Pension and divorce advice

Mae85 · 8 July 2018 at 8:48AM

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Spousal maintenance & pension on ESA Re: divorce
Hi all!

Again I have searched the forum and I don’t know if this is the right place to put it but someone suggested on here in the benefits section.

myself and my OH are on a joint ESA claim (currently going through mandatory reconsideration as my OH got taken from SG and put in WRAG) so we are currently ‘living’ on £282 a fortnight.
He’s currently going through divorce which we got it free due to th fee remission thing and him being on benefits. We are doing it ourselves so no solicitors. His ex has one working for her though.
Her acknowledgment of service came in the post yesterday, she’s agreeing to the divorce etc but the one question that says

‘In the event of a decree nisi being granted on the basis of 2 years separation coupled with the respondents consent, do you intend to apply to the court for it to consider your financial position as it will be after th divorce?’

To which she has answered ‘yes’ .

What does this mean? She’s going for his money?
They don’t have a mortgage or anything like that- just the 50 grand joint debt plus the HMRC child tax credit overpayment debt.
All I can think of it she’s gonna try and claim spousal maintenance.... but will my OH have to pay that seen as he’s on benefits and she works and gets a nice wage each month?
How does that work?
Also, he did have a pension whilst he was working but obviously now he isn’t working it’s not being payed into- and when he left her the first thing he did was change the name on it from hers to mine (she doesn’t know about this) so does she have a leg to stand on legally there either?

He already pays child maintenance so I don’t see what else she could want.... he doesn’t have anything to give anyway!

Any help would be appreciated!

AnotherJoe · 8 July 2018 at 8:52AM

Your post is an explanation of why you need legal advice.

Mae85 · 8 July 2018 at 9:00AM

What does that mean?
Is there free legal advice we can get? We don!!!8217;t have any money to pay for advice.

AnotherJoe · 8 July 2018 at 9:07AM

It means your situation is complex and that not paying for legal advice will be more expensive than paying. Try citizens advice as a starter perhaps.

IANAL but very few solicitors will turn down an opportunity to ask for the maximum possible,even if they expect to get little or nothing, theres little downside to ticking a box is there, she might get lucky and for example, have the judge determine that the bulk of the debt should be transferred to her ex. Maybe he spent it on gambling or women or alchohol ora fast car etc etc.

You need proper advice.

P.s. And work out how forums work, this isn't the benefits forum it's the pension one. If you can't work out how to do that you could be taken to the cleaners when it comes to representing yourselves in court. :-(

Go to the benefits forum so you can see all the posts in it. And THEN start a new post having copied your text before, and then paste it into the box.

Mae85 · 8 July 2018 at 9:17AM

I did. I searched all the forums yesterday to find what I needed and I couldn!!!8217;t find it so I posted this in the benefit section and someone told me to post it in the pension section, which I have.

Ok we will go to CAB. Btw the joint debt was for house repairs.

AnotherJoe · 8 July 2018 at 9:39AM

Mae85 wrote: »

I did. I searched all the forums yesterday to find what I needed and I couldn!!!8217;t find it so I posted this in the benefit section and someone told me to post it in the pension section, which I have.

Ok we will go to CAB. Btw the joint debt was for house repairs.

OK fair enough i misread your post when you said " I don't know if this is the right place to put it but someone suggested on here in the benefits section" (my underlining/emphasis) and then put a whole load of acronyms in that are benefits related so made me think it was meant to be in the benefits forum. Maybe my fault but that still makes the point how a simple misunderstanding with a few words can lead to issues.

Suppose at the hearing for example the exes solicitor suggests that the extension money spend was all a result of your partner bullying ex to spend the money on it and she didn't want to do it. The solicitor might even persuade ex by saying "look, if you do that and all the debt is assigned to him, he can go bankrupt so the debt gets wiped, win win".

I'm not saying this will happen, point is you would be going to war as a rag tag army against one with a General that's fought the same type of battle 100 times. You need to even up the playing field (to mix my metaphors)

Good luck.

p.s you can turn off these annoying !!8267 etc type junk that this forum puts in by going to settings > general > keyboard and turn off "smart punctuation" (assuming you are on iPad.)

Mae85 · 8 July 2018 at 9:46AM

I!!!8217;m on iPhone.
Thanks for your help, myself and my OH both suffer with mental health issues- him more so than I do it!!!8217;s such a major stress and he!!!8217;s thinking the worst (like killing him self) .
She!!!8217;s currently paying her share of the debt in an IVA but my OH IVA failed as he couldn!!!8217;t keep up with the payments, bankruptcy has been mentioned a few times.

Will go to CAB and take it from there .

AnotherJoe · 8 July 2018 at 9:52AM

Same on iPhone. Its an absolute pain that messes up a lot of posts and MSE dont give a stuff about it.

Tom99 · 8 July 2018 at 10:14AM

Mae85 wrote: »

Also, he did have a pension whilst he was working but obviously now he isn’t working it’s not being payed into- and when he left her the first thing he did was change the name on it from hers to mine (she doesn’t know about this) so does she have a leg to stand on legally there either?

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Yes the ex could apply for a pension sharing order ie ask for the pension to be divided into two maybe 50/50 or some other ratio. The fact your partner has added you as the beneficiary would not stop the pension being shared with ex.[/FONT]

Silvertabby · 8 July 2018 at 11:24AM

“ Also, he did have a pension whilst he was working but obviously now he isn’t working it’s not being payed into- and when he left her the first thing he did was change the name on it from hers to mine (she doesn’t know about this) so does she have a leg to stand on legally there either?
Originally posted by Mae85

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Yes the ex could apply for a pension sharing order ie ask for the pension to be divided into two maybe 50/50 or some other ratio. The fact your partner has added you as the beneficiary would not stop the pension being shared with ex.[/FONT]

Tom is right - the pension 'pot' is now a marital asset and therefore up for grabs. You really need some sort of legal advice here. even if it's just the CAB.

Brynsam · 8 July 2018 at 4:52PM

Silvertabby wrote: »

Tom is right - the pension 'pot' is now a marital asset and therefore up for grabs. You really need some sort of legal advice here. even if it's just the CAB.

Absolutely agree with this, especially as you have mental health issues - you need some help.

Don't forget that her pension (if she has one - and it is highly likely she will have something) also becomes a marital asset, not just your partner's pension.

Pension and divorce advice

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