Pension Sharing after Divorce

gammyleg

Hi,
I have just had confirmation of my financial settlement order from the courts. I have agreed to give 100% of three old dormant personal pensions and a lump sum from another to my ex wife.
I was wondering whether it would be possible to simply change the beneficiary names from mine to hers on the three pensions and if so would it be cheaper than transferring them all to another providers scheme with the inevitable 'admin' charges which will need to be paid.
Her current LA DB scheme won't allow any transfers in, so a new scheme would have to be found.

Brynsam

gammyleg said:

Hi,
I have just had confirmation of my financial settlement order from the courts. I have agreed to give 100% of three old dormant personal pensions and a lump sum from another to my ex wife.
I was wondering whether it would be possible to simply change the beneficiary names from mine to hers on the three pensions and if so would it be cheaper than transferring them all to another providers scheme with the inevitable 'admin' charges which will need to be paid.
Her current LA DB scheme won't allow any transfers in, so a new scheme would have to be found.

Simple answer is no, but setting up a new scheme and arranging the transfers is for her to sort out. Depending on the type of personal pensions you have, there may be exit charges (unless they are stakeholder schemes, where such charges aren't allowed), there may not be. Setting up a new scheme can be done for a modest cost and if these are quite old personal pensions they may have some quite old (i.e. expensive) charging structures, so could well be in her interests.