Getting your paws on your OHs pension/retirement plan after divorce

Pollycat

lvader wrote: »

My point was that I wasn't generalising, the law doesn't look at individual circumstances. Not everyone is the same and enither are marrages.

So just how many conniving people do you think there are out there who deliberately get lazy, don't contribute financially or by other means, contruct (sic) a divorce and then demand 50% of everything when they may have done little to deserve it?

For every one person like that I'd bet there are hundreds who work hard within their marriage (whether that be financially or by other means) and would end up with very little to look forward to in their old age if pensions weren't split.

lvader wrote: »

The reason to split a pension during a marrage is that you can save a lot of tax, but the law doesn't allow that so it can make sense to divorce.

My God!
What a romantic you are! :rotfl:

I pay tax on my pension and wouldn't even dream of getting divorced to save a bit of tax.

quotememiserable

doughnutmachine wrote: »

I've often thought that it's unfair that any inheritances received during the marriage are shared on divorce. It would grieve me if I inherited money from a family member then had to give half of it away

They're not necessarily. If you inherit and keep the money in your own name it doesn't become a marital asset. Only if you put it in joint names or spend it on a jointly owned asset.

Pollycat

doughnutmachine wrote: »

ehhhhmmm if being a stay at home parent is such hard work why do au pairs etc work for a pittance?

ehhhhmmm You're comparing apples and elephants.
Working for pay looking after children is not the same as doing it without pay - which is what stay-at-home parents do.

doughnutmachine wrote: »

like it or not most full time jobs are harder work than sending the kids off to school, then doing a bit of housework then having a coffee morning with all the other full time mums.

You just don't get it, do you.

lvader wrote: »

I've been happily married for 17 years, both of us work and contribute. I wouldn't presume it to be the same with all marrages which might be a reason for high divorce rates.

I can trump that by a good few years.

You say you both work and 'contribute'.
Is that equally?
Do you each have your own money?

doughnutmachine wrote: »

if I had a business partner that done less work than me I wouldn't think it fair to split the business profits 50/50....

But we're not talking about business partners, are we?
We're talking about married couples.
Don't you understand the difference?

borkid

doughnutmachine wrote: »

sorry, but I don't think looking after a house/ kids is the same amount of work as doing a full time job. i'll admit that when kids are young they take a lot of looking after, but as soon as they start school they are out of the house most of the day. And how much housework do people actually have to do a day? maybe two hours?

if one partner does more work during the marriage I think they should get more of the assets if they divorce. of course if one partner gives up a lucrative career to look after the family that should be considered when splitting the assets.

But it's not just housework is it? I used to be the taxi service, take the car to the garage , collect/ do any other little things he needed doing, all the phone calls, all the paperwork and accounts, all the present buying posting for his family, all the waiting in for deliveries, all the gardening, looking after sick children ( they seem to get everything going in the first year at school), made the childrens' clothes. This was after I'd refused 2 offers of studying for a Ph.D ( he was already studying for further qualifications), cashed in a pension I'd been paying in for a few years so that we had enough money to move to a larger house, gave up my career which I loved.

As soon as the children were at school I retrained and then worked part time but at a lower wage than I could have earnt if I hadn't had someone else to consider. There were several times when I could have been promoted but refused due to child care commitments. We've been together nearly 40 years but if we had divorced I would have expected all assests to be split 50:50.

I'm not complaining, when you marry you have to make sacrifices but it does annoy me that people think the SAHM contributes less than the main breadwinner.

atush

lvader wrote: »

My point was that I wasn't generalising, the law doesn't look at individual circumstances. Not everyone is the same and enither are marrages.

The reason to split a pension during a marrage is that you can save a lot of tax, but the law doesn't allow that so it can make sense to divorce.

Wasn't the splitting of unused allowances part of possible upcoming legislation announced in the recent party conference? So in fact 'splitting pension' during marriage would take place?

jamesd

Pollycat wrote: »

A friend of mine who got divorced only got a share of her ex's pensions from the time they were together.

That's normal in England and Wales but in Scotland it can be all of it, not just the time of the marriage.

Pollycat wrote: »

Shouldn't all money go into the marital pot to be spent/saved for the benefit of both parties?

Depends on whether the parties view their marriage as having a combined pot or not. That is not the only way to view a marriage and marriage finances. It can also be done primarily for things like tax breaks ans sharing costs of raising children rather than for any long term intent to share assets between the two who are married. or even for love, with no asset sharing intention at all.

Pollycat wrote: »

I pay tax on my pension and wouldn't even dream of getting divorced to save a bit of tax.

Just get married again after the pension split is in place.

There's a lot of variation in what a marriage means. Two or more people who plan to live together for a while who want the tax breaks while they are together is one of them. So if fairytale marriage for life of two or more people. Or more because I'm writing about marriage and that is not always just two people.

JustAnotherSaver

Still, i'm not sure i agree with this. I get why it happens, but can't say i agree. If wife pays into husbands pension then fair enough, but if not then why should she get it? Same for the vice-versa. If it comes DIRECT from one persons pay into their pension (as opposed to say a standing order at the banks end) then even moreso - why.

Then 2 more things that make my blood boil a bit then after going through the thread...

* Man lives by self until he's 50. He's contributed to his pension since he was say 20 - that's 30 years. He gets married at 50 & then divorced let's say 5 years later at 55 (just in case there's some sort of 12-24etc month clause that'll rescue him). The wife then gets hold of his 30 years contributions when she didn't even know the guy? That to me is very wrong as it was nothing to do with her.

* Man & wife live together. Man's parent leaves man something in the parents will, be it cash or some expensive item. The will specifically says to the man, not to the woman (but doesn't specify not to the woman) & the will was created well after they were married. The bloke would then have to half this sum of money or squabble over the item just because he's married, even when the will left it to HIM & not HER?
Again, seems very very wrong to me.

Now don't get me wrong, some things i do think should be split 50/50, but others like the above 2 scenarios really shouldn't.

thick_tom wrote: »

not sure i understand who you refer to in your opening post "It'll be pretty obvious which thread has sparked this wonderment in my mind" ??

I assume you haven't scrolled down the forum? (The thread is still on the first page even (as i type this, maybe not by the time you get to it?)).

lvader

atush wrote: »

Wasn't the splitting of unused allowances part of possible upcoming legislation announced in the recent party conference? So in fact 'splitting pension' during marriage would take place?

Yes, it's a very positive move. You should never be in a position where the tax system makes it better to divorce than stay married.

Andy_L

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Half a bank account, or half a savings account i can understand, but half someones pension? Really? Why should the other person have any entitlement?

Why should a pension be treated differently to any other savings vehicle? Plenty of people use ISAs or invest in housing for retirement savings instead of a pension.

jamesd

lvader wrote: »

Yes, it's a very positive move. You should never be in a position where the tax system makes it better to divorce than stay married.

Of course you should. What about the case of divorcing due to spousal abuse, say, or a spouse who is not contributing to the upkeep of the children and a divorce is required to obtain adequate income to care for them properly? In such cases the divorced parties are already worse off then a similar married grouping because there are fewer shared costs and hence more tax cost for such things as council tax and taxes on utilities.