Sleeping pension discovered

katyk_2

Hi

I am a divorcee (official sine last summer) and all settlements were sorted out, I feel, reasonably amicably with OH. One area we varied was that of pensions since he had had one since his teenage years and always worked full time, I did not until very recently and spent many years working p/t with kids. Settlement took into account house value, all pension values etc and I kept house, we each kept our own pensions (mine tiny, his fairly large) with me settling the balance of the discrepancy by buying him out of his half of the house at a greatly reduced rate.
Now I have discovered I had a sleeping pension connected to a job I had over 20 years ago for a little over 2 years. I could not have told you that job ever had a pension, I clearly did not notify Prudential of my change of address in 1992 and they 'lost' me hence no statements etc for over 20 years until they decided to do a blitz on the 'thousands' of policy holders they had lost track of. Obviously this pension should have been taken into account at the time of the divorce (It would never have been my intention to deceive) but wasnt. Current value is approx £12000, of which 50% would belong to my OH. I have no issue with that - morally and legally it should be his - I am simply unsure how I will raise £6K to give to him. Had it been a saving policy I could have cashed it in, given him his half and then invested/saved etc my half as I pleased but, being a pension, I cannot touch it until I am 60. (11 years away). Looks like I am unlikely to be allowed to add to the mortgage either - pretty much at my max - and I have around £4k on credit cards.

Any advice on my best way to raise money to pay this would be appreciated. Ideally I would not want to take on any further debt but I can hardly ask him to wait till 2025 for his cut

Thanks

27col

Why should you have to raise £6000 to give him now. As you say it is a pension and if you cannot get at it for the present then there is surely no obligation to give anything to your ex until you can legally access it yourself.
The law has been changed in this years budget to allow pension pots to be taken early, I believe. It might be worth while checking to see how this will affect your access to the money.

[Deleted User]

Could you discuss it with him? You may be able to come to a longer term arrangment with him.

katyk_2

27col wrote: »

Why should you have to raise £6000 to give him now. As you say it is a pension and if you cannot get at it for the present then there is surely no obligation to give anything to your ex until you can legally access it yourself.

Had I known it was there the value would have been taken into consideration when sharing everything out, just as his pension and my recent small one were. They would not have been accessible then either but their value was still noted. If this pension had been acknowledged, I would have ended up being owe him about £6k more for his share of the house

The law has been changed in this years budget to allow pension pots to be taken early, I believe. It might be worth while checking to see how this will affect your access to the money.

I have checked - I could access 25% at the age of 55 (still 6 years away). Access in any way to the remaining 75% has to wait till I am 60 I'm afraid

katyk_2

Deleted_User wrote: »

Could you discuss it with him? You may be able to come to a longer term arrangment with him.

Possibly but it just seems really unfair to ask him to wait so long and paying him some form of monthly contribution would end up being a fairly small amount in reality. I have a telephone interview with my MP in 3 weeks (Earliest I could get!) but they had someone do a preliminary one with me just asking the basics and he did not sound hopeful that I would get to add more to it on my current salary. I have never missed or been late with a payment but they are aware I have the CC balance, and also that I have 2 kids living at home, one at college and the other at university (age 18 & 19)

[Deleted User]

I admire your intentions to do the right thing. But the reality is that is if you are unable to raise the money - or it would put you under considerable stress to do so, by having monthly payments you can't afford - I think you should explain that to him. It may be that you would be able to pay it more quickly once the children have left home?

If things are amicable between you, I would hope he would understand. But only you know that.

Good luck.

27col

You don't have access to the money for some years. How can it possibly be unfair that your ex should have to wait just as long as you have to wait to get his half of the money.
He can have no serious expectation of getting the money now. You are just making problems for yourself if you are looking for a way to hand over half at this early stage. The clue is in the word "pension".

Spirit_2

Approach the pension provider and explain this needs to be split due to divorce. You may find this is business as usual to them, for example they split your pension and create one for him or make transfer arrangements for his share to a pension fund of his choosing.

It does not involve you in any cash outlay at all .

PeacefulWaters

Post in the pensions section.

A cheaper and simpler answer will probably be found there.

Gentoo365

It's 12k. The actual amount you will get each year from that pension is trivial. I would not be concerned.

If you both settled everything amicably I cannot see why he would be bothered about this. If you really feel the need to do something then send him half of the 25% tax free cash when you get it.

However I don't really see why you need to, you are separate people now and it's your money.

chesky

My husband and I split in 1979. The finances were worked out on our situation THEN. He went on to earn a great deal more than I ever could but we didn't go back and try to change things -let's face it, you'd never be finished. If you feel strongly, wait until you've got your hands on the money and make recompense then.