Lying About Cohabiting on a Form E: What Happens Next?

What Form E Asks About Cohabitation

A Form E is the financial statement used in financial remedy proceedings in England and Wales. Its purpose is to give the court and the other party a complete and honest picture of your finances so that a fair outcome can be reached.

Alongside questions about income, property, savings, pensions and debts, the Form E asks about your personal and living circumstances. In broad terms it asks whether you are living with another person, whether you intend to live with someone within a defined period ahead, and what any new partner contributes towards household expenses. It also asks you to set out your future housing plans and your income needs, both of which are directly affected by whether you are sharing a home and its costs with someone else.

For a fuller explanation of the form and how it fits into the process, see our guide to what a Form E financial statement is.

Expert insight: Questions on Cohabitation in Form E

As at September 2026, Sections 1.8, 1.9 and 4 “Other Information” (subsections 4.5 and 4.6) on the Form E Financial Statement asks for details regarding a new spouse or partner:

• Section 1.8: Asks you to confirm ‘Are you living with a new partner?’

• Section 1.9: Asks you to confirm ‘Do you intend to live with a new partner within the next six months?’

• Section 4.5: Asks you to give details of “Any plans to marry, form a civil partnership or live with a new partner”
• Section 4.6: Asks you to give brief details of the assets of the person you are living with or intend to live with. This includes their annual income, including the nature of the income and the value, if known. It also includes their assets and liabilities.

Why Cohabiting Matters to a Financial Settlement

People are sometimes surprised that a new relationship is any of the court’s business. The reason is practical rather than moral. When a court decides how to divide finances on divorce, it works through the factors in section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Those factors include the income, earning capacity and financial resources each party has or is likely to have, and the financial needs and obligations each party has or is likely to have.

Cohabitation impacts directly on both. Someone sharing a home with a new partner will usually have lower housing costs and lower day-to-day outgoings than someone living alone. Their stated needs, and the housing fund they say they require, may therefore look very different once the true position is known.

It is important to be clear about what cohabitation does not do. A new partner is not a party to the marriage, and their assets and income do not simply become a resource to be divided. The court is generally cautious about treating a new partner’s money as available to meet the other party’s claimed needs. What the court is entitled to consider is the extent to which living with someone reduces a party’s own needs, and whether there is a reasonable expectation that the arrangement will continue.

Cohabitation is also relevant to spousal maintenance. Periodical payments end automatically on the remarriage of the receiving party, but cohabitation does not have the same automatic effect. It can, however, be a strong basis for an application to vary or end maintenance. This is one of the reasons a concealed relationship can matter so much financially.

What Counts as Cohabiting?

There is no single tidy definition of cohabitation for these purposes, which is exactly why disputes arise. Someone may genuinely believe they are not cohabiting while their former spouse is equally certain that they are. The court looks at the substance of the arrangement rather than the label, and weighs factors such as:

• Whether the couple live in the same household, as opposed to one of them staying over regularly.
• Whether their finances are intermingled, for example a joint account, shared bills or a shared mortgage or rental payments.
• How stable and permanent the arrangement appears to be.
• Whether they present themselves publicly as a couple, for example to friends, family, schools or official bodies.
• Whether either of them has moved belongings, pets or children into the property.
• How long the arrangement has lasted, and whether either has given up a separate tenancy or property.

It helps to separate the genuinely borderline from the clearly concealed. A relatively new relationship where one person stays over at weekends, with both retaining their own homes, is a world away from a partner who has moved in, contributes to the mortgage and holds a key. Between those two extremes sits a large grey area, and it is in that grey area that most arguments about Form E answers happen.

Is It a Lie, or an Honest Omission?

This distinction matters more than many people expect. A Form E is demanding; it is often completed under considerable stress, and honest mistakes do happen. Someone may have misjudged when a relationship crossed the line into cohabitation or may have completed the form accurately and then seen their circumstances change.

Two questions tend to shape the court’s response. First, was the non-disclosure deliberate? A conscious decision to conceal a relationship to influence the outcome is treated very differently from a genuine misunderstanding. Second, was it material? The question is whether the true position, had it been disclosed, would have led to a different order. A minor inaccuracy that would not have changed anything is unlikely to justify reopening a settled case.

It is also worth remembering that the duty of disclosure continues. If your circumstances change after you send your Form E, and before a final order is made, you are expected to say so. A form that was accurate when signed can become misleading if left uncorrected. Our guide to what happens after Form E is exchanged explains the stages that follow.

Expert insight: The Form E Materiality Test

The Form E materiality test evaluates whether non-disclosure or inaccuracy in a party’s financial statement was significant enough to have altered the divorce settlement.

The leading authority on the materiality test is Livesey (formerly Jenkins) v Jenkins [1985] AC 424, in which the House of Lords confirmed that a financial order may be set aside where there has been material non-disclosure, even where that non-disclosure was innocent, provided the information would have made a difference to the order. In that case the wife’s failure to disclose her engagement and impending remarriage was found to be material to the order that had been made.

Step by Step: What To Do If You Think Your Former Spouse Lied About Cohabiting

If you suspect a concealed relationship, the order in which you act makes a real difference to how the court will view your case.

1. Resist the urge to investigate yourself. Do not access your former spouse’s email, phone, post or paperwork, and do not ask anyone else to do so. Evidence obtained that way is generally unlawfully obtained and may be inadmissible.. It can also shift the court’s attention from their conduct to yours.
2. Write down what you know and when you learned it. Keep a simple dated note of things you have observed openly, such as a car consistently on the drive, a shared address on correspondence you legitimately received, or something said in front of the children. Facts and dates are far more useful than impressions.
3. Tell your solicitor early. Suspicion raised at the right moment can be dealt with cheaply through the existing court timetable. Suspicion raised late, after a final order, is far harder and more expensive to pursue. It is also worth seeking advice if you are receiving or paying spousal maintenance and the other party’s living arrangements appear to have changed.
4. Raise it through a questionnaire. In financial remedy proceedings, each party can put written questions to the other about their Form E. This is the standard and proportionate route for testing an answer about living arrangements, and it puts the other party on notice that the issue is live.
5. Ask the court for directions. If the answers are evasive or incomplete, the court can order specific disclosure, set a deadline, and make clear what the consequences of non-compliance will be.
6. Consider disclosure from third parties. Where it is justified and proportionate, the court can order people and organisations who are not parties to the case to provide documents or information. There is also a procedure for requiring a person to attend court to produce documents.
7. Take advice about setting aside, if an order has already been made. Where a final order was obtained on the basis of material non-disclosure, it may be possible to apply to have it set aside. Time matters here, so take advice promptly rather than waiting.
8. Keep the response proportionate. Ask yourself, with your solicitor, what difference the concealed information would realistically make to the outcome. Pursuing a point that would not change the order can cost more than it recovers.

What Happens Next: How the Court Responds to Non-Disclosure

Family judges see attempts at concealment regularly, and the court has a well-established set of responses. Understanding them helps explain why non-disclosure is usually a poor strategy.

Further disclosure being ordered

A party can be ordered to provide more information to assess the true nature of the relationship and the financial resources available. This is in the hope that it will allow the case to proceed on a corrected picture of both parties’ circumstances.

Adverse inferences

Where a party has plainly failed to disclose something, the court is not obliged to give them the benefit of the doubt. It can draw sensible inferences against them and proceed on the basis that the reality is less favourable to them than they have admitted. A party who conceals a relationship to overstate their needs may find the court simply declines to accept the needs case they have put forward.

Costs consequences

The general position in financial remedy proceedings is that the court does not make an order that one party pays the other’s costs. Litigation conduct is an important exception. A party who has failed to comply with their disclosure obligations, or who has caused unnecessary work and delay, can find themselves ordered to pay costs that would otherwise have been their former spouse’s to bear.

Contempt of court

A Form E is verified by a statement of truth. Making a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth, without an honest belief in its truth, can be treated as a contempt of court. The penalties available for contempt include a fine and, in the most serious cases, imprisonment. In practice, this is reserved for clear and serious dishonesty, but the existence of the power is a real deterrent.

Setting aside a financial order

Where a financial order was made based on material non-disclosure, the court can set that order aside and look at the case afresh.  This can include spousal maintenance being reduced or ended. This applies both to orders made after a contested hearing and to consent orders approved by the court. If you are unfamiliar with how consent orders work, our guide to what a consent order is explains the basics, and our article on why there is no time limit on financial claims after divorce is relevant if your divorce was some years ago.

No change

In some cases, no change at all, because the omission turns out not to have been material. It is entirely possible to establish that a former spouse was less than candid and still find that the court would have made the same order. This is why an early, honest assessment of the likely effect is so valuable before significant costs are incurred.

Expert insight: Case Law – How the Court Responds to Non-Disclosure

In Sharland v Sharland [2015] UKSC 60, the Supreme Court confirmed that fraudulent non-disclosure is a ground for setting aside a consent order, and that the court should set aside the order unless it is satisfied it would have made substantially the same order even with full disclosure.

In Gohil v Gohil [2015] UKSC 61, the Supreme Court confirmed that a consent order can be set aside where the non-disclosure, whether deliberate or not, was material to the order made.

Timescales, Costs and What to Expect

How long this takes depends almost entirely on where you are in the process. If proceedings are ongoing and the issue can be raised through the existing timetable, testing a suspect Form E answer may add little or nothing to the overall length of the case, because the questionnaire stage is happening anyway. If disclosure has to be forced through further applications, expect additional hearings and a longer timeline.

Applying to set aside a final order is a different order of magnitude. It is a fresh application; it usually requires evidence, and it can effectively reopen the financial case. It is not something to embark on without advice about the likely cost and the realistic prospects.

On cost, the honest position is that it varies with how much resistance you meet. What we can say is that the cost of raising a concern early, within an existing timetable, is generally modest compared with the cost of unpicking a completed settlement later.

When To Seek Legal Advice If You Are The Person Cohabiting

It is worth speaking to a family solicitor if any of the following apply to your situation:

• You are being asked to complete a Form E and are genuinely unsure whether your own living arrangements count as cohabiting.
• You have already sent your Form E and your circumstances have since changed.
• Your former spouse has accused you of concealing a relationship, and you need to respond.

If you are the one worried that your own form may not have been complete, it is far better to correct the position voluntarily than to have it discovered. This will also almost always be cheaper, calmer and more cost-effective.

Speak to Our Financial Remedy Team

Fullers Family Law advises clients across England and Wales on financial disclosure and financial settlements on divorce. We help clients complete Form E accurately and confidently, and we act for clients who believe a former spouse has not been open about their circumstances. Where non-disclosure is suspected, we advise honestly on whether pursuing it is likely to be worth the cost, and we deal with it through the proper court process.

If you have concerns about a Form E, either your own or your former spouse’s, we would be glad to talk it through. Book a confidential consultation or read more about our financial settlement services.