Urgent Pension legal advice

dee0151_2

I urgently need a pensions specialist to help with an issue on public sector final salary pension scheme.

On divorce my ex received a 48% pension share. It has come to light that they will receive annual cost of living increases which will be debited from the pension share I am left with.

This case has been to the legal ombudsman and they have issue their findings and the complaint is not upheld - I have the opportunity to take this to the High Court to appeal - this issues affect hundreds of thousands of public sector employees who when agreeing to pension sharing are unaware that they will pay the cost of living increase out of their own pension pot.

Can anyone help with a pensions legal specialist to assist with taking this case - i have less than 28 days to lodge the appeal.

Your_Hero

dee0151 wrote: »

I urgently need a pensions specialist to help with an issue on public sector final salary pension scheme.

On divorce my ex received a 48% pension share. It has come to light that they will receive annual cost of living increases which will be debited from the pension share I am left with.

This case has been to the legal ombudsman and they have issue their findings and the complaint is not upheld - I have the opportunity to take this to the High Court to appeal - this issues affect hundreds of thousands of public sector employees who when agreeing to pension sharing are unaware that they will pay the cost of living increase out of their own pension pot.

Can anyone help with a pensions legal specialist to assist with taking this case - i have less than 28 days to lodge the appeal.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "annual cost of living increases"?

atush

Is this the indexing from date of pension sharing order until retirement? If so, it really does seem unfair to the one who earned the pension?

Drp8713

atush wrote: »

Is this the indexing from date of pension sharing order until retirement? If so, it really does seem unfair to the one who earned the pension?

You have to remember that the member, if still active, continues to have their pension linked to their final salary.


So if their pension at the time of the order and the share was based on a salary of £20000, but by the time they retire 20 years later is based on a salary of £40000, that the recipient of the share will not receive any of this additional value (even though it is being applied to some of the service that was there at the time of the order), only what they were initially awarded plus pension increase.


If the member is deferred at the time of the order, their pension increases by the same amount as the recipients.

molerat

Is that not what the unions are for ?

dee0151_2

Hi all

Yes it is unfair as the pension will increase with index linking

The actual response states:
"where a pension debit relates to the shareable rights under an occupational pension scheme or a person who is in pensionable service... each benefit or future benefit... (a) to which the person is entitled under the scheme.... is reduced by an amount equal to the appropriate percentage... so the pension owner has their pension reduced by the corresponding amount paid to the spouse

This happens because the spouses pension has been deferred

dee0151_2

the union cannot help and it has been to the pensions ombudsman who will not uphold the complaint about the methodology of the pension scheme... although the divorce is a "clean break" and neither party should benefit / or be disadvantaged at all after that point

The next step is High Court which is why specialist legal advice is needed

This potentially affects hundred of thousands of public sector workers who have or may divorce and it isn't explained before the divorce negotiation takes place.... you only find out after when applying the pension sharing order

dee0151_2

the issue is the pension increase is taken from the pension owners final salary so with the rules if the increases are greater than the increase in salary the potential is that the pension owner ends up with very little pension

SomeUser

I think you may have misinterpreted this.

Firstly, are we taking about pension sharing or earmarking (pension attachment order)? There's two different types of court order and they can be combined in some circumstances (were one party is retired with pension, and the other is younger and still working). To be clear, I'm not asking what the scheme rules say, I'm asking what type of court order was made by the judge presiding over your divorce.


Are you an active, deferred or retired member?


Can you provide the whole passage referred to above? The bits where you've put dots are important. Is that the ombudsman response?


You do know that you could end up paying far more in legal fees than you'd lose through the divorce order.


No pension increases can be taken from your final salary.

SomeUser

I should probably add - this is unlikely to be down to the scheme rules, you can only appeal to the high court on a point of law and that is unlikely to be the due to the scheme rules, it would most likely be in relation to the types of court order available to the judge and their application.

atush

If this HAS to be paid by te active member whose spouse is n ow deferred, then this should have been estimated and deducted from the CETV at the time of pension splitting- he should perhaps have been given less of a % of the pension to compensate- sounds like your solicitor and the judge didnt understand it.

If the ombudsman found against you, and you dont go to appeal, then ask to go back to court and have the judge adjust the pension sharing to reflect this?