Pension

My husband is a retired local government officer. I am thinking of divorcing him as he has been unfaithful to me for the past 15 years. I am disabled. He has a substantial occupational pension and he will be in receipt of his state pension later this month. I get DLA and I get my state pension in May. I have been told by a solicitor that if we divorced, as we have been married for nearly 40 years we would probably have to divide our assets equally. My question is about his pension would I be entitled to half our joint income and what would happen if he died before me? The booklet I have read that is issued by his pension provider only mentions spouses or civil partners and if I divorced him I assume I would be considered to be neither of those.

I suppose I'm your situation in reverse.

I am a retired local government officer. If the pension were not in payment I'm pretty sure you could claim a hefty slice of it.

But I am not sure whether you can split a pension in payment. I asked about it and was told you couldn't - but thing s may have changed. It's not against the law to ask.

You could certainly claim spousal maintenance which he would presumably pay out of his pension. After 40 years' holy matrimony I'd say you'd earned it.

At any rate this is what I am currently doing and have been for the last 27 years or so. Pension splitting was not possible when we divorced.

The amount of spousal maintenance depends on your needs and his ability to contribute to them. There is no set formula. In addition the way the assets are split can affect the issue of how much maintenance.

You need to address the issue because if you divorce you are no longer his widow if he dies first. You have, in principle, a claim against his estate if he dies first.
One possible solution is for him to take out life insurance.

Your first question must be whether you can split a pension in payment. Can't answer that one, but you can always ask !

LMM

You can share a LGPS pension in payment - as with any pension in payment apart from the basic State Pension.
Have a look at:
www.lgps.org.uk/lge/core/page.do?pageId=101547

Thanks for your kind advice. But I am confused as to what the term 'Pension in payment' means. My husband is already retired. He took his pension at aged 58, so is his pension in payment? I hadn't thought of life insurance so that is an added thing I can throw into the pot when we finally get into negotiations.

By ' a pension in payment ' I mean a situation where the individual has retired and the pension is currently being paid.

I'm no expert on pensions and you need to speak to the pension provider.

LMM

Until you apply to divorce it's impossible to get information about your husband's pension unless he gives you the information voluntarily or it's openly available to you in shared files.
Once you've applied to divorce and declared that you want to share the pension, under the regulations you have the legal right to information about the pension you want to share.
Usually different rules apply to separate pensions created by pension sharing on divorce and it's essential to know what rules will apply to your pension before negotiating.
Do you know what £amount of pension he gets from his local government pension at the moment joaneeonee?

Yes I do, as we are still together and I have taken a copy of his last P60. We still have a joint a bank account where his pension is paid into. I am not even sure if we will get divorced yet, but I am just making sure of my position before I take any action. He has been unfaithful to me with one of his ex-work colleagues and I have put up with it for long enough. I intend telling him this week that either he gives her up or I want out. But I don't want to have to live in poverty if he chooses her over me.