Pension sharing with these values

[ikeepforgetting]

My solicitor isn't sure this is worth it, but to me (at age 52) I can't see how I would find this much money between now and retirement any other way.

My pension is approx £230k and ex is £425k. If equalised I would get £90k transferred to me.

Just based on this, is it worth asking for? How much does it cost to implement?

Not correct, OP isn't automatically entitled to £90K of anything and I personally think she's on a hiding to nothing.

The other issue for you OP is that you don’t seem to be maximising your income. If you had an earning potential of £75k pa and have never exited that field you can potentially earn more than £30k pa. Making the case that you need to continue to “sacrifice” income because of nearly adult children may be difficult unless your ex agrees. It will certainly be expensive in court.

The lawyer is maybe seeing a very obvious comeback to your assertion for more equity being - you could earn more but choose not to and there is nothing stopping you. For the purposes of a divorce they will assess your potential household income, with deductions and additions such as benefits. They will do the same with him but he will have a lot of deductions.

You want your ex to agree to defer the sale of the home which is really detrimental to him financially. By the sounds of it you are expecting to stay there for 3-4 years at least.

You want a bigger share of the equity.

You want pension equalisation.

You want this sorted out amicably before going to court where it will cost thousands if not tens of thousands to resolve.

I can see most lawyers saying that an offer of 60-65% equity and a deferred sale for x years is worth it even you have to agree to leave the pension alone.

In this market, it could take two years to sell the house

Equalise the pensions. You can get 10 years growth on that 90k. Absolutely worth it.

Not necessarily worth it if it means less equity from the house

As the old saying goes turnover is vanity Profit is sanity. equity in the house is a bag of magic beans until it’s realised.

but the equity will be released now via house sale,

that’s cash now

Traded against an asset that’s highly volatile, is based on predicted values which might not materialise and could go down and us not a liquid asset now. And because of that is not equal value £-£ to equity

Pension sharing means both pension pots are added together then split 50/50. Most couples who divorce after a long marriage where 1 person looked after kids do this. With age of your kids you might get 60/40 split in equity. If you wait until youngest is 18 it's more likely 50/50.

I don't think the house equity will be released now as she is staying put for 2 years due to exams. I think the pension is worth it as it's cash now.

It’s not automatically cash now. DH previous wife got 50% of pension accrued during marriage but she can only access it when she hits state pension retirement age so still has 25+ years to wait

Pension does not mean splitting 50:50 at all. If op gets 60:40 of other assets, pension might be split say 20:80 ( just using as example).

and pension is not cash now! It can only be used to transfer into op pension pot for the future !

The equity will be released in a few years and is a liquid asset. The pension is not!

Yes, but it’s a physical tangible amount that gets transferred unlike equity which is on paper gains until it’s realised.
Totally understand that investments go up and down in the stock market just as much as they do the Housing one however.
To give you an example of my personal circumstances I was given 50% of the equity in the house and then he sold it to his mate for 50 grand less than it’s market value despite going to court to try and prevent that.

And spending another 50 grand arguing the toss.

In this case the equity is not only something the OP can access it is something she is currently benefiting from. Whilst her husband isn’t.

Meanwhile the pensions either cannot be accessed at all or with financial penalties.

The OPs question is whether the solicitor is giving her bad advice. Without knowing a lot more about the actual circumstances we don’t really know. But it certainly could be good advice if:

1. the house is worth more then 500k and this is probable in London
2. the OP can earn more then 30k which is again probable
3. her eldest Child or even second child are not deemed to be dependents by the time this gets to court or even now.