During the financial discussions as part of divorce proceedings, full financial disclosure is required. This includes disclosure of pension assets. Often one spouse’s pension provision is significantly higher than the other’s. This can be explained by salary differences, maternity breaks, pre marital contributions, age differences or choices made by the couple during the marriage.
There are several ways that the pension imbalance can be dealt with. This includes obtaining a Pension Sharing order and offsetting some or all of the pension against other assets. Actuaries and pension experts are often asked to write joint reports to determine what shares and amounts should be divided to enable a fair outcome to be achieved.
As a family lawyer, and mediator, I often hear a spouse say they are not interested in the pensions. This is normally because they see pensions as an asset that is not realisable for some time and of little use right now. However the attached article highlights the effect such an approach can have, especially on women.
Further information about pensions and divorce can be found at:- www.freethsoxford.co.uk/divorcepension
If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me.
Overall, women are less well prepared for retirement than men, with 52 per cent saving adequately for the future, compared with 59 per cent, respectively, the survey showed.This figure falls to below half for divorced women, with nearly a quarter saying they are unable to save anything at all into a pension, twice the rate of divorced men saving nothing.Even if pensions are discussed during a divorce settlement, women are still missing out – 16 per cent lost access to any pension pot when they split with their partner and 10 per cent were left relying completely on the state pension, Scottish Widows said
https://www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2017/11/01/divorced-women-suffer-5bn-pension-hit-every-year/
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