Pension when separating

[Californiansunsets]

Hi there

DH and I are separating, we have no mortgage, house valued approx £300,000, I have a small pension of £30,000, he has a pension of £175,000.
We have 2 kids one aged 23 and the other 16 (still at school).

I am quite happy for 50/50. He has asked that I sell the house or remortgage for half the value. I’ve said I will give him half the value less the amount I would get for his pension, as I need the house (i am a foster carer) so if I lose the house, I won’t have enough money to purchase another, my oldest still lives with us so I would need a 4 bedroomed. He is saying there is no way I’m getting my part of his pension just now because he can’t claim it himself. He then said I should be giving him 20% as he will be paying tax when he claims his pension and I should be paying my share of the tax in the pension I would receive. Is this right?

He is completely refusing to budge on this. Is there anything I can do?

he's quite right unfortunatley, pensions are treated as different type of assets to cash/house/cars etc as they aren't immediatley available and as your husband pointed out will be taxable when it's being drawn.
Your ages will make a big difference in how the pension would be treated/divided if it went to court.
If i were you I'd see a solicitor and get advice on what a likely outcome through court would be.
Good luck with it

As well as the above claiming you need 4 beds won't hold much value either. You have a 16 year old and then there is an assumption the court will accept your fostering career requires the extra bedroom. The 23 year old isn't in the equation unless there are other extenuating reasons that you haven't mentioned

You really need a pension actuary to tell you what the value of the pension is to both of you, so you can agree to split it or off set it accurately.

See a solicitor.

FWIW when we split we got the CET values of pensions and just added them to the equity/savings etc and divided by 2, then divvied up accordingly. On that basis your share would be just over £250k. Take your pension out of that and his share of the house is about £80k. Can you afford to buy it off him?

We decided to sell the house, split the equity 50:50 and transfer some of his pension into my pension, which you can do on divorce. As I approach retirement I can see that this was a very good plan.

I was married 21 years. Our house had less than 4 years mortgage left to pay. We had a joint business. His pension was more than mine. I sold house and repaid mortgage and had to pay off some debt he ran up after we separated, then we split the rest 60/40 in my favour. Our children were 16 at school and 8 years. Both children lived with me but visited their Dad to fit in with his work. We shared pension which he was absolutely furious about as I gained as had spent some years at home with children when pre school so my pension pot was smaller. I was working as teacher. I bought new house for me and children and carried on building my own pension pot. He freaked when judge decided I should get 60/40 on house, threw a tantrum when he had to pay me some of his pension and refused to pay correct amount of child maintenance on time each month. In the end I had to involve CSA who as he went self employed found it hard to get evidence of his income. We got tribunal on income declared not commensurate with lifestyle. He had to account for his spending and chair of tribunal ordered he pay me £900 per month for child maintenance. They had to threaten to confiscate his driving licence before he gave up and paid me. You can claim pension from 55 years plus. You need to get a solicitor to help you otherwise he will try to avoid paying you what you should have.

You can certainly offset pension £ against the house £, so you could agree to take none of his pension and offset that by getting more of the house equity.

I gained a larger share of the house value for in exchange for him getting more of my pension. Perversely he earned more but had significantly smaller pension than me. I needed cash more than pension at the time to get a mortgage.

Talk to solicitor/pension advisor