So what would you do?

Hi folks
Find myself in bizarre situation and had sensible wiki-advice in the past so thought I'd sound you out.

Divorced over 2 years ago via collaboraative law so avoided legal punchups. Split everything pretty amicably 50:50. Agreed that XH kept final salary pension and I got lump sum - with court order in place earmarking maximum pension lump sum 100% to me. I currently have tiny pension pot about 1/10th of his but have 10 years to try to build it up before I'm 65.

X is 60 in November and pension falls due then. He was anticipating lump sum to me - c 45-47k ish and pension to him of £14k pa.

He rang me last Friday - being v charming!

He's heard from pension provider and they will in fact be paying lump sum £81k and pension £12kish. I havent seen detail of figures or how they were arrived at but he has and accepts this is correct. He also spoke to his solicitor who said we had been working on CETV figures which are different. [Same solicitor said at the time that if we'd gone to court he as 99% certain I'd have got pension sharing order given disparity ebwteen the two pension funds]. As it stands court order gives me 100% of the £81k and that's what pension fund say they will pay. No other option - and they already have my bank details.

Not surprisingly XH wants to negotiate and, being able to see the funny side of the situation at last I'm prepared to as well but how far should I go? Seeing him get substantial lump sum [which he wasn't expecting} AND gold plated pension for life wasn't what we agreed.

We're meeting up tomorrow to discuss. My downfall tends to be i'm always so b****dy reasonable .

So what would you do if you were me?
Mzz

HI MZZ,

Personally I'd say that you should accept £60k of the lump sum (which is 5 x £12k - so this is 5 years of what he would get as an annual pension)

You also have 10 more years of building up your pension pot.

He then will be left with a £21k lump sum to top up his expected annual pension (as it seems he will be short 2k p.a)

You're both getting a little more than expected - if you can agree to share (with you getting the lions share as promised) I think it will do you both good.

However this is just my opinion.

Hope it all works out for you!

WR

Just out of interest about how these things work - usually you can choose how much to take as a tax free lump sum - so is the deal under your pension attachment/Consent Order that he agreed to take out the max tax free cash possible and transfer it to you?
The less civilised enlightened self interest approach:
Check out really carefully what sort of pension income you'll be looking at at age 60. £81k doesn't buy a ton of income.
What happens if he decides not to take this pension into payment - is it possible he might delay taking it?
I'd find it v v hard to hand any of that back - difficult to say reasonable through gritted teeth - has he got other income or is £12k it?

Thanks White Rose - I can see the logic of what you're suggesting and that feels about right to me as a place to end up.

Maggie - Sols tied it up v tightly that he had to take max lump sum at 60 even if he chose to defer pension itself. You're right about my pension. I'm definiteley looking at working well past 65 - assuming we have any jobs left! - before i could build up anything close to his £12k a year which will kick in at 60.

will let you know how the negotiations go. Determined I won't get bounced into being little miss reasonable, give in to avoid a spat, like I used to be!
Mzz

"he had to take max lump sum at 60 even if he chose to defer pension itself"
So it's not a final salary pension?

Hi Maggie
yes it is final salary - local government scheme. My XH no longer works there but had accumulated substantial pension from earlier in his career when he did. He could have waited to draw down the pension element until he was 65 or even older I think but sols drafted the court order so that I got lump sum when he was 60 - otherwise he could have kept me waiting for a while longer had he chosen to!
Mzz

Sorry to be so dumb - I thought/was told that the big problem with pension attachment of the tax free lump sum was that the member could delay taking the pension until forever and because they can't take the tax free cash until they take the pension into payment,the spouse has to wait until they take the pension into payment to get the lump sum.
In effect by ordering him to pay the tax free lump sum to you at his age 60 the court ordered him to take his pension at age 60?
I didn't know they could do that.
Unless of course - ....LGPS rules have changed and members can take their tax free lump sum at their normal retirement age and carry on working and contributing to their pension?
[NB NB NB that should have been a question so I've added the question mark - I've no idea if the rules have changed to allow that]
PS for the benefit of others - what wording did your solicitors use?
Sorry mxx - even more confused than usual today.
In any case your ex is retiring at 60 so the question won't arise - just wondering if my ex has access to even more ready cash than I thought????