Separation and husband's pension

[Mmmmdanone]

I've had a chat with a solicitor and she told me that I should get an idea what my H's pension would be worth and deduct this from his split of the house. He's unlikely to cooperate with asking about this so can anyone tell me how I work out what it might be? He's been working for 17 years I his current place and is on £26000. We've been married 19 years and I went part time after having kids so do I need to work out an amount for my pension too? So confused!

He will eventually have to cooperate and hand over the information. The pension pot will depend entirely on what he’s chosen to put into it over the years. He may well not know what is in it - I had no idea when I was separating - but he should have an annual statement. Do you have a pension yourself?

Yes he gets an annual statement. He won't have put any extra into it over what his employer takes. When my employer did final salary (they changed to career average a few years ago) it was 1/80 if the pensionable pay X number of years worked. However I worked H's out and it comes to £5525 per year. So do I get half of that for 17 years?
Also I do have a pension but have been part time for 17 years. Do I deduct my own pension from his to get the amount?
I really just want him to agree an amount that isn't as much as half the house as I can't afford that big a mortgage to buy him out. Also I put in the deposit for the house but didn't ring fence it so don't feel like he deserves anywhere near half.

He'd have to provide financial disclosure as part of obtaining consent order to financial divorce settlement. If he lies on this it's perjury. Just get your solicitor to write the necessary letter requesting this

I was trying to avoid solicitors. The solicitor I spoke to was a friend of a friend and she advised us to try and sort this sort of thing out before getting legal advice to keep costs down. But I think we'll have to go to a solicitor after all as I'm not clever enough to figure it all out.

As part of the divorce you both have to complete the financial declarations forms which includes pensions. You actually have to write to the pension and request a specific valuation - I think it's the cash value of it currently but there is an official term.

We have to separate before we divorce and this is the problem. He won't move into a rental so we need to get some money out of the house for him. We have no savings to speak of.

You really need to have a solicitor
You both have to declare pensions by asking the pension companies for the cash equivalent as part of full disclosure
It is complicated so please get a solicitor and don’t listen to ex him as he is not your friend anymore

Just have a route around when he's out one day. They'll be some paperwork lying around - take a photo too (but make sure that it's not on your cloud!)

Thanks all. It's so hard. Right now I just want him out but that's proving to be very difficult!

Separating before divorce is not compulsory. You can divorce on grounds of unreasonable behaviour without separating.

You can minimise the involvement of solicitors if you can agree the finances between you but there must be full disclosure. You should both complete form E - Google "divorce form E" to find it. It is contempt of court if he lies on this form. More importantly, if information emerges after the financial order has been made that shows he lied, you will be able to go back to court and ask them to change the financial order.

You’ll have to get solicitors involved as it gets complicated with pensions, say his pension is worth £30,000, that’s not it’s cash value right now so it’s not as simple as saying right take £15,000 off the house and you keep the pension. If you can’t afford to buy him out you may need to accept the house will have to be sold.