Divorcing a police officer - Pensions and other mind games

[nothx1]

I am getting so many mixed messages from different perspectives of what I should be asking for financially that I wondered if anyone had recent experience of divorcing police.
I am awaiting an actuary report which is due any day.
However I have had some people telling me I will only be entitled to a share of the pension for the duration we were married ( 15 years). Others have told me that I wont get anything from the pension.

My solicitor is non commital at present and to be honest It is costing me money every time i contact him.

So I am looking for anyone's recent experience of divorcing where a police pension was involved. I am mostly interested in what 'split' percentage wise you achieved. Just so I know kind of what to expect.

Thanks in advance

You need the value of the pension and any house equity plus any savings plus debts...

The total asset value is shared. For example you could get all the equity in a marital home but not touch the pension.

If no home then the starting point would be 50:50 of the pension.

Far too many variables such as children etc to give advice. You need proper legal advice.

Thank you for replying.
There is £180k equity is sat with a solicitor, as I sold the home pretty much as soon as he left.

It was more the fact that people are telling me different information about the pension - as in I am not entitled to any of it, or I will only be able to claim for the pension amount for the time we were married.

From your answer you are saying that I would perhaps be entitled to start at 50% of the total pension pot irrespective of length of marriage

Starting point is 50:50! For the equity and pension pot value. You both need to fill in the financial form E as part of the divorce before your solicitor can have an idea tbh.

There is nothing to say police pensions are absolutely untouchable, but it will depend on your circumstances eg do you have a pension of your own?

Thanks for your replies,

I don't have a pension because all of my earnings were used to renovate our house and support the family. I was always told there was no need due to the value of his pension and this would look after 'us' - ( stupid now I know !!!)

Not enough information. For example, do you work as well? If you had a job earning as much or more during the marriage, you will have been expected to fund a pension yourself. So even if you have no pension, it won’t mean you’d get 50% of his pension.
If you have a pension, that gets factored in too.

Also when you married gets factored in. For example, if he’s had his pension for 30yrs and you have been married the last 15yrs, you don’t get 50% of the current 30yrs of saving value. Usually whatever you take into the marriage, the courts try to restore back to you in divorce (if you don’t agree in mediation and end up in court).

all of my earnings were used to renovate our house
Then you should be asking for more than 50% of the house equity.

Don't beat yourself up on what is done. Been there, done that.

You can only move forwards, so work on dealing with the areas within your future control.

Total assets are considered. Pensions are part of the assets regardless of the name they are in. So potentially you could request a much greater share of the house equity and forfeit a share in the pension (a clean break seperation).

Another thing to look into is if you've missed years of state pension contributions how many you can buy and the cost of these - presumably his state pension has been paid so you could throw your top up contribution requirement into the pot for consideration.

Thanks RippleEffects, The whole thing has been horrendous, I am having counselling so starting to feel a bit more in control so thank you for being kind.

I was hoping to ask for the equity and then for a lesser amount of the pension but wasnt sure if this was possible, because people often talk about Clean breaks - but if I took the equity it would be no where near half of the assets - it would be considerably less.

I can only get a small mortgage so the equity is more important right now, but I also dont want to forfeit some sort of pension.

No reason as to why you shouldn't. I got a percentage of my ex's massive nhs pension. He can try and ring-fence it so you only get the percentage of the amount he paid for the duration of the marriage , mine tried that and failed. I had given up my job to care did the family and the court took that into account. There are many deciding factors , are there any children ? What is the size of the pot, stocks , shares, savings etc.

You need the Form E completed.

Sounds like you've had an awful time

HI Crunchiebabe,

yes two children who live with me. I do work but only earn about £20k per year in an admin job.

I am trying my best not to let this go to court as I just dont know how I would fund that.

Lots of deciding factors but the main thing is to have the confidence to negotiate for a share of the pension

Don't start negotiating until you have received his Form E.

Yes go for a clean break and assume you will only ever get the minimum CMS amount that he has to pay.

I work and earn more. My pension assets were higher than the police cetv which was a joke anyway. So insisted on actuary report and court agreed.

We used the actuary report to get “equity in pension”. So the report effectively tells you what you should be asking for to be equals at the point of splitting. That calculated the worth of the final salary pension accrued during the relationship. Then worked out the value of my normal person work pensions and came up with a percentage split. If you have no or little pension assets, this should be in your favour but also depends on ages and how many years the police person has left to earn, so they are not going to give you 80% if you are both fairly young and can still go out and work and earn for many years to come but if you had been a housewife and you were divorcing in your late 50s it would be considered that you’d have little chance of making up the difference at this point.

The split happens the day of the order and whatever each of you do thereafter is irrelevant. So if the police person goes on to became head of MI5 with a massive salary or the other person becomes a millionaire, the split happens at the point of divorce and that’s that. Clean break.

House equity split was handled separately and based on who had children and what was needed to be able to mortgage a new home etc. Again, if your children are young and one has more residency than the other which is usually the case with shift worker divorces, then the split of housing assets would be in the favour of the person with the kids the most. If there are no children, I guess it would be a more 50/50ish split of the equity.

Final split was 33% of the pension and 65% of the house. I’ve since worked out that if I was to save up on a regular pension scheme to get annuities that are the same as that third of his pension..... I’d have to save 350,000. So don’t sell yourself short and agree to give up too much of it to get more house. I’d go for separating the two issues like I described above.

Fun fact: you become a stand alone member of the pension scheme but you might have to remind them to send you statements. They are legally obliged to send you an annual illustration so make sure you get that!

Other fun fact: your other half will get an automatic annual illustration which shows years accrued and clearly show a deduction for your part of it. So every year, your ex gets an update of what you got. I think this is totally irresponsible personally and don’t see why it has to show. It sets him off every year when the statement comes out. 🙄

Good luck!

@meeeh Thank you so much - this is exactly the sort of information I was looking for. I agree that keeping the pension and the equity separate would be a sensible approach.

Thank you so much for your response, it has really helped me the see things a bit more clearly. I am actually trying to avoid things going to court so I have ordered the actuary report through my solicitor. I have a feeling that we may end up there anyway however.
with regards to fun fact number 2 - my ex will react in exactly the same way ! So that will be a fun future to look forward to !

Make sure you clearly agree on what CMS covers as part of your agreement and get this in writing. This will be an ongoing point of contention if you don’t.

My ex’s Form E should have had an award for fiction novel of the year.

Start a calculation spreadsheet now and work out different scenarios around the splits and how this affects your ability to rent/buy. Mortgages take into account affordability so you need to take all your costs like gas and leccy etc from the Form E and have a clear idea of what you can afford. Then look at housing options and provide examples of them as part of the negotiation.

This part of the divorce process is exhausting so make sure you are on top of it. And look after yourself.

@Meeeh

I work and earn more. My pension assets were higher than the police cetv which was a joke anyway. So insisted on actuary report and court agreed.

We used the actuary report to get “equity in pension”. So the report effectively tells you what you should be asking for to be equals at the point of splitting. That calculated the worth of the final salary pension accrued during the relationship. Then worked out the value of my normal person work pensions and came up with a percentage split. If you have no or little pension assets, this should be in your favour but also depends on ages and how many years the police person has left to earn, so they are not going to give you 80% if you are both fairly young and can still go out and work and earn for many years to come but if you had been a housewife and you were divorcing in your late 50s it would be considered that you’d have little chance of making up the difference at this point.

The split happens the day of the order and whatever each of you do thereafter is irrelevant. So if the police person goes on to became head of MI5 with a massive salary or the other person becomes a millionaire, the split happens at the point of divorce and that’s that. Clean break.

House equity split was handled separately and based on who had children and what was needed to be able to mortgage a new home etc. Again, if your children are young and one has more residency than the other which is usually the case with shift worker divorces, then the split of housing assets would be in the favour of the person with the kids the most. If there are no children, I guess it would be a more 50/50ish split of the equity.

Final split was 33% of the pension and 65% of the house. I’ve since worked out that if I was to save up on a regular pension scheme to get annuities that are the same as that third of his pension..... I’d have to save 350,000. So don’t sell yourself short and agree to give up too much of it to get more house. I’d go for separating the two issues like I described above.

Fun fact: you become a stand alone member of the pension scheme but you might have to remind them to send you statements. They are legally obliged to send you an annual illustration so make sure you get that!

Other fun fact: your other half will get an automatic annual illustration which shows years accrued and clearly show a deduction for your part of it. So every year, your ex gets an update of what you got. I think this is totally irresponsible personally and don’t see why it has to show. It sets him off every year when the statement comes out. 🙄

Good luck!

Lots of good advice here. Fight hard and think clearly. Ex will lie, bully, and manipulate. You have to find out what you are entitled to and go for it.

Not sure if anyone will read this but I need some advice re divorcing a policeman ... does an actuary report make a real difference ? 🤔

It can make ALL the difference so do not be bullied or charmed into selling yourself short. Do not accept a CETV evaluation from the police pension scheme. It might be worth more than the house. Especially if you don’t have much by way of pension savings, it is worth the 1-2 grand it costs and those costs should be split. The court ordered the actuary report at the first hearing as the ex was fighting tooth and nail to keep it off the table.

We were in our 40s. The actuary report we had took into consideration my regular pension savings and did a projection on his final salary pension. Then worked out what each would be worth in retirement and I was allocated a percentage of his so that at the point of divorce, our pensions were “equalising pension income”

The matter of the other assets like the house and kids were then settled separately but knowing what that police pension is actually worth could be important to work out the other splits and financial arrangements.

I’ve since calculated that based on what the projected payout will be, I would need to save up a regular pension pot of 250-300k.

It should also be a pension sharing order which makes you a member in your own right unlike the other options which are more at risk if the police officer gets sacked or dies I think. Maybe get some advice on this?

The fact that a solicitors firm offered “divorce workshops” to his police force is a good indicator of how complicated and important this is.

best of luck

Yes it is worth every penny and likely to show double the value of the CETV.

Def use an actuary. I used to work for the police & then in law (later had unfortunate experience of close family member divorcing a copper). I can tell you this, police officers are obsessed with their pensions. He will do almost anything to prevent you from touching it. And it might work out better for you not to, or it might not. Def get an actuary and think about timings. My close family member settled days before the STBEH pension increased significantly. Beware.

What's the stbeh? It's a whole other world to me.
I only want to take a larger share of the house so I cam keep my safe place that I worked so hard for. I put in more that the law doesn't care about and despite being unemployed during covid I will soon maybe earn more so I'm worried they will force sale. I don't want to take his money I only want to leverage against equity to help me stay put x

Stbeh = soon to be ex husband.

if there are kids involved you might get the house anyway. Either way, don’t focus so much on staying put. The police pension could pay you out around a grand a month in old age. That might be worth a LOT more than you’ll be getting from increases in property value etc. depending on where you live. Its just a house. You need to set yourself up for a home. If you get this wrong your feelings towards the house can change later.

This might get nasty. It might not. Spend some time preparing is my best advice. Know your finances inside out, think ahead. Get the actuary report. It is exhausting and easy to just agree to a quick and easy solution but why should you. Think of this as a business transaction and try to take the emotion out of it. You’ve got this.

Thank you
I'm being quite practical in that moving costs and solicitors etc would make moving more expensive. I've always looked after myself and also wouldn't want to deprive him of his pension as long as it equates to my home. I have earned more and my biggest fear is I end up paying him more which sickens me as I feel I already gave up so much. Its a horrible thing to go through on top of a very sad end to a marriage.
It will likely get nasty as he will want half the equity in cash which I don't have

Ps spoke to actuary- will cot over 2k and I cant do it without his permission or a judge ordering it