Pensions v other assets

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Has anyone had experience of pensions offsetting? We've had two conflicting pieces of advice...

I have £230k in pensions and no other assets. STBXH has £64k in pensions (because he always refused to pay in to a pension) and £70k in savings/vintage motorbikes. This gives a difference in assets of c£100k in my favour.

Advice 1 (Amicable) said I would need to give him £50k (ie half the difference). Advice 2 (a family solicitor) said a pension £ is only worth a third of a cash £ and therefore our overall assets balance out.

NB I am buying him out of the house - he'll take 60% of the equity which will allow him to buy outright as he is the lower wage earner - and our son will remain with me in the family home.

Hmmm do you think your STBXH will take less than 50% of the pension? Because, thats what this boils down to really.
Have you made him an offer yet?

Why would you need to split the pensions 50/50 if he's getting 60% of the equity?

I would recommend financial mediation- you'll each list all outgoings/incomings/assets/debts etc and the mediator will assist in helping you come to an agreement which the judge is likely to approve (note - that doesn't necessarily mean 50/50 on everything).

So if he's keeping 60% of the house equity, I would expect a smaller split on the pensions. Also - who has valued his bikes? I'd be asking for an up to date professional valuation of those, to make sure he's not under-estimating.

Sorry, should have added this is all v amicable and he doesn't want any of my pension (nor I his bikes!).

Advice 1 was that this wouldn't be deemed fair by the Court who would insist he had some due to the difference in assets.

Advice 2 said not so, and that since we are agreed and pensions are less valuable than cash/other assets, they didn't enviage a judge disagreeing with our proposal.

Pensions are not equal to liquid assets now as they are future predictions of an income. This is why they need expert valuations when reaching agreement on split
The split of total assets is not necessarily 50:50 as you will ge housing your son.
See a solicitor to work out a fair proposal , but the pension sharing could be low or even not deemed at all eg he gets 69% of equity plus keeps his savings and pension and that could be a fair split without touching your pension.

There is no correct way to compare pension funds with cash. Neither advice is correct but solicitor is closer (a third is completely random though.)

If you wanted to be "fair" you would split the money in half, the house in half, and equalise the pensions, but what you are doing is fine. I would agree with your solicitor that the judge will have no issue with it.

Money and pensions are not the same thing, you will need an actuary to work out the difference' it's actually a complicated process.

if you had £100k pension and STBX has £100k money, you do NOT have the same assets at all. See an Actuary it's worth the money.