Divorce with no clean break - pension advice

Pat38493

I am divorced since quite a few years.

At the time of the divorce we divided everything 50/50 except the pensions - at that time my ex said she did not want any of my pension.  Everything was done without court hearings through solicitors.  We exchanged CETV data at the time so she does know that my pension was worth a lot more than hers at that time.

In spite of saying she didn't want any pension, ex did not respond to multiple requests for clean break at the time, and in the end I decided, rightly or wrongly, to go ahead with the divorce.

In the intervening years, she made noises several times about wanting some of my pension, usually when there was some kind of argument or disagreement about childcare or suchlike.

At the time we got divorced, my pension savings were a lot higher than hers as she had decided not to start putting in to a pension until much later than me.

She has always had her own career and managed her finances separately and she now lives with a new family but has not re-married.  She is a relatively high earner and would not be able to claim any financial dependence on me since we separated.

Of course I am aware that she has a potential claim on my pension and may choose to pursue this at any time in the future.  In the meantime, I am considering taking early retirement in 4 or 5 years from now and obviously I would prefer not to have a large unknown liability hanging over me.

I've received various advice about this, some useful some not so useful, ranging from - you need to initiate a process on your side to resolve the matter as you are then in control, to, just hope she doesn't do anything till you are 55 and then spend the money as quick as possible!

I'm interested in opinions on whether I should proactively try to resolve this - for example by offering a cash sum in exchange for a clean break, or if there is nothing really to gain and it's better just to wait to see what my ex does.

Another approach is to try to calculate my maximum reasonable exposure there and make sure that my pension provision takes that into account.

I also want to avoid, if possible, getting into a mandatory court process where I have to reveal my current financial situation many years later - I have since married again and most of my current assets relate to the time after we divorced except the pension, some of which are shared with my wife who obviously has nothing to do with it as I met her after we were divorced.

Also, it is coming up to the time when I am no longer obliged to pay child maintenance so I'm sure this will trigger some kind of developments in this area.

Thrugelmir

Without a financial consent order you remain totally exposed to your ex making claims. Time to seek advice from a family law soilicitor and put the matter to bed properly. 

london21

Have it sorted as soon as you can, it is a big weight and unknown.

Get a solicitor involved. 

Pat38493

Thrugelmir said:

Without a financial consent order you remain totally exposed to your ex making claims. Time to seek advice from a family law soilicitor and put the matter to bed properly. 

I guess part of my question is - if I was able to agree a mutually acceptable resolution - for example by paying her an agreed amount of money for an agreed time period, in return for a clean break, could this be easily formalised - ideally I don’t want to get into a whole expensive process involving courts and so on?

I think that any kind of pension sharing requires a court decision but if it’s agreed to do it in a different way, maybe it can be agreed between the parties as a legal agreement?

doodling

Hi,

The way of formalising this is to go through a court.

Any other agreement you make is up for challenge in the future.

Only a court can order the transfer of pension rights in any event so it would be difficult to do this without a court being involved unless you were making a payment from non-pension assets to compensate for the size of your pensions..

Keep_pedalling

“Another approach is to try to calculate my maximum reasonable exposure there and make sure that my pension provision takes that into account.”

That would seem a sensible option to me.

Pat38493

doodling said:

Hi,

The way of formalising this is to go through a court.

Any other agreement you make is up for challenge in the future.

Only a court can order the transfer of pension rights in any event so it would be difficult to do this without a court being involved unless you were making a payment from non-pension assets to compensate for the size of your pensions..

Yes this is exactly what I mean - what I am thinking of as one of the options is to try to agree a cash settlement to be paid by me outside of my pension, either from my pension tax free lump sum amounts when I reach 55 or just from some other source.  In other words it would be - I will pay you x amount of money, you sign the clean break - no need to physically touch or split up any pension schemes. 

Of course we would have to agree an amount - the starting point could be to split the total pensions 50/50 as of the CETV at the time of divorce, so instead of splitting pensions I would just pay her a cash equivalent amount - probably if she has a solicitor they will demand to apply growth for the years in between.

I assume this is possible because we already asked her to sign a clean break several times during the divorce proceedings and a corresponding document was drafted for it.

[Deleted User]

Don't forget that youe ex-wife's pension pot would be part of the mix too.  If nothing else, it might reduce the amount you would have to pay.

Thrugelmir

Pat38493 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Without a financial consent order you remain totally exposed to your ex making claims. Time to seek advice from a family law soilicitor and put the matter to bed properly. 

I guess part of my question is - if I was able to agree a mutually acceptable resolution - for example by paying her an agreed amount of money for an agreed time period, in return for a clean break, could this be easily formalised - ideally I don’t want to get into a whole expensive process involving courts and so on?

Either you legally formalise matters or you don't.  There's no half way house. The court should be a rubber stamping exercise if both parties are in agreement. Seems daft to endlessly procrastinate given the sums involved. If your ex is aware of her rights then you appear to have little option in any event. 

Pat38493

Thrugelmir said:

Pat38493 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Without a financial consent order you remain totally exposed to your ex making claims. Time to seek advice from a family law soilicitor and put the matter to bed properly. 

I guess part of my question is - if I was able to agree a mutually acceptable resolution - for example by paying her an agreed amount of money for an agreed time period, in return for a clean break, could this be easily formalised - ideally I don’t want to get into a whole expensive process involving courts and so on?

Either you legally formalise matters or you don't.  There's no half way house. The court should be a rubber stamping exercise if both parties are in agreement. Seems daft to endlessly procrastinate given the sums involved. If your ex is aware of her rights then you appear to have little option in any event. 

Yes understood, but there are many things in life that can be legally formalised by documents drawn up by a solicitor which both parties then sign - it does not always require an actual court to be involved.