Divorce and voluntary pension sharing problem..

earlobe

I wonder if anyone can help me. My ex wife and I have managed to divorce without using lawyers. The final obstacle is to share 50-50, my pension. I've asked the pension fund manager to simply transfer half my pension fund over to my ex's pension fund. ( Conveniently she has had her own pension fund with the same company for some time. ) He has told me that although a court can order funds to be transferred, there is no precedent for a husband or wife, to willingly hand over funds. He thinks that we have to get a lawyer involved.....
Any body with an idea how I can avoid a lawyer getting involved?

johnaka

I'd ask for half her pension as well.
if she already had a pension whilst married to you then I think its totaly unfare to give her 50% of your pension.
it is quite possible you could get this reduce in view of her having her own pension while being your spouse.
I'd get this checked out before you go any further if I was you.
others may have a better idea.

dunstonh

Any body with an idea how I can avoid a lawyer getting involved?

What method of pension sharing would you be utilising?
What is your knowledge and ability to get that sorted via the court without the use of a solicitor?

earlobe

Thanks for replying. We've already divided up her pension plans and my main pension plan. What's left is an Equity plan that I have. We're both actors, so she also has an Equity plan. (It's actually an Aviva plan, done via Equity ) I want to simply transfer about £8,000 over to her plan, but apparently cannot do this without involving a lawyer, something I'm very loathe to do. If you have any advice, I'd welcome it.

jamesd

Given the amount of money involved it'll probably be cheaper to transfer something else instead.

Is this a money purchase plan, one where you can pick the investments? If so, there's no hidden value involved, just the value of the investments on a particular day to consider. That means you can simply compare it to any other pension plan where you or she can pick the investments. So if you're getting some money from one of hers where investments can be picked, it's easy to just reduce how much you get of that one to cover part or all of this one. Neither of you can really lose out significantly from this because any differences are relatively minor, like the ongoing costs of running the plan or the range of investments available.

If there's still money left over the next option to consider would be to pay to her enough money so that after pension tax relief she could buy exactly the same values of the same investments in her own plan.

If you don't have the cash to do that, you could transfer the £8,000 to a different personal pension, then have her set one up with the same provider that you transfer to. Then make payments into her new pension there until the value matches the value of yours on the date when you eventually get there. This way she doesn't suffer due to the delay in transfer because you have to match the value that yours has even after any growth or decrease in value.

Life is more complicated for final salary, average salary or other defined benefit plans but the defined contribution types where you pick the investments are pretty easy to value because all they are is investments that have an easy to check value every day.

earlobe

Thanks for that. We're both actors, so there's an irregularity to our pension contributions that makes that solution more difficult, but not impossible. It's so frustrating that I can't just transfer £8,000 from my pension fund over to hers.

TBagpuss

You don't need to involve a lawyer if you don't want to, but as your pension fund has told you, they can't transfer the funds unless there is a court order.

You can have a consent order (i.e. a court order which you have agreed) which includes a pension sharing order. There is a standard form (P1 - Pension Sharing Annex) which is attached to the order (you can download a copy from the HM Court Service Website) which is then sent to the pension company with the order, allowing them to make the transfer. They will also need a copy of your decree absolute.

It may be worth asking at your local court whether they have a set of precendents you can use to help you draw up the order; I know myu local court has a set of precedents and the Judge also has a tick-box form where you can select the most commonly used clauses and amend them to fit your own details.

Alternatively you could instruct a solicitor solely to draft the order to your instructions - they do not need to go ontp the court record as acting for you and if you know exactly what you want it need not be particularly expensive.

janet90

Hi, I am looking for some help. . I saw an article in themirror about a company called divorcelifeline.
They have offered to work on my behalf and revalue my ex’spension from my divorce back in (2005). I am keen to sign up, but am wondering if this is too good to betrue!!!!
My solicitor didn’tvalue his pension properly, they he should have based on the CETV (legal term). I may beentitled to over £50k, they said they don’t have to contact my ex, as they areputting in a claim against my solicitor
I would be keen to hear from anyone who has any experiencewith them before I sign on the dotted line, I am registered on line
Thanks
Jan

ed123_2

...Could,nt you just give her the eight thousand pounds so that she could pay it into her pension schemes? If you don't have the total amount perhaps you could agree to pay in instalments?......ed

jem16

ed123 wrote: »

...Could,nt you just give her the eight thousand pounds so that she could pay it into her pension schemes? If you don't have the total amount perhaps you could agree to pay in instalments?......ed

The original thread is almost 2 years old. Doubt any advice would be useful now.

jamesd

janet90 wrote: »

My solicitor didn’tvalue his pension properly, they he should have based on the CETV (legal term)

Who says that your solicitor didn't value the pension correctly and didn't use a CETV? What do the documents you have say was done to get the value? CETVs have been standard since 1999 so it's not really credible to think that you solicitor wouldn't have obtained one as the starting point for working out what a fair value would be.

Is your former husband's pension a final salary type or a defined contribution type?

You might find it useful to know why the CETV isn't always the correct value to use.

janet90 wrote: »

I am keen to sign up, but am wondering if this is too good to betrue!!!!

You can at least save yourself some stress and strife by asking your solicitor how the pension was valued. That'll probably eliminate your concerns about this and any other things you wonder about that happened during that stressful time.

Remember that claims companies in general lie to potential customers to try to get as many as they possibly can. You can't trust anything a claims company tells you other than that they want money from you.