44 annual report 2012 authority gets an actual suspicion that the citizen has committed social benefit fraud – and the authority is obliged to inform the citizen of this. In principle, this is very simple, but in reality the question is when an authority has such an ‘actual suspicion’. The crucial factor is whether the authority’s suspicion is so strong that there would be a basis for pressing charges against the citizen or for giving him or her a defendant’s rights under the criminal justice system. In other words, it does not matter whether the authority has actually reported the citizen to the police. Marriage-like relationship The media coverage of the local authorities’ efforts against social benefit fraud has paid considerable attention to the meaning of the concept of ‘marriage-like relationship’ – i.e. when a citizen’s relationship with another person is such that the citizen is no longer entitled to receive social benefits as a single person. For a relationship to be ‘marriage-like’, the parties must contribute to the joint household through financial contributions, work in the home or in other ways and it must be a relationship which can generally lead to marriage under Danish law. The concept is not formulated completely identically in all acts and, in particular, it is used with a different content in the Housing Benefit Act. Of course the authorities need to be aware of this. The concept of ‘marriage-like relationship’ focuses on the financial and practical relationship established between the parties. In other words, it is not in itself problematic that a social benefit recipient has a lover. It is likewise not significant whether the parties have a sexual relationship, sleep in the same bed or are regarded as a couple by friends etc. What is crucial to the assessment is whether the parties have arranged things in such a way that they have advantages comparable to the advantages generally enjoyed by people who are married or living together in the form of financial and/or other contributions to the joint household. This has been established by the National Social Appeals Board in its decisions in principle 8-13, 9-13 and 10-13.