Form E explained simply

What should I gather first?

You will not need every item below in every case, but these are the things people most often start collecting.

These are a starting point, not the definitive list – that is the document schedule inside the official Form E itself.

1. About you and your family

   Background: your marriage or civil partnership, separation, children, where you are living now, and other relevant circumstances.

2. What you own, owe and earn

   The largest part of the form. Property, bank accounts, savings, investments, pensions, debts, business interests and income, gathered into one financial picture.

   How financial disclosure works →

3. What you need

   A change of direction: not what you have now, but your ongoing needs - living costs, housing, and anything required for children.

4. Anything else financially relevant

   Wider circumstances: recent or expected changes, standard of living, contributions, and, only in exceptional circumstances, conduct.

5. What financial orders are being considered

   The orders being sought or considered - the family home, lump sums, maintenance, pensions, property transfers - not yet a decision, just what is on the table.

Questions people often get stuck on

Three forms people often confuse

Different forms, doing different jobs.

Form E and mediation

Form E is a court financial statement, and not every couple in mediation is asked to complete one. FMC-accredited mediators generally work to the Open Financial Statement instead – the underlying question is the same one Section 2 asks: what is actually there. At Salam Mediation, that information is gathered through our own simplified intake form, and the Open Financial Statement is prepared from it before settlement proposals are explored.

Where mediation does not reach an agreement – or where court proceedings are already under way – Form E is the document that disclosure moves into instead. Mediation can sometimes continue alongside a court process that has already started, though any court timetable already in place still has to be followed.

Being in court does not rule mediation out. Since 29 April 2024, family courts have had a duty to consider non-court dispute resolution – mediation among it – at every stage of a case, with the power to adjourn a hearing for it even where one party does not agree. Somebody who has already received a court direction to complete Form E, or the accompanying schedules used in financial remedy proceedings such as ES1 and ES2, has not necessarily lost the option of mediating: where there is enough time before the next hearing, moving into mediation can still be faster than continuing through the court timetable, and it is not unusual for a court to accept a mediation-prepared Open Financial Statement in place of Form E once both sides are engaging with the process.

The first hearing in these proceedings is the First Appointment (sometimes called the First Directions Appointment) – not to be confused with the FDR, a separate, without-prejudice settlement hearing that normally follows it. Ahead of the First Appointment, the parties tell the court where things stand, including whether mediation is under way; where it is progressing, that is something the court can be asked to take into account, including how much time is given before the next step.

This practice has acted for a number of people in exactly that position – already in court proceedings, already holding a Form E direction – and moved with them into mediation to prepare the Open Financial Statement and a Memorandum of Understanding, which a solicitor or another qualified third party then used to draft a consent order for the court to consider. In several of those cases the consent order was ready and accepted at the First Appointment itself, without the case needing to continue to an FDR at all, which is the kind of outcome Family Court judges have been asking practitioners to work toward since the 2024 rule change.

Useful Form E resources

You do not need to rely on this guide alone.