The recent Financial Remedies Court (FRC) decision in HJ v QY [2026] EWFC 245 (B) underscores the serious legal and financial consequences of non-cooperation and non-disclosure in matrimonial proceedings.

Following three years of marriage, which produced a child (C), the applicant wife (W) issued her Form A seeking financial remedies in September 2023.

The standard financial remedy procedure is built around three hearings, from the First Directions Appointment through to a final hearing. This case, however, took more than two years and required 15 separate court hearings.

Sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice, Deputy District Judge (DDJ) Nahal-Macdonald gave judgment on 24 August 2026. He attributed the extreme delay entirely to the “disengagement, defiance and obstruction” of the husband (H), who did not attend the final hearing.

DDJ Nahal-Macdonald said that H’s failure to provide any accurate disclosure left W having to make numerous third-party disclosure applications to banks and the DVLA, among others, in a bid to establish the true extent of H’s income and assets.

Although H claimed to earn less than the minimum wage, the evidence showed more than £88,000 had been paid into two of his current accounts over a 12-month period.

Praising the tenacity of W in carefully piecing together evidence about H’s current lifestyle and assets, DDJ Nahal-Macdonald found that “H has significant undisclosed income and access to significant valuable assets, including high value performance motor vehicles and designer goods”. He also found that “H’s lifestyle is such that he is spending significant sums on himself to the detriment of W and C, which ought to be deprecated”.

As a result, DDJ Nahal-Macdonald ordered H to pay W a lump sum of £110,000 within 28 days. As W’s counsel had acted pro bono, H was also ordered to pay £750 to the Access to Justice Foundation, the charity that receives pro bono costs awards.

DDJ Nahal-Macdonald chose to publish his judgment, saying “there may well be other litigants who might benefit from a note about such a case in a wider public interest sense”.

Commenting on the case, James Hardy, Forensic Director at Milsted Langdon, said: “This case shows that hiding income and assets rarely works for long. The courts are entitled to draw adverse inferences where a party refuses to give full and frank disclosure and the evidence needed to do that is often already sitting in bank statements and in publicly available records.

“As forensic accountants, we regularly trace the flow of funds through personal and business bank accounts, as well as via other financial documents, and test declared income and expenditure against documentary evidence. Where the numbers don’t add up, that analysis can give the court a credible picture of a party’s true means.

“Anyone going through a divorce who suspects their spouse is not being honest about their finances should take advice early. The sooner the right questions are asked and the right evidence is gathered, the less time and money is lost to the kind of delay seen here.”