Divorce and pensions - is 50/50 normal?

[KateDillington]

exH has argued that because he was working for ten years before we met, I should only get 30% of his pension.

(We were together for 20 years and I did not work before we met because I was at college)

Is he talking rubbish? I want to ask for 50% but his solicitor is saying that there is nO way a court will agree 50%.

Are they just intimidating me?!

Depends on where you live. In England & Wales the longer the duration of the relationship the less important it is where the assets originated from. In Scotland pensions are apportioned according to the number of years contributions were paid during the marriage.

It also depends on your own pension provision, your ages (whether you have time to build up more pension of your own) and all the other factors set out in s25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act.

You really need advice from your own solicitor.

He is ten years older than me. I have a tiny pension fund (worked in small pt jobs when children were young). I assumed we would add the pensions together and split them. He now earns twice my salary but I gave up working ft when the kids came along.

We overpaid into his pension fund all along because it was civil service. I'm kicking myself now.

collaborate is right, you need advice from your own lawyer. However, in my opinion, I think it is unlikely you'd get a share of the pension that was built up prior to the marriage, only a share of what accrued during the marriage.

(I am in England)

I think his sol is trying to scare you off. If you have damaged your earning capacity looking after young children and I assume are never going to earn what you could have done if you hadn't raised them, you are definitely going to be entitled to a big chunk of his pension.

I can't say with certainty it would be 50% without knowing a lot more about your respective financial position but you definitely need to get proper advice.

It is sadly very common for men in this position to utterly discount the value of their wives contributions to the marriage and adopt the view that pensions and houses belong to them because they 'paid' for them. I think they are genuinely blind to the costs of raising children - and the knock on impact for women who give up work.

Good luck and don't let them bully you.

How would we work out the difference though? We overpaid into it when we were together but before that he did not overpay. How would we know what the pension fund was 20 years ago? We have no cetv from then?

Thank you for your advice. I have just fired my solicitor because I've had them for 18 months and they haven't even sorted a Form E. I've now filed Form A myself so that I can start the process.

I don't understand how I'm supposed to pay for a solicitor though. Do I just put it on a credit card? He pays no maintenance and all accounts are in his name.

My experience is the court will deliberately adopt a very rough and ready approach otherwise you have to go down the route of professional valuations and it can all get very complicated.

The impact and continuing needs of young children, in my experience, make the court less inclined to seek mathematical precision. Te children need looking after, this will impact on your ability to work and save for your future, so he will need to compensate you for that, regardless of when he started paying into the pension. Or if he really wants to hang onto it, you should get more of the immediately available assets such as a house.

Often I have just done a straight 'swap' - pension for house. But you need to have a good hard think about your circumstances and what you will need.

He has stayed in the FMH (he wouldn't let me) and has the children for 50% of the time. So he says that he won't pay me maintenance. I'm stuck in a poky rented flat. I'm so exhausted.

He's a total bullying arse to be honest.

You can make an app for maintenance pending suit but otherwise you will prob have to put it on credit cards. Make sure you get a good sol who explains clearly about cost implications and keeps you in the loop. The Legal Services Omnudsman recently reported that he biggest issue in this filed is that sols often don't warn clients sufficiently about costs increasing and you can get a very unpleasant surprise at end of it. Most cases I do, even with minimal assets, they are looking at £20k to get to final hearing.

Could you be some advice to get ball rolling and then be a litigant in person? Once you have all financial disclosure and decided what you can reasonably claim, the hard work is done then its just a question of arguing it out in court and District Judges are usually very good and very experienced.

(Sorry, just so tired of it all.)

You poor love. I would crack on and get court proceedings going if he won't agree to reasonable settlement. These type of men like to drag this out for years.

Thanks Spero. I have an appointment with CAB today. It will be cleareronce I have disclosure.

Trouble is that I have now been made redundant so I'm not in a position to get a mortgage for ages now! :(

Good luck. Hopefully once you feel you are moving forward, you will feel better. If it helps, you are certainly not alone.

My Dh is slpitting everything 50/50 with me, the house, pension, cars and kids.
It isabout the only decent thing he's done in 12 years but I think it's fair tbh

Thanks all. Mosman, that's fab. I wish mine were so decent! At least it reassures me that I'm not making a mistake!!!

YOu know my MIL got a 60/40 split with no children so you are not being unreasonable at all, take the fucker to the cleaners.
Every woman I know who's not fought has been shafted, don't let him fool you !

How did she get 60/40 split when she had no children ? That does not sound fair?

DP and Ex wife were together 20 yrs so their financial agreement was Exwife got pension 1/20 th of 50% of over all value, the same split for his lump sum when he retires and her own maintenance is 1/20th of 50% of his flat week and the DC maintenance was dealt with separably.
She has asked last month if she can give up her claim on his pension for 50% of the lump sum. DP waiting on advice before he agrees. She thinks he is going to retire this year

There is very little that's fair in divorce generally.
My soon to be ex husband lost the entire house to his first wife despite paying half the mortgage for five years she just said I paid the deposit it's mine. And won.

We decided our pensions built over 20 years were worth about the same - we both worked full time always so we each just kept our own and on assets he got 60% of our assets as I earned much more.

One lesson from a lot of these cases is never go part time. Never play second fiddle to a male career. Never get lumbered with most childcare and domestic stuff. Always marry feminist men.

Surely always divorce feminist men

I suspect if you divorce feminist men you end up with a divorce like mine - paying a lot of money to a man which of course proves feminism is working and I love that, but on a personal basis and if the man earns less, it can mean the woman loses her home and children and spends her time working to pay monthly support to her ex husband and children who remain in the family home if you have had a full role reversal I suppose.