Pensions. Who can advise me?

[Soopermum1]

Stbxh and I both have pensions. I have no idea of their worth. I have paperwork for mine and out of date paperwork (2 years old) for his.

Who advises me on their worth in relation to each other? Can a financial advisor (with experience from his own divorce) help me? I'd like to have an idea re what to offer financially before getting into the nitty gritty with my lawyer (expensive)

Mediation not really an option as he's a delusional idiot.

Depends on what type of pension they are. If they're personal pensions, or defined contribution occupational pensions, then their worth is readily known from the documents. If they are defined benefit pensions (civil service, universities, older large blue chip companies) then for a divorce you'll need the cash equivalent transfer value (CETV) from the pension provider. If you're on similar earnings and in similar schemes, then their values could cancel out (largely) but I imagine that's rarely the case.

Thanks Waterspider. Stbxh works in local government but I'll see what the paperwork's says.

So, it's based on money accrued so far? Not based on a final amount at retirement?

Local govt is defined benefit.
The relevant value is based on what it would cost NOW, to buy the current entitlement to a future income and/or lump sum. That is likely more than money put into the scheme so far.
That could be a lot of money.
Key options -- trade off the value of the pension against another asset like the value of housing or other savings; pension sharing (where you basically become a scheme member with an entitlement to an income at retirement).

Getting valuations can be time-consuming and costly, by the way. Whether this is going to be valuable will depend partly on how long you've been married and value of other assets. You also need to consider the value of your own pension in the mix.

Thanks, Waterspider.

I have a clear idea in my head re the house, so if pensions are roughly similar I hope we'd agree to just leave them as they are. We both have pensions but mine is private sector.

My ex and I had similar pensions (his was the teacher one) and we decided they were about the same and just to leave them be (and we had 20 years of working life still to go before retirement). So we did not need formal valuations. Have a look at what you would each get paid based on what they are currently worth which it probably says on an annual statement to see if they are just about similar or so different it is worth investing money in fighting over them and do be careful - sometimes a pension is the biggest asset; but they are not like cash in hand and no one is forced to set a possible claim against their pension against giving more cash now.