Separation taking so long because of delay in pension statements- anyone else?

[50notNifty]

Over a year since STBXH left, admitted affair. Nothing legally organised yet...I've had one appointment with a solicitor who advised that the only thing missing from our overall "picture" was our pension valuations. I've applied for mine and it's still not through after almost 6mths. I asked him to do the same and was met with great resistance...I'm not pushing him on it as I am currently in the family home with the children and he is desperate to sell it.
At first I was thinking no rush, but this state of limbo is horrific
Pensions agency can give no indication of when I might receive my valuation. It's driving me mad. Is anyone else in this situation?

Most pensions administrators will send them in 5-10 working days. I just ordered mine from five different providers.

What is the reason they’re giving for the timeline?

Who are the pensions administrators? For example mine are administered by Aon, Fidelity, Nest, Willis Towers Watson & JLT.

When we both got our pension statements they both said they had 12 weeks to provide them (but it was quicker).
I assume you’ve asked just for a ‘cash equivalent transfer valuation (CETV) for divorce purposes’ as this is all you need in the first instance so you can compare both pension values.

Also - you only need this for your financial consent order. You need to get your divorce underway first as no consent order can be agreed until you have the first part of your divorce done (wait period is about 5 months after application) so if you’ve not started divorce proceedings you have about 6 months left to get finance stuff organised.

I was married to a teacher. The length of time Teachers Pensions take to provide a CETV is SCANDALOUS. Applied August 2024 and still waiting.

My local government one I got back in days. Teacher one I’ve been waiting for 5 months it’s supposed to be 3 months but there’s a massive backlog. I’ve chased twice and had no response. Google says 8 to 12 months 😩

Yep, I had two court dates postponed because the teachers pensions people wouldn’t produce my ex’s CETV. They’re an absolute disgrace.

I was going to guess teacher pension or similar. They are notoriously badly run.

Yip, teacher's pensions agency.😭
So I have a long wait ahead by the sounds of things. STBXH is public sector too, his could take just as long.
I'm in Scotland if that makes any difference.

I got my teachers pension CETV within 3 weeks and was pleasantly surprised. No sign of husbands NHS CETV, 8 weeks waiting already.

Oh wow @ThisPoisedGoldGuidewas that recently?

At least being in Scotland it simplifies things once you get the values. You may know this already but Google the MacDonald calculation and you can work out how to divide the pensions as this is all a solicitor will do. My solicitor strongly advised not putting house on market until we had the financial agreement signed, although in the end it dragged on and we ultimately did start marketing the house. But the agreement wasn't going to change, just the process was prolonged by her solicitor.

OMG - had no idea the teacher’s pension scheme was so badly run. I think I’d be writing to my Union and MP TBH as it’s not acceptable that you have to put your life on hold for so long for what is a relatively quick admin job!

@Farside99thank you,I know absolutely nothing about the process so that's really helpful thank you. My solicitor said the same...and i know my ex is very anti pension sharing 🙄...I'm hoping this gives me some bargaining around how we split the house equity.

Yes basically in Scotland you just use the monetary value of the pension transfer values and there is less negotiation as to the actual details of the pension. I ended up giving away a lot of AVC but kept my defined benefit pension and also gave up more cash. House is being split 50 50 when sold. So there is flexibility as to how to agree things but remember if he keeps more of his good DB pensions they are probably undervalued by the Scottish system.

I recently read an article on this online,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y08v0n2jyo

You only need the rough one that you may be able to get quicker, the full one is later on

In Scotland you do need the accurate value because you are sorting finances before starting the divorce process and the values used for the agreement are those at the date of separation, so you want to have as much accurate information as early as possible.

Yes, applied towards the end of November and got it on the last day of term in December. I couldn't believe it as I had heard so many horror stories. If you're not a member of the Teachers Pension Facebook group I'd definitely recommend, lots of people in the same position. It's appalling really.

NHS pension here, applied 13 weeks ago and still waiting

@ThisPoisedGoldGuidesounds like you've been v lucky, that's great. Was yours affected by the McCloud remedy? I wonder if that's why mine is taking so long, as it was affected?

My CETV (teacher pension) took months to come - although DH did everything he could to delay the whole process, and with Covid on top of that...by the time we got to court he tried to claim my CETV was out of date and wanted me to apply for another one! Judge was having none of it. I think the McCloud remedy does impact the process as it is so complicated. When I took early retirement a year later it was a nightmare to work out.

Been waiting 7 months for my STBXH’s military pension valuation 🙄 applied last May for the CETV and still nothing. Literally the only thing holding up my divorce. Could have applied for my final order last October but without the valuation can’t do a thing. So frustrating!

All our pension stuff is delayed (civil service) due to moving to a new provider. Not sure if you’re impacted by this too.

@Fizzink38how long did yours take? Try not to google as some people are saying more than a year 😭 but be great to know roughly how long they’re currently taking

Teacher and civil service for ex and me. Both took months