Reforms of cohabitation rights could generate around 10,000 additional Financial Remedies Court cases annually, a senior family judge has said. 

His Honour Judge Edward Hess, deputy national lead judge of the Financial Remedies Court (FRC), said the introduction of financial remedies for separating cohabitants 'will inevitably lead to a substantial increase of case load for the FRC'.

The government’s 'A fairer end to relationships consultation' includes proposals under which cohabiting partners could ask the courts to make orders over homes, pensions, property and other assets – something critics have branded 'state-forced marriages'. The consultation closes on Friday. 

In an article for Financial Remedies Journal, Hess claims that the proposed changes could mean 27% more couples -16.5 million rather than 13 million - would be eligible to make financial remedies claims. He points to ONS statistics for 2026 showing that there are approximately 13 million married couples and 3.5 million cohabiting couples in the UK. 

'Currently, the divorcing population produces each year about 35,000 to 40,000 consented case applications and about 13,000 contested case applications within the FRC each year,' Hess notes. 'It is reasonable and prudent to assume that the separating non-married couples would produce a proportionate case load for the FRC – that would be about 9,400 to 10,800 consented case applications and about 3,500 contested case applications.'

The government’s impacts assessment for the proposed reforms suggests an increase of about 4,500 to 5,000 applications, which Hess describes as 'a significant underestimate'. 

'There may be some obvious non-monetised social, welfare and justice benefits resulting from these reforms, but there can be little doubt that this would come at a considerable cost in terms of financial remedies sitting day requirements,' Hess states.

He suggests a 'more thorough, more robust and properly objective analysis of the likely cost of these reforms should be carried out before any decisions are made so that the reforms can be approached with fully open eyes in terms of their financial costs.'

Hess added: 'The reforms may well have wider benefits which make them objectively attractive; but turning a blind eye to the consequential costs cannot be right or sensible. If the reforms do proceed, then there will be significant financial and resource implications for the FRC and a proper level of resources will be required to deliver them.'

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