Divorce and married woman's state pension

J2snana

I am in receipt of a 50% state pension as, due to bad advice, I paid married woman's stamp,so didn't qualify for the years bringing up the children. Some time ago an acquaintance of mine who was already divorced and knew her pension would be reduced, claimed from her husband's contributions rather than using hers, and is receiving a full pension even though she has since remarried. I know some of the rules have changed, so now if my husband & I divorced, would I be entitled to 100% pension from his full contribution record, and what would happen if, in the future, I chose to remarry?

jamesd

You might attract more informed comment if you click on Edit then Advanced and change the title to something like "Divorce and married woman's state pension". That has the key words to attract people who know this particular subject inside out, rather than the generic pensions on divorce question it currently looks like in the list of topics.

See pages 36 to 28 of this guide to state pensions for women.

You are never entitled to 100% state pension based on his record, not if you don't divorce and not if you do. It's 60%.

If you don't remarry you can continue to get up to 60% of a full basic state pension based on your ex's record. If you remarry before you reach state pension age, you lose the right to use theirs.

If he has other pensions you would normally be entitled to part of their value, in general that starts out at half of the value by which they increased during the marriage. He has a similar entitlement to any you have. it's quite common to trade a reduction in this entitlement for some other benefits, like more than a 50% share of the home and avoiding a forced sale of it to free the capital to pay for that splitting.

J2snana

thanks for the advice I have edited the post but it looks as though I'm on a loser anyway.

margaretclare

J2snana wrote: »

I am in receipt of a 50% state pension as, due to bad advice, I paid married woman's stamp,so didn't qualify for the years bringing up the children. Some time ago an acquaintance of mine who was already divorced and knew her pension would be reduced, claimed from her husband's contributions rather than using hers, and is receiving a full pension even though she has since remarried. I know some of the rules have changed, so now if my husband & I divorced, would I be entitled to 100% pension from his full contribution record, and what would happen if, in the future, I chose to remarry?

I am surprised about the above. I've always believed that a divorced woman could claim 100% of the state pension based on her ex's contribution record. I never thought they should - a 'clean break' should be a clean break, but I understood that my DH's ex was receiving 100% of SRP based on his contribution record. I also believed that this would stop on remarriage and the woman would then have to claim against her new husband's record. Obviously I was wrong about all this.

The way things have been moving, everyone should build up their own pension entitlement. Following my widowhood, I was given the choice of claiming SRP against my late husband's contribution record - that would have given me 100% SRP as a widow - or against my own. I chose the latter because that was more favourable to me. On remarriage I simply carried on receiving SRP based on my own record. Marriage didn't affect it.

McKneff

I think there are a lot of us in the same boat re married womans stamp to be honest,

I retired 2 years ago and was entitled to 50% pension and was given the choice when I applied for it to either take this or claim on my husbands contributions at 60% not a great deal more but still welcome. Only when and if my OH dies before me will I be able to claim 100 pension.

jem16

jamesd wrote: »

You might attract more informed comment if you click on Edit then Advanced and change the title to something like "Divorce and married woman's state pension". That has the key words to attract people who know this particular subject inside out, rather than the generic pensions on divorce question it currently looks like in the list of topics.

See pages 36 to 28 of this guide to state pensions for women.

You are never entitled to 100% state pension based on his record, not if you don't divorce and not if you do. It's 60%.

That's not accurate james. If you are divorced and do not remarry before state pension age you would be able to use the NI record of your husband. If your husband had a full 100% record then you would be entitled to 100%.

Page 37 of the document you linked to explains that but this one probably makes it clearer.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/dr_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/@over50/documents/digitalasset/dg_180220.pdf

See Page 12.

jamesd

Thanks jem16, I'll edit later. Glad the title change may have helped to get better informed answers!

SallyG

Is this all about to change - no "derived pension" based on spouse's contribution after the flat rate pension is introduced ?2016 ?
Divorce lawyers tend to assume the divorcing wife will do better than the Basic State pension forecast done whilst still married and the Duxbury tables used for capitalisation of maintenance assume full basic state pension?
By the way under the current rules can a divorced husband benefit from his ex-wife's basic state pension contribution record if better ?

laurel7172

When it says in the booklet that a divorced woman can replace her contribution record for the period of the marriage with her husband's, is it really that simple?

My ex has (a) always outearned me (b) has rarely been contracted out, while I have been contracted out, had HRP and then joined LGPS. Could I really duplicate his contribution record (and get lots more years towards the flat rate pension, one assumes)?

atush

Not sure about that, but consult your solicitor if you can 'share' his S2P like you can with personal pension and work pensions (as is salary based and accrued during the marriage?)

OP, has your OH retired yet? If so, you should be claiming at least 60%, not 50%?

margaretclare

[QUOTE=SallyG;62905818]Is this all about to change - no "derived pension" based on spouse's contribution after the flat rate pension is introduced ?2016 ?
Divorce lawyers tend to assume the divorcing wife will do better than the Basic State pension forecast done whilst still married and the Duxbury tables used for capitalisation of maintenance assume full basic state pension?
By the way under the current rules can a divorced husband benefit from his ex-wife's basic state pension contribution record if better?[/QUOTE]

Yes, my understanding is that it is all in process of changing. The thinking is different from what it was when the Welfare State was set up in 1948. Then, it was assumed that a married woman wouldn't need her own pension. Now, it's assumed that everyone will build up their own pension entitlement.