Public Service Pensions

I have been married for nearly 25 yrs and very likely will divorce this year. I was in the RAF for 22 yrs of which I was married for 14 and I now receive a pension from the RAF of £6000 a year. I am now a lecturer and I am in the Teachers Pension Scheme which can be taken at 60 but more likely to be 65. Can anybody advise me what might happen to the pensions. Is pension sharing the best option as the equity in the house, about 80K would not be enough to give my wife the pension capital. I have applied for CETV but not recived yet. Based on a colleagur CETV likely to be £125K RAF pension and £80K Teachers pension.

Hi Im in a simaler situation as you after 22 years served my pension is in payment so its not a CETV you require its a CEV or CEB, my CEV from the paymaster is £103,000 or £583.** PM after tax, I believe a clean brake is better so if your stbw can take the full value of the house and perhaps a top up one off cash payment then see if the powers to be will accept that as a full settlement see what your sol thinks. DO NOT make my mistake and let sols hand over cash before final hearing and judge has agreed to the split, my X is back for second bite of cherry and I have to go through court trying to prove she is lieing through her back teeth and IM struggling as companies dont keep info after so many years.

My partner's RN pension had to be assessed by an independent actuary because the CETV was deemed to have undervalued it (at a cost of £800 and then receiving a valuation of about 60% more than the CETV), apparently AF pensions are notorious for being undervalued. Having said that, his is not being paid yet, so I don't know whether your case would be different. My advice would be to ask your solicitor.

Even a pension in payment is likely to be undervalued by a CETV / CEB, especially Government pensions.

My suggestion is that you work out how many other assets you can give to your partner and then throw the problem to an actuary to work out the best way to divide the pensions to even things up whilst maximising the value of your assets post-sharing.

If you need some or all of the income from your pension then this is obviously another constraint on the final solution. Also if one of you is in ill-health this might change the answer.

Thanks for the info.

We are hoping to sort our finances out amicably though the only asset we really have is the 80 - 90 K in the house. I would need about 20k to use when I remortgage so my wife could have the balance. I was also intending on letting her have a fair chunk of my monthly RAF pension though using the calculator I will also prob have to pay her spousal maintenance. She has a large future inheritance of about 200K and as said that this will be shared as I do and still will sort out all my in-laws finances and take them to hosp apts etc. He has probable alzheimers. I believe that future inheritances are not normally taken into account otherwise I would have suggested that she keep the inheritance and I keep a bigger proportion of my pensions.