSW, a transfer of property between separating spouses or de facto partners made under consent orders (or a BFA) is generally exempt from transfer duty under section 68 of the Duties Act 1997 (NSW). If the same interest is transferred informally, without orders or a BFA, Revenue NSW charges full duty on the value transferred. On a typical Sydney property, the difference routinely amounts to tens of thousands of dollars, and it is often the strongest financial reason to formalise an agreement. The stamp duty consent orders exemption alone usually exceeds the associated legal fees several times over.

How to apply for consent orders

The process of obtaining consent orders proceeds in sequence:

1. Agree the terms, covering property division, superannuation, parenting arrangements, or all of these.
2. Draft the documents: the Application for Consent Orders together with the proposed orders, prepared using the court’s current proposed-orders template. Since 31 October 2025, the court requires the proposed orders in two formats: a signed PDF and an unsigned Word version.
3. Sign and disclose. Both parties sign, and both provide full financial disclosure. The duty of disclosure is now contained in the Act itself (section 71B for married couples and section 90RI for de facto couples), not only in the court rules. Parenting applications also require a Notice of Child Abuse, Family Violence or Risk from each party.
4. File via the Commonwealth Courts Portal. All documents are lodged electronically and the $215 fee is paid online.
5. Registrar review. A registrar assesses the application on the papers.
6. Orders made. Sealed orders issue through the portal. No hearing or attendance is required.

The self-represented route: the Application for Consent Orders kit

The court publishes an application for consent orders kit, and parties may lodge without legal representation. The risk lies not in completing the forms but in what the documents commit you to. We regularly review self-prepared consent orders that omit a superannuation interest, leave a joint debt unallocated, or express property orders imprecisely enough that Revenue NSW questions the duty exemption. The registrar assesses whether the agreement is fair; no one at the court assesses whether it is complete. For a straightforward matter, a sensible approach is to conduct the negotiation between yourselves and have a lawyer prepare and review the documents.

How long do consent orders take?

In most matters, between four and twelve weeks from filing to sealed orders, depending on the workload of the Sydney registry at the time. Parenting-only applications tend to be processed more quickly; property applications involving superannuation splits sit at the longer end of the range.

Delay is rarely caused by the court itself. It is more commonly caused by the preparation stage: slow disclosure, the superannuation trustee’s procedural fairness period, or a requisition from the registrar asking the parties to amend or justify a term. Each can add several weeks.

Two deadlines apply throughout. Married couples must apply for property or spousal maintenance orders within 12 months of the divorce order taking effect. De facto couples have two years from separation. Outside those windows, the court’s leave to apply out of time is required under section 44, and leave is granted sparingly rather than routinely. Couples who are separated but not yet divorced have no deadline running, and there is a strong argument for filing consent orders before applying for divorce rather than after.

How the court decides whether to approve

The registrar’s review is a genuine assessment, not a formality. Two different tests apply.

Property settlement consent orders: the just and equitable test

For property, the registrar works through the same four steps a judge would apply under section 79. In plain terms: what is in the pool (assets, liabilities and superannuation, whether held jointly or individually); what each party contributed, both financial and non-financial, noting that raising children and managing a household are recognised contributions; what each party’s future needs are, including income disparity, health and the care of children; and whether the overall outcome is just and equitable. Orders that would leave one party with a plainly disproportionate result are requisitioned or refused, which is why applications proposing that one party retain everything are commonly returned.

Parenting consent orders: the best interests test

For children, the test is whether the proposed arrangements are in the child’s best interests, assessed against the section 60CC factors, which were substantially revised when the Family Law Amendment Act 2023 reforms commenced in May 2024. The former presumption of equal shared parental responsibility no longer exists. Registrars now consider safety, the child’s views and developmental needs, and the benefit of the child’s relationship with each parent, rather than applying any preset formula.

Superannuation in consent orders

Superannuation is often the second-largest asset in the pool and the one most frequently mishandled. A fund cannot simply be asked to transfer money to a former partner; trustees may only act on a splitting order or a compliant BFA. Including superannuation in consent orders involves valuing the interest (a Form 6 request to the trustee obtains the necessary information), drafting a splitting order under the Act’s superannuation provisions, and according the trustee procedural fairness, which means providing the fund with the draft orders and allowing it to confirm they can be implemented before filing. If this step is omitted, the registrar will return the application. Properly completed, the split transfers the agreed amount into the receiving party’s superannuation fund; it does not become accessible cash.

Can consent orders be changed or set aside?

The property and parenting components are treated very differently once orders are made.

Property orders are close to final, and setting aside final property orders is only possible on narrow grounds under section 79A, including fraud, non-disclosure, impracticability, or exceptional circumstances involving hardship to a child. A change of mind is not sufficient. That finality is intentional: it is what finalising the financial relationship means.

Parenting orders can be revisited, but not freely. Following the principle in Rice v Asplund, now reflected in the Act, a party must generally demonstrate a significant change in circumstances before the court will reconsider final parenting orders, such as a relocation, a safety concern, or a substantial shift in a child’s needs. Stability for the child is the court’s starting position.

Ready to make your agreement final?

Reaching agreement is the difficult part; consent orders are how you preserve it. For a $215 filing fee and a defined piece of legal work, you obtain enforceability, finality in your financial relationship, and, for most NSW property transfers, a duty exemption that typically exceeds the cost of the exercise many times over.

Contact us to book a confidential consultation with a Sydney family lawyer and have your agreement drafted, reviewed and filed the first time correctly.