Divorce after retirement

Unclefoobar

Just a hypothetical question I hope won't affect me, but..

i'm aware pensions are seen as financial assets along with property etc and these are (or can be) equally distributed during divorce proceedings, but specifically with pensions, what about if one or both people in the marriage are under the SRA, but are receiving a pension whether it be work place, DB or DC and have no other work income? Is a sharing order still applicable when the pension is already being claimed?

 

Marcon

Unclefoobar said:

Just a hypothetical question I hope won't affect me, but..

i'm aware pensions are seen as financial assets along with property etc and these are (or can be) equally distributed during divorce proceedings, but specifically with pensions, what about if one or both people in the marriage are under the SRA, but are receiving a pension whether it be work place, DB or DC and have no other work income? Is a sharing order still applicable when the pension is already being claimed?

 

Depends entirely on the terms of any financial settlement.

Good accurate information on pension sharing orders if pension is in payment: https://www.stephens-scown.co.uk/family/can-you-apply-for-pension-sharing-orders-if-the-pension-is-in-payment/

Silvertabby

Yes, it's certainly possible to apply a PSO (pension sharing order) to a DB pension already in payment.  However, speaking from my LGPS days, it's very rare.  I expect at that stage, like in the case of pre-retirement divorces, other assets are divvied up in lieu of pension sharing (although the value of the benefits are classed as mutual marital assets).

Not 100% about, say, a DC annuity - but can't see any reason why a PSO couldn't be applied to that as well.  The calculations couldn't be any more complicated that the ones needed to split a DB pension!

DullGreyGuy

Annuities, originating from DB or DC, can equally be subject to a PSO but as per above the percentage of requests for a valuation that turns into a PSO is tiny. That could be because people are seeing what they'd have to give away and decide marriage isn't so bad or probably more likely they decide to split the marital assets in a different way so may give up a larger percentage of a home to avoid having to split a pension. 

Albermarle

Probably tricky with a DC drawdown, as income can be very variable, depending on how it is drawn. I suppose in that case splitting the actual remaining pot would be the way forward.

DullGreyGuy

Albermarle said:

Probably tricky with a DC drawdown, as income can be very variable, depending on how it is drawn. I suppose in that case splitting the actual remaining pot would be the way forward.

Its always done by splitting "the pot"... for DC this is simple as there is a clear value, for DB or anything thats been converted to an annuity it requires the calculation of the value with actuarial assumptions. 

Unclefoobar

Marcon said:

Unclefoobar said:

Just a hypothetical question I hope won't affect me, but..

i'm aware pensions are seen as financial assets along with property etc and these are (or can be) equally distributed during divorce proceedings, but specifically with pensions, what about if one or both people in the marriage are under the SRA, but are receiving a pension whether it be work place, DB or DC and have no other work income? Is a sharing order still applicable when the pension is already being claimed?

 

Depends entirely on the terms of any financial settlement.

Good accurate information on pension sharing orders if pension is in payment: https://www.stephens-scown.co.uk/family/can-you-apply-for-pension-sharing-orders-if-the-pension-is-in-payment/

Thanks for the link and others comments, all my searches took me in the direction of pre retirement arrangements.