Why Do I Have to Answer Everything Before I Get My Report?

A thin report is a misleading report

A report generated from a partial picture does not look partial. It reads with exactly the same confidence as one generated from a complete picture, arrives with the same headings, and cites the same kind of case law. Nothing on the page tells you which parts of it were built on air.

That is the problem. Someone under real pressure could take a number from it into a conversation with their spouse, or a solicitor, without realising that the pension figures were missing and the whole balance would shift once they were added. Our legal reviewer’s position was blunt, and we agreed with it: we do not want one party relying on a report knowing that some of the background has not been disclosed.

So SmartJudge refuses. An incomplete case produces no report at all, rather than a thin one with a warning on it that people would skip past.

The star is a promise, not a nag

Every question marked with a star is one that will hold your report back until it has an answer. That is the entire meaning of the star - it is not a hint that a question is important, and it is not there to push you into over-sharing.

The practical upshot is that when the “required for your report” meter reaches 100%, your report will generate. It cannot show 100% and then refuse you, because the star and the gate are driven by the same underlying list. If it says you are done, you are done.

You never have to invent a figure

A starred question does not mean “you must produce a number”. Every one of them can be satisfied without inventing anything:

• If it does not apply to you - if you have no pensions, no debts, no other properties - there is a tick that says so. Ticking it is a complete answer and it clears the gate.
• If you have it but cannot get the exact figure yet - a pension Cash Equivalent Value can take weeks to arrive - enter a reasonable estimate now and update it later. Your progress saves automatically.
• If it is about your spouse and you do not know - most of those questions are optional and will not hold anything back. See what happens if you do not have your spouse’s information.

This is why the gate is not as demanding as it first appears. You are being asked to tell us where the gaps are, not to fill them all in.

Why a tick counts and a blank does not

An empty box is ambiguous. It might mean “I have none of these”, or it might mean “I have not got to this part yet”. Those are completely different facts and the assessment would treat them differently, but from the outside they look identical.

A tick removes the ambiguity. It converts a silent gap into a declared one, and a declared gap is something the assessment can work around, reason about and record on the face of the report. That is the whole distinction: we are not insisting on complete information, we are insisting on knowing what is missing.

A few questions deliberately do not block

Not everything counts toward the gate. A small number of questions are compulsory in the sense that they matter to the outcome, but will never withhold your report, because it would be unfair to insist:

• Your spouse’s income - you may genuinely have no way of knowing it.
• The health question - you are entitled to decline it outright. See whether you have to answer the health question.

These still show in your progress so a gap is visible to you, but you can push through to a report without them.