Pensions and Divorce in Leeds

Offices in Leeds, Harrogate and London. Working with clients across the UK and overseas.

If you are in a situation where you are considering divorce and seeking to get advice on pensions and divorce, we can help. Consilia Legal are reputable family law solicitors in Leeds, London & Harrogate who can advise you on your position with your pension in the event of divorce. We can provide expert legal advice on pensions sharing, your rights with your pension, final salary scheme pensions, and the pension sharing on divorce new procedure.

Understand your legal position with your pension upon divorce

It is important from the outset of discussing finances on divorce to obtain the Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV) of each party’s pension. It is important to do this early on in the process as some pension schemes can take up to 3 months to produce the CETV figure. Even if you have agreed that you will both retain your own pensions, this figure is still needed when formalising that agreement into a legally binding court order known as a Consent Order. The reason for this is to give the Judge a snapshot of the matrimonial finances before approving the order.

what Are the options in dealing with  pensions & divorce

Once the CETV has been obtained by the parties and all other financial disclosure has been exchanged, the parties can begin to discuss how to distribute the marital assets. The parties can do one of the following with the pensions:

1. Pension Sharing Order – A percentage of one party’s pension is transferred to the other party. This can be complex depending on the type of pensions involved and in some instances, it may be necessary to engage with a financial advisor to provide further assistance or an actuary.
2. Pension Attachment Order – A percentage of one party’s pension is set aside for the other party to claim upon retirement. This is high risk as some parties would lose their right to the pension if they married or the scheme member dies. It is important to obtain independent financial advice in relation to opting for this option.
3. Offsetting – This involves offsetting the amount that one party is entitled to from the other party’s pension with other assets such as equity in a property or savings. With this approach specialist advice is needed to ensure that the correct offsetting amount is established as the value of a pension is different from cash assets.

With any of the above options, it is important to have received specialist legal and financial advice. Whilst the CETV figures give you the value that the pension scheme attributes to the fund, different assumptions may have been used by different schemes and it may not be appropriate to rely on the CETVs alone.