Pension sharing on divorce advice needed.

jamesd

If the CETV number you have is just the change from just the time within the marriage that's good and the base situation for any discussion is splitting that in half, with her getting her half in a pension in her own name within the scheme via a pension splitting/sharing order.

bigmondy

Thanks Jamesd Sir.

I am considering offering her £2.5k more on the pension share and some cash in the hope that it will keep it from going all the way to the proof.

I wont sleep well for a couple of months thinking about it - but i will be RID once and for all. A seminal moment indeed - I will buy you all a cyber pint when it comes.

PS: EDIT: I am using your wording to show that the actual value of the CETV is more than the cash equivelant and the punitive cost to me of surrendering it to her. hope you havent copyrighted it.

bigmondy

Spoke to the administrator there - very helpful - he more or less confirmed that the CETV apportioned for the period of the marriage obviously will have increased over the past 5 or 6 years when we seperated.... and even regardless of this - they use the setllement figure that I agree to give my wife to calculate out a % of my entire fund - and that is what she gets.

Good grief.

He personally felt CETV's are not really helpful in indicatign the final cost to me.

SallyG

Some grassroots background reading:

http://www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Divorce-Advice/Pensions/

bigmondy

Thanks SallyG - all advice appreciated. I will spend the evening reading that!

EDIT: Woah - what a resource SallyG - wish I had clicked on that weeks ago!

xylophone

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/nic/coegpsod.htm
Might also be of interest.

jamesd

bigmondy wrote: »

He personally felt CETV's are not really helpful in indicatign the final cost to me.

He's right but this will only really matter if there is any exchange of value between pension and non-pension assets.

If there is such an exchange, the real financial long term value of £1 of CETV in a defined benefit pension is greater than the long term value of £1 in say a savings account. So if it's affordable the best deal long term is to give up savings and get more of the CETV, if they are both treated as £1 with no adjustment. If £1 of CETV is valued at say £0.25 when trading value with savings accounts then it's a truly horrible deal to lose any of the CETV because the pension is being grossly undervalued. That is, if you lose £4 of CETV for every Pound of savings account it's a horrible deal for you to take any of the savings account money to decrease the amount of pension CETV you get.

bigmondy

Thanks for all the adivce I received on this thread. I bought her out with a pension share but got it down to £27k. Pretty hard to do - but the way I look at it is that there are 2 plusses

a) I have 14 years to try and make that up (as best I can - I know ACV's will never get me that back) and

b) it's small reassurance to me that my sons mother will at least have a small pension to show for the 10 years of marriage.

Trying my best to be positive about it.

atush

Excellent you got it sorted toyour satisfaction.

And for the great attitude

xylophone

Glad everything has been brought to a conclusion - also cheering that you want your ex-wife to have something to show for the ten years of marriage, despite what seems to have been a difficult separation.
Best wishes for the future!