The courts have spent much of the past decade tightening their grip on hidden assets divorce disclosure, and a run of recent judgments makes plain that neither complexity of structure nor distance of jurisdiction offers much shelter. The picture that emerges from courtrooms in London and beyond is one of judges willing to look past formal legal title, unpick trust arrangements and penalise those who treat the duty of full and frank disclosure as optional.
The duty itself is not new. Every divorcing spouse in England and Wales, whatever their wealth, carries an identical obligation to disclose their assets and resources fully during financial remedy proceedings. What has changed is the sophistication of the structures being examined and the courts’ increasingly forensic approach to examining them.
MK v SK: Trusts, Informal Arrangements and Hidden Assets Divorce Disclosure
In MK v SK [2026] EWFC 28, Mr Justice Peel addressed allegations of non-disclosure within financial remedy proceedings following a 19-year marriage, according to Paradigm Family Law. The wife alleged that her husband had concealed wealth held within a trust structure. The court agreed: it found he had enjoyed access to undisclosed assets held either within a trust, some other structure, or by individuals acting on his behalf.
The judgment is a reminder that the court does not confine itself to formal ownership. What matters is the reality of a party’s resources, including assets to which they have access even if they do not hold legal title. For wealthy individuals, family offices and trustees, that principle carries real weight. Informal arrangements, poorly documented structures and the assumption that complexity alone will deter scrutiny are precisely the things the court has shown it will not accept.
Prenuptial Agreements and the Costs of Getting Disclosure Wrong
The case of Helliwell v Entwistle, decided last year, extended the principle squarely into the world of prenuptial agreements. The parties had been married for three years. Before the wedding, both signed a prenup in which they each stated they had ‘fully and frankly’ disclosed their financial resources and liabilities to one another. The wife had not. She had failed to disclose assets amounting to 73% of her wealth, including business assets and a 50% interest in property. The Court of Appeal found the failure was deliberate and sent the case back to the High Court to assess the husband’s needs.
The implications reach well beyond the couple involved. Prenuptial disclosure is often provided in summary form, a schedule rather than the detailed picture required on divorce. When that summary is accompanied by an assertion of completeness, and turns out to fall short, the protection the agreement was supposed to provide can unravel entirely. With pre- and postnuptial agreements growing in popularity, this is a problem likely to surface again.
The Long Reach of Concealment
The Gohill case, decided by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2015, illustrated starkly how long the consequences of non-disclosure can run. Mrs Gohill persuaded the Supreme Court to set aside a settlement order made eleven years earlier after evidence emerged of her former husband’s concealed wealth and money-laundering activity. Mr Gohill had by then been sentenced to ten years in prison. The final determination of Mrs Gohill’s financial claims did not occur until May 2025, some twenty years after the separation, when the court was at last able to identify which assets were matrimonial property untainted by criminal conduct. She received the entirety of those untainted assets.
In Sharland, decided at the same time, Mr Sharland had misrepresented the value of his shareholding in his software business. Even where it was difficult to determine with precision how that misrepresentation had affected the outcome, the original order was still overturned. The court’s message was explicit: a dishonest spouse cannot benefit from the uncertainty their own concealment creates.
Funding the Fight: Legal Costs in Complex Cases
For the financially weaker spouse in a high-value dispute, hidden assets divorce disclosure is not merely a legal principle but a practical battle, often fought at considerable expense. The case of DR v ES and Ors, also among the recent wave of financial remedy decisions, shows courts attending to this reality. Mr Justice MacDonald granted a Legal Services Payment Order of £560,120 to fund both historic and future legal costs, as reported by Paradigm Family Law. It is a figure that underscores the scale of resources sometimes required to test complex financial disclosure effectively.
Most divorcing spouses are not forensic accountants. In longer marriages where financial expertise has concentrated in one partner’s hands, the other may lack the background to evaluate what they are being shown. Suspicions about hidden assets are often raised early, before evidence exists to support them. The role of advisers in those early stages is to probe rigorously, to challenge what is there and to identify what is missing, rather than simply reviewing the disclosure provided and moving on.
The costs of being caught, for those who do conceal, are severe. Orders can be revisited years or even decades after they were thought final. Complexity is not an excuse, and the courts have shown they will keep looking until they are satisfied they understand the reality of what a party holds.
For further reading on recent financial remedy case law involving trusts and international structures, Paradigm Family Law‘s case law update covers MK v SK and DR v ES in detail. Hughes Fowler Carruthers advises on complex, high-value matrimonial finance cases.