What is a ‘Form E’ and how do I complete the document?

On divorce where the parties apply for financial remedy proceedings at Court, each party to the divorce is required to complete a document called the ‘Form E’, which contains details of all assets of each party. This amounts to the financial disclosure process where the parties provide full financial disclosure of their circumstances, so as to determine the assets to be dealt with in a settlement.

As well as being used in court proceedings parties can also be asked to complete this form and provide the supporting information if they are going through mediation or if they have solicitors acting for them and they want in the first instance to try and deal with disclosure voluntarily without an application to court.

The form is structured so that you firstly declare in detail the information surrounding you and your children’s circumstances, then the document asks you to detail your assets and liabilities, including the needs of you and your children. It is important that the form is completed correctly not only to comply with the duty of full and frank disclosure to the Court as stated above, but also as finances cannot be properly resolved without knowing what assets there are to split and the needs of each party. The Form E itself is split into five sections.

If you are concerned that your spouse has omitted to provide full disclosure after you receive the Form E, you can file a questionnaire raising questions regarding the document, and express in that questionnaire whether you believe that a particular asset has gone missing. You can then ask the judge to order that your spouse provide full disclosure of their financial assets, and the judge will also decide whether there should be a penalty if the disclosure is not forthcoming.

The task of completing a Form E can be time-consuming and requires precision to comply with the duty to the Court of full and frank disclosure.  Our expert team of family lawyers are on hand to assist you with completing a Form E or should you require any further advice about a family law matter, contact us on 0800 015 0340 or family@chadlaw.co.uk.