Housing Particulars: Mind The Gap

The new Financial Remedies Guide of March 2026 restates (at paragraph 52b) the previous obligation in the Statement on the Efficient Conduct of Financial Remedy Hearings in the Financial Remedies Court Below High Court Judge Level of January 2022 that for cases heard at circuit judge and district judge level not less than 14 days before the First Appointment each party shall:

‘file with the court and serve on the other party property particulars (limited to three each for themselves and three each for the other party) showing what their case is likely to be on housing need for themselves and the other party (although this will not preclude a party from arguing that the property they currently occupy is suitable for them).’

This obligation is usually supplemented (at least in a ‘needs’ case) by a similar direction at the First Appointment or at the directions phase of an unsuccessful FDR Appointment and may even go so far – as set out in the Standard Family Orders – as to require the parties to provide ‘details as to the basis upon which the particulars have been selected, namely location (area, schools, public transport, amenities, etc), size (bedrooms, etc) and amenities (garden garage, etc)’ although even if ordered this obligation is often overlooked. Increasingly, technological support such as that offered by Miris can be used to assist the parties with their property search (see Innovative Technology to Help Solicitors Prepare, Verify and Negotiate Client Housing Needs) by Jason Reeve.

But what (if anything) can the court do when – as is often the case – there is a significant gap between the bottom of the applicant’s range and the top of the respondent’s range? Can the court take up the invitation made by counsel – sometimes made at an FDR Appointment and/or final hearing – to the effect of ‘the parties have filed property particulars but the court can of course conduct its own research on Rightmove if it wishes’?

In Piglowska v Piglowski [1999] 2 FLR 763 at p. 782 Lord Hoffman was critical of the Court of Appeal for ‘in effect taking judicial notice of prices in the south-east London property market’. He cited from Martin (BH) v Martin (D) (1977) FLR 444 at p. 450E stating that Ormrod LJ had ‘cautioned against this free-wheeling approach to judicial notice’:

‘whenever it is to be argued that the wife could find alternative accommodation for herself out of her share of the equity, whatever that may be … there should be evidence put before the court to that effect. The unsupported assertions and speculations which are made in the course of argument in these cases are not satisfactory. It means the court has to use its own imprecise knowledge of the property market and may well make mistakes. So if it is going to be said that the wife could get alternative accommodation, let there be some evidence to that effect. Otherwise it will have to be assumed that it is not possible.’

In S v H [2020] EWFC B16 HHJ Booth stated at [63] that the free availability of property particulars and price information on the internet suggested a need for some practical dilution of Lord Hoffman’s words in Piglowska v Piglowski:

‘I have had cited to me … a passage from Piglowska v Piglowski [1999] 3 All ER 632 House of Lords, where Lord Hoffmann deprecated the use of taking judicial notice of the cost of accommodation when evidence could be put before the court. In 1999 there was not available on the internet, as it had not then been invented, the sort of information that is readily available at the click of a mouse in 2020. Whilst it is plainly desirable that the court should have evidence, in proper form, it seems to me there must be some practical dilution of Lord Hoffmann’s stern words.’

However in Butler v Butler [2023] EWHC 2453 (Fam) it may be argued that Moor J took the opposite view:

‘[42] … Not even property particulars were available … I take the view that the Recorder would have been subject to considerable criticism if he had gone down that road [i.e. a move by the wife to Birmingham mentioned for the first time in her oral evidence], particularly if the only way to obtain evidence of property particulars had been to start doing his own research online to fill the gaps in the evidence.’

A failure to provide realistic property particulars was addressed in AR v ML (Financial Remedies: Finality of Judgment) [2020] 1 FLR 523 per Mostyn J where the differential in property particulars submitted on behalf of the parties was significant and where the wife had not adduced any particulars supporting her target figure for housing. Although the case principally dealt with allowing an appeal from a judge’s decision after delivery of judgment to grant permission to introduce further property particulars, an adjournment, and for the judgment not to be perfected into a final order, it also considered the evidential consequences of the differential:

‘[31] While it is true that there were no particulars showing what kind of property £410,000 would buy, it is equally true that there were no particulars showing what kind of property could be bought for £525,000, the wife’s target figure. Where there were particulars establishing a clear, if patchy, spectrum, it is a fallacy to say that there was no evidence to show what could be purchased in the no man’s land between the top of the husband’s bracket and the bottom of the wife’s. Obviously, a process of inferential judgment based on the available material properly led the judge to conclude that the wife could properly rehouse herself with a housing fund of £410,000 in, or not far from, the area in which she wished to live.’

This decision was cited by His Honour Judge Farquhar in X v C [2022] EWFC 79 in which he noted that the lack of accurate information before the court did not preclude him from making a decision:

‘[69] … The difficulty, as ever in these cases, is that there is simply no information provided as to the cost of housing between the top and bottom figures. That is no reason not to make a decision upon the information that is presently before the Court – see AR v ML [2019] EWFC 56 and I intend to provide a final judgment without any request for further evidence being provided as to the costs of alternative properties.’

Most recently in A v Z [2026] EWHC 654 (Fam) Trowell J stated as follows:

‘[83] … Mr Glaser has said to me that it would be improper to work on the basis that I can assume that there are properties between the values that the husband has produced and those that the wife has produced. I disagree. It is inevitably the case that I will need to make some rough and ready assessments (as I have already done in relation to chattels valuations) in determining a financial remedy claim. A mapping out of the full range of possibilities is simply not possible. Rather I will need to work on the basis that the housing market will have a spread of prices …’

The Financial Remedies Court is not a legal Alsatia. In A v A [2007] 2 FLR 467 Munby J (as he then was) stated at [19] that ‘the [Family Division cannot] simply ride roughshod over established principle’ and at [21] that ‘the relevant legal principles which have to be applied are precisely the same in this division as in the other two divisions’. In Richardson v Richardson [2011] 2 FLR 244 Munby LJ (as he then was) stated at [53] that ‘The Family Division is part of the High Court. It is not some legal Alsatia where the common law and equity do not apply’ and in Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd & Others [2013] 2 FLR 732 Lord Sumption JSC stated at [37] that ‘Courts exercising family jurisdiction do not occupy a desert island in which general legal concepts are suspended or mean something different’. Most recently in Kerman v Akhmedova [2018] 2 FLR 354 Sir James Munby P stated at [22]:

‘the legal principles – whether principles of the common law or principles of equity – which have to be applied in the Family Division (and, for that matter, also, of course, in the Family Court) are precisely the same as in the Chancery Division, the Queen’s Bench Division and the county court.’

Against this background it is therefore of note that in Rogers and Another v Hoyle (Secretary of State for Transport and Another Intervening) [2015] QB 265 per Christopher Clarke LJ at [39] it was said that:

‘The trial judge must decide the case for himself on the evidence that he receives, and in the light of the submissions on that evidence made to him.’

Rogers v Hoyle was cited in Bailey v Bailey and Others (Committal) [2022] 2 FLR 829 per Peel J at [12]. In FAGE UK Ltd and Another v Chobani UK Ltd and Another [2014] EWCA Civ 5 Lewison LJ stated at [114]⁠(iv) that ‘[i]n making his decisions the trial judge will have regard to the whole of the sea of evidence presented to him’. In Tickle and Another v The BBC and Others; The BBC and Other Companies v Tickle and Others [2025] 2 FLR 506 per Sir Geoffrey Vos MR it was said at [73] that ‘[i]t is obviously good practice for a judge to delay making any order of their own motion until he has sought and obtained evidence from the parties’.

How does this civil jurisprudence this sit with the fact that financial remedy proceedings are said to be quasi-inquisitional?

It was observed in Lykiardopulo v Lykiardopulo [2011] 1 FLR 1427 per Thorpe LJ at [36]⁠(i) ‘the proceedings are quasi-inquisitorial. The judge must be satisfied that he has, or at least that he has sought, all the information he needs to discharge the duty imposed on him to find the fairest solution’ (emphasis added). Therefore (it might be said) the nature of the statutory duty under MCA 1973 s 25 requires the court to seek to ensure it has all the information necessary to reach a fair outcome but that ‘inquiry’ is conducted through the parties not by the judge. Further, if the judge looks at a property website in order to understand the market, query whether they must disclose the results of that research to the parties and give them an opportunity to comment on it before it is used in the judgment.

The arguably conflicting authorities and the differing nature of financial remedy proceedings means there is no clear answer to this question. Is the court restricted to a process of inferential judgment based on the available property particulars however imprecise this may be or may it carry out its own research online whether on Rightmove or elsewhere? Is such research an impermissible free-wheeling approach to judicial notice or simply an example of the court dealing with a case justly (as it must)?