Spouse entitlement of my pension

Millerh

Hi - I am not married to my partner - we have no intention of marrying. We have been together 13 years have a mortgage, joint bank accounts and a family together.  
My company pension states if something happens to me my "spouse" is entitled to some of my pension. I queried this with the provider as technically he is not my spouse. They advised there is no guarantee he would get it, the trustees would make a decision regarding whether or not he gets any of my money in the event of my death. I have got an expression of wish form in his name but this is apparently only a guide for them. How can I make sure he will get my pension? Anyone had any experience of this? 

Keep_pedalling

Never mind the pension, are you aware of the IHT hit that the surviving partner might face when one of you dies. If either of you has over £325k of assets (including share of joint assets) then anything above that would be taxed at 40% which could see your partner having to sell your home to pay it.

You don’t have to get married to take advantage of spousal exemption a civil partnership would do it. 

af1963

+1 for civil partnership. Can be done very quickly by signing the relevant papers in front of official witnesses if you want to keep things simple and not make a big thing of "getting married". 

Silvertabby

Back to your pension question, if the pension is a DC then the trustees may award any monies due to your child/children rather than your unmarried partner.

As has already been said, marriage is so much more than just a piece of paper.

Pat38493

Millerh said:

Hi - I am not married to my partner - we have no intention of marrying. We have been together 13 years have a mortgage, joint bank accounts and a family together.  
My company pension states if something happens to me my "spouse" is entitled to some of my pension. I queried this with the provider as technically he is not my spouse. They advised there is no guarantee he would get it, the trustees would make a decision regarding whether or not he gets any of my money in the event of my death. I have got an expression of wish form in his name but this is apparently only a guide for them. How can I make sure he will get my pension? Anyone had any experience of this? 

You could make the situation better by making sure that your nomination forms to your employer specify your partner and maybe including comments or a letter that clearly states that this is your long term partner and you would like them to get the same benefits as if you were married.  BUT….  This is not a guarantee and your better bet is to get a civil partnership, not only for this reason but for the IHT reasons mentioned above.  Unfortunately the UK law in these type of situations favours people who make their partnership legally official.

xylophone

Hi - I am not married to my partner - we have no intention of marrying. We have been together 13 years have a mortgage, joint bank accounts and a family together.  
My company pension states if something happens to me my "spouse" is entitled to some of my pension. I queried this with the provider as technically he is not my spouse. 

If there is no legal or other impediment to your marriage, why would you not wish to give each other the security (financial and otherwise - see comments above) that marriage confers?

There is no "technically" about it - what matters is the legal position.

It would be uncommon for Trustees not to have regard to a form of nomination but they do have absolute discretion.

Why not get the "piece of paper" ( marriage certificate) and protect those you love?

p00hsticks

af1963 said:

+1 for civil partnership. Can be done very quickly by signing the relevant papers in front of official witnesses if you want to keep things simple and not make a big thing of "getting married". 

As far as I'm aware the paperwork / witnesses are the same for a civil partnership as for a marriage. 
There is no need for getting married to be a 'big thing' (speaking as someone who did it in front of two witnesses for around  £80 a few years back solely so that we'd benefit from each others pensions and has since pretty much forgotten about it). 

tacpot12

Some pension funds have a concept of a financially dependent person, and will pay a pension (at the discretion of the trustees) to any such person. The person has to apply to the pension scheme, and will be expected to provide evidence of their financial dependency on you, but being pre-nominated is a big help with this as they are not appearing "out of the blue" as it were.  Your partner might well meet their criteria while you have a mortgage and intertwined finances, but the trustees will neever confirm ahead of your death whether your partner definitely will be paid a pension. This is because they can't be certain what the situation will be at that time; you might have seperated, you might have married, etc.

The only think you can do is help to ensure that your partner has sufficient pension provision in their own name that any pension they might receive from your pension would be 'extra' and could be used to help your children. 

eastcorkram

How often does the expression of wish form get over ruled I wonder. I've never actually got around to filling that in for any of my pensions. 

Marcon

Millerh said:

Hi - I am not married to my partner - we have no intention of marrying. We have been together 13 years have a mortgage, joint bank accounts and a family together.  
My company pension states if something happens to me my "spouse" is entitled to some of my pension. I queried this with the provider as technically he is not my spouse. They advised there is no guarantee he would get it, the trustees would make a decision regarding whether or not he gets any of my money in the event of my death. I have got an expression of wish form in his name but this is apparently only a guide for them. How can I make sure he will get my pension? Anyone had any experience of this? 

Marriage or civil partnership is the only way to be sure.

xylophone

How often does the expression of wish form get over ruled I wonder. I've never actually got around to filling that in for any of my pensions. 

I would imagine that overruling the expression of wishes would be uncommon - however, I could imagine circumstances where the Trustees would have regard to  the needs/perceived claims/rights of other dependants of the deceased not named on the expression of wishes.

Why have you neglected completing an expression of wishes form?