Pension before marriage

[Zazaz]

My long term partner and I are not married - we've been together 12 years. We have 2 children under 5. Since having children I have been working part time and making minimal contribution to my pension and he works full time and puts £2k a month into his private pension pot (has been for a while).

If we were to get married, and say in 10 years time the marriage broke down and we divorced, would I be entitled to half of his pension pot or only the bit since we were married?

We are happy and I can't see us splitting up but I need to protect myself in case we do. I know it seems a strange thing to consider marriage in case of divorce but by me working part time I'm enabling him to work full time and build up a big pension pot.

thanks in advance.

All of his pension would go into the pot to be divided between you. No-one can tell you how much of it you would get.

I'm not married but the agreement when we had when we had DC and I went PT at work was that the difference in pension contributions between what I was, and what I would have been paying if I was FT, was covered by the joint pot. Is that an option for you? You should not be in financial detriment from having DC.

Obviously there are other benefits in being married.

Can you add extra money to your pension?

Thanks, yes you're right no one can tell me what I'd get but yeah that was my question really about whether all his pension would go into the pot to be divided or if it would just be his contributions since marriage.

Thanks...do you mean you both out money into a joint pot and then out of that pot comes an amount back to you to top up your pension to what it would've been if you were FT?

I wouldn't be happy if my partner put £2k into his pension per month and I had to put much less in. Doesn't seem fair to me. And you are in a very vulnerable position not being married. If you split up - I'm sure you won't - but if you did you wouldn't get a penny of his pension that you enabled him to build up.

After ten years is would be classed as a long marriage and yes would be treated as a marital asset. Even in a short marriage I think you could argue that your contribution to the family home meant you had earned half of it. I would get married.

My pension pre marriage is a large final salary one and it wasn't classed as a marital asset as it was accrued before the marriage. I was married for 5 years before we divorced

Yes. We both put a % of our salary into the joint pot to cover expenses (mortgage, CT, gas, elec etc) as well as childcare and the difference in my pension contributions for going PT. It's a family expense so shouldn't just fall to you.

If we were to get married, and say in 10 years time the marriage broke down and we divorced, would I be entitled to half of his pension pot or only the bit since we were married?

No one can be sure. The needs of any DC are considered first, then housing needs for the adults.

To me, it's an odd question because your earnings have already been impacted by having children. Since you are unmarried, you are in a very vulnerable position.

Getting married would provide some protection so the sooner you do that the better.

Are you trying to build a case for him to marry you? His position is very different, getting married to you is never going to protect him, as the financially stronger party, it is only to his detriment.

I am very sorry, if this is news to you. I hope he is or can be convinced that getting married is the right thing to do for your security, even if it is to his detriment.

If I could, I would ensure that all women understand how these things work before they have children. Hope it works out for you.

Thanks. Lots of women's earnings are impacted by having children as they are often the ones who go part time after.

We intend to get married, the reason for my question is regarding how much is in his pension pot before we do get married and whether his pre marriage contributions would be included as part of marital assets that would be divided should we to divorce in the future.

If anyone can definitively answer this that would be much appreciated.

If anyone can definitively answer this that would be much appreciated.

@Zazaz you are asking for a definitive answer to a hypothetical question.

Good luck with that.

Ok... Well I would appreciate if anyone could hypothetically answer it or tell me their experience!

I would've thought it is a fairly common scenario where two people have built up assets prior to getting married, then get divorced - are the pre marriage assets included as part of the marital assets to be divided?

fairly common scenario

I'm sorry if I sound snappy, @Zazaz, but there honestly will not be a reliable answer other than 'it depends'.

In order to be of any use to you, any hypothetical answer would need to reference the relevant situation, which is what I have tried to do for you, to clarify what would most likely happen in different scenarios.

The priorities for use of the available assets are the DC (assuming they are under adult age 18 and/ or in full time education) followed by the housing needs of the two adults involved.

The starting position for a 'long' marriage, which is has lasted over ten years, would be the 50:50 division of assets, care of DC split exactly 50:50 so now maintenance is due and a clean break financial order which does not require any ongoing payments.

For a shorter marriage, especially one without DC, the starting point may be to 'each keep what you brought'

The approach when there are DC will be somewhere within those extremes, exactly to ensure that any DC can be adequately housed and cared for.

Pensions are assets just like any other, such as existing property.

If there are not sufficient assets to house DC, then pension division may be used to allow the DW to receive more than 50% of the equity in the property in return for less than 50% pension.

It is highly desirable for the divorcing parties to come to an agreement that a judge considered fair and equitable, to avoid burning more assets in order to find an agreement. If that is not possible, the judge can impose a settlement they think is fair.

Like lots of things that haven't happened yet, the answer to your question about the level of assets you might received very much depends on the situation.

Pension sharing cannot definitively be ruled either out or in, to a divorce settlement, especially in isolation from the other relevant assets. Assets will be divided according to need (needs, not wants) and availability of assets to meet that need.

The only thing we can definitely rely upon, is that if the parties are not married, then only the needs of the DC are given any consideration.

Once any DC are over 18 / not in full time education, unless costs have been divided 50:50, the standard for you to receive anything at all would be set considerably higher.

It would be a mistake to expect your non-financial contribution to be taken into consideration in the building up of those assets. This is the part that makes non married spouses who give up work for parenting so very, very vulnerable.

Hope it all goes well for you.

@FinallyHere Thank you, I appreciate your thorough answer, very helpful.

I'd look at setting up your own private pension and asking your partner to contribute to it.

I have seen on here that if you're in a long term committed relationship with children and get married that the court can chose to count the whole length of the relationship and not just the length of the marriage. Unless you own a lot of assets in your name it's probably financially best to get married.

It doesn't reflect well on him he's only thinking of his own pension pot, if you've agreed as a couple that you'll go part time so he can work full time and not have much caring responsibilite then the fair thing would be for contributions to be being made to both pensions pots based on at least what you could be earning full time.

Where do you live? Pension sharing on divorce rules are different in England and Scotland. In England, the whole pension can be shared. In Scotland only the portion built up during marriage can be shared. However, as pps have said what you actually get will take account of all other marital assets so there really isn’t a definite answer to your question.

Couple of useful articles here
https://www.weightmans.com/insights/pension-sharing-the-differences-between-england-wales-and-scotland/#:~:text=In%20Scotland%2C%20the%20valuation%20of,a%20final%20order%20of%20divorce%2C

https://www.morton-fraser.com/insights/pension-sharing

If you live in England, you would be able to argue that the pension accrued during your relationship (not just the marriage) is shared. The thing is, during divorce negotiations literally anything could happen as there are so many variables (kids, your respective ages, equity, investments etc). It sounds like marriage is a good idea for you.

Everything goes into the pot when people divorce. From what I’ve seen. Many people have imbalanced pensions. It’s far safer for you to be married. Sometimes there can be a pre nup where parties agree a financial position on divorce but this is for guidance only in court. Many women get back into the workforce and build up a pension post young Dc. That’s a good policy too.

Presumably he does this partly as a tax strategy / salary sacrifice ?

In which case putting half the £2k into a pension for you might not work so effectively. And it still wouldn’t be equal if he is getting an additional employer’s contribution?

It's almost inevitable that the pension that built up from when you started living together to when you separate would get shared equally on divorce. Whether you get a share of pension rights built up before cohabitation or after separation would depend on your needs.

I would insist on marriage if I was in working so little

It goes on 'need' at the time of divorce. They tend to not consider pensions or inheritance unless you 'need' to have it- you probably would, without a career.