Pension query

Hi,

I have two company pensions and so does my sxtb. Both obnviously went into the "pot". His two ended up being worth about 35k more than my two. My solicitor decided when looking at the CETV not to equalise as the difference was little.

But this is what's bugging me and never got to the bottom of it:

We got married in 1990. My first pension worth 80k was accrued with a company I worked for from 1979 until my redundancy in 1992. My second pension from a new company then accrued from 1993. My stbx's pensions both started within the marriage and he caught up with AVC'S which he wouldn't have been able to afford without me working.


Should my first pension worth 80k accrued after 13 years hard work almost totally outside of the marriage been included in the pot?

We only co-habited for one year in my property. We bought the FMH in 1997 and I have had to accept that I put a much larger deposit into the MH due to the fact that the proceeds of the sale of the property I owned before I met him also went into the MH as well as joint savings.

Arrg! Didn't think about a pre-nupt at the time for what it's worth.

But I'm really wondering about my first pension as it seems totally unfair that it was accrued for many years before I even met him. He didn't have a company pension before the marriage and has ended up with a slighter bigger pension than mine. So had the matter gone to Final Hearing would this have been treated differently and have I been mislead or possibly my solicitor has missed that point?

Thanks in advance,

A.

After a long marriage the split seems to be 50/50 of everything. Try and think of the end result you want to achieve and maybe you can use your pension as a negotiating point. Can you use this to argue a slightly larger share of the house?

Thank you Deedum for your reply.

Agreement has been reached now and Consent Order written up yet to be approved by the court.

Stbx was not willing to negotiate at all throughout divorce from beginning to end. It was going to go to FH thankfully due to a family member paying it for me after a lousy FDR. My barrister was poor in her short 10 min speach and his made his life as pitiful as she could in a 40 min speach. The fact that he was going to loose his job through gross mis-conduct went against me and then there was a bunch of porky pies. Directed was a 60/40 split.

I made a final proposal 3 weeks before the FH without selling myself short although I thought he was going to decline. I suggested an acceptable % split on the MH but more or less left the rest for my solicitor to advise mainly the pensions. She was very keen to settle without a FH (another long story) She has failed in representing me correctly and I will be addressing this shortly. Over the last 3 years I have had 4 conversations with the Law Society who agreed I had a case to be looked at. An example is that she wrote advising me if I wanted a brief with my barrister before my FH as had got a letter from the barristers clerk and I instructed her I did. Two months down the line when she asked me to revert back to her about something recieved from sxtb solicitors I happen to mention when was the brief booked for. This had not been arranged. Yet I have been charged for letters, asking me for instructions, myself giving clear instructions and not carrying out my wishes and it goes on and on and charged for the phone call time asking her why it wasn't done. The list goes on.....

She was totally against me using this new top barrister and kept saying he was too fully booked in advance yet when I phoned the court they weren't listing any sooner than when my barrister of my choice was free. Again I had letters going backwards and forwards at my expense to court and back and eventually sorted it myself. My sol was recommending much junior barristers. She was constantly saying that he was extremely expensive after repeat reminders that a family member was paying for him.(this member used him himself)I firmly believe she was worried at being exposed as how she had re-presented me and allowed so many FDR adjournements from the other party over a three year period without solid reasons and all at my cost.

The bottom line is when FDR finally happened May last year, it suggested a 60/40 split. A broad brush view.

I made a proposal but left certain areas open to her suggestion. I changed a few when she wrote it up i.e nominal spousal maintanance as I said i didn't think that would deter other party from accepting as he was unemployed but at least it kept the door open should I become ill in the future and he was employed again. So that was inserted. My solicitor was hard work. I asked if the original 60/40 split directed at FDR was the equity in MH or overall assets to which she mumbled erm erm can't remember as it wasn't clear when I re-read the attendance notes of the FDR as this was quite a long time ago. I was under pressure as costs would start to incur for the FH if agreement wasn't reached 3 weeks before hand and although not my costs I wanted to do the right thing and be seen as having done so in front of a judge.Sxtb definately now wanted to negotiate as he just didn't want to go to FH as this would have exposed him to all his lies in FDR including lack of dis-closures and falsyfing address where he was living. I had now the prove that he was co-habiting. Interesting how he panicked.

I think I am generally happy with the settlement. But sol just left the pensions as they were. Hence my earlier question. Although I got the biggest chunk of the house 80/20 he kept the rest of the liquid assets including inheritance. I would have liked the pensions equalised or some of the difference offset but didn't want to argue anymore. The overall split of ALL ASSETS was only 53/47 in my favour.

So the pension issue is still bugging me as I definately don't trust my solicitor so I was interested to know if a largish pension accrued outside of the marriage should have been included in the pot.

Hope that's clearer.

A

P.S Sorry it got a bit long winded.

P.S
Correction: Consent order in hands of stbx solicitors. Waiting for signatures now. Have had confirmation from his solicitor all the clauses in the consent order has been accepted and no ammendments are being made. Phew!!!

Bump

If you have agreed a consent order, is there any point in worrying now what should or should not have been taken into account? Surely now is the time to move on from this experience and take care in the future.

Just to be clear - this didn't go to a Final Hearing - your Consent Order was agreed between you "out of court" and it still has to go before a District Judge for approval?
"Should my first pension worth 80k accrued after 13 years hard work almost totally outside of the marriage been included in the pot?"
You'll be aware that if you'd divorced in Scotland the pension you built up before marriage would by law have been excluded from the assets available for sharing on divorce.
For the rest of the UK the requirement is for the current CETV of any pensions to be disclosed and available for sharing.
I understand people outside Scotland are asking actuaries to produce separate CETVs for the pensions accrued before as opposed to during marriage but I don't know how successful they are at FDR or FH in ringfencing these pensions accrued before marriage and not sharing them - so a matter for negotiation/mutual acceptance but not a legal requirement.


Are any of the pensions final salary pensions?

Does the nominal maintenance/periodical payments order have an end date or is it for joint lives?