Private Pensions

Mrs_Lumby

Hi everyone,

Any advice would be grateful, story goes like this:

Ex- Husband has offered to transfer his private pension into my name, so it becomes mine, doing this as he cant afford to pay me ancillary relief in the divorce, I am 39, at the moment I have not accepted his offer as my solicitor and myself are trying to find out is the Pension can be cashed in, as it is a payment in a divorce, or is it locked in till I'm 55.
:wall:

McKneff

You cannot cash in a pension. Im surprised the solicitor didnt know this, its very basic knowledge for someone of his standing.

Its a pension, not a savings account.

Under present legislation you cannot access it till the age of 55

Rainmaker_uk

McKneff wrote: »

You cannot cash in a pension. Im surprised the solicitor didnt know this, its very basic knowledge for someone of his standing.

Its a pension, not a savings account.

Under present legislation you cannot access it till the age of 55

Correct - and agree it's odd that your solicitor does not know this...

I hope their knowledge of divorce law is a little better.

dunstonh

You wouldnt want a solicitor that doesnt know the basics about pension handling pensions in a divorce. If he/she doesnt know the basics then how are they meant to provide advice on the various divorce sharing methods available?

McKneff

dunstonh wrote: »

You wouldnt want a solicitor that doesnt know the basics about pension handling pensions in a divorce. If he/she doesnt know the basics then how are they meant to provide advice on the various divorce sharing methods available?

Just what i thought but you put it much better than I ever could:D

I wouldnt have a lot of confidence in a solicitor if i knew more than he did about the basics.:)

Cautious_Investor_3

Trying to rack my brains to see if we have all missed something here, and no, I don't think we should.

Pensions are involved more and more in divorces these days, you Solicitor really should have a better knowledge.

Solicitors can be a strange breed, they often have a very low opinion of IFAs, surely your Solicitor could have picked up the phone to an IFA contact to check this out?

The Cautious Investor

dunstonh

Solicitors can be a strange breed, they often have a very low opinion of IFAs, surely your Solicitor could have picked up the phone to an IFA contact to check this out?

Yes. I have come across that too and in every case I have had to point out errors in what the solicitor has said. Indeed, one I nearly complained to the law society about because of the number of errors in their letter (which also slagged off the correct advice as being wrong - as it turned out, the correct advice saved tax and prevented the solicitor from earning around £4500 more because the investments were not within the estate that they were charging 1.5% on). I think the problem goes back to when solicitors used to be able to sell financial products. They still have the views of what it was like back then. Not what it is like now.