Hypothetical question... If there was no financial order who gets the pension?

[Fressia123]

If there was no financial order, and the man remarries and later in life dies. Who gets the pension? The ex or current wife? What about equity of a house?

Gosh that sounds complicated, and totally dependent on the circumstances I would imagine. How long was the first marriage, situation with children etc

So. Let's say for his example that all children are adults and first marriage was short but with many years of cohabitation (about 10). Second marriage 20+ years

Who is on the expression of wishes death benefit form?

I would imagine the current wife. ..

The trustees would decide. Probably the current wife given the ex had no expectation of the pension.

I would imagine it all goes to the current wife. Surely the ex wife has no claim on the estate that long after their divorce?

The Trustees of the pension scheme will grant the pension to the current wife - non-existant financial orders are out of their domain.

It will be the current wife that receives the spouse's pension. I worked in pensions for years.

Well unless there is an agreement with wife #1 or a will (house)/an expression of wish (pension/insurances) leaving anything to the adult kids, I'd expect everything to go to the current wife (of 20 years)

I certainly think wife #1 expecting anything would be pretty CF behaviour

Current wife and you would have to go to court to get the will overturned

I doubt the first wife would have any claim on the pension. It would be between the kids and the second wife. But it would depend on the expression of wish associated with the pension

Let's say he never changed the expression of wish ever since he divorced, so the older ones would have the exW rather than the current wife.

I’m assuming the current wife would challenge and then it would be up to the trustees to decide. I’m not an expert but I can’t see any scenario that the pension would be given to his ex wife from over 20 years ago.

An expression of wish is just that it not written in stone and can be overturned

Which wife are you? I'm assuming the first.

Expression of wishes are overruled by scheme rules. Scheme rules would not specify to pay to ex wives.

My late-DH's pension went to his kids, and a life insurance went to his ex-wife & kids. Both as per his expression of wishes, updated not long before his anticipated death.
I probably could have had a claim on them, but didn't even try.

Life insurance is different to a pension. A pension cannot go to an ex wife.

No, I'm the second wife in this case. He's never bothered to get financial order as his pension is tiny and we bought the house together. They had no savings nor joint property so he always it was silly to get one. People make such a big deal of the financial order that I thought there could be a good reason to always have one, but if there aren't any assets then I guess it's pretty pointless.