Divorce & Pension - what is 'standard arrangement' please ?

[52andblue]

background:
married 20 years. Had much icsi IVF due to male factor infertility (which left me with permanent health issue). 2 kids, both Autistic, both receive High care & mobility DLA and I am their Carer. I am full on 24/7 available to them. Thus I have not worked during marriage. exH (possibly also autistic but not dx?) is very rigid. Very little input into raising children, I was left to it, whilst he worked f/t. No 'support' in any sense, so not only could i not work but even an 'evening out' alone happened once every 5 yrs. (he is also controlling & abusive, so.....

I have finally spoken to a lawyer about a Separation (prelude to Divorce in Scottish law - I'm in Scotland, but legally binding in itself).

She asked 'what I want to do about pensions'. (i have legal aid which is enough to cover the paperwork but not advice it seems?). As exH works in a manual job the 'pension pot' is small - 10K -. Am I supposed to ask for 50% of this ? Do I then get any ongoing payment upon retirement or is it simply a case of half the 'pot'.
I'm Embarrassed that I don't know even this, but I don't. Can anyone advise the standard way these things work please?

@52andblue apologies if I’m telling you things you already know, but your comment about not knowing if you’ll get state pension because of your missing years made me think this was worth clarifying:

The state pension isn’t an all or nothing qualification. It’s based on the number of qualifying years that you’ve worked - 35 years to get the full state pension. But you so still get some state pension if you don’t have the full number of years. So don’t panic!

I’m unsure about your numbers though - 31 full years and 7 missing? But you’re only 52.
In any case, being in receipt of Carer’s Allowance gives your Carer’s Credit towards your state pension, so you have more years to come.

Coming back to your original question - your solicitor has asked what you want to do about pensions, and are you supposed to ask for 50%?

I would advise, go to your solicitor and explain all of the assets - which maybe just be the house with low equity and your husband’s pension. But do you have any private pension? You didn’t have children until your 30s, right? Are you sure you don’t have any old occupational pensions of your own from your 20s?

Share the details with the solicitor, and then ask her - what is the maximum that I’m likely to be awarded? And then go for at least that.

Hopefully your solicitor’s question was just an opener to understand what pensions there are, and if you actually had any initial thoughts on it yourself.

There is no rule that you have to go for 50/50.
In your situation I would consider:

• if it’s fair that you have an equal total pension, should get more to reflect that his state pension qualifying years are higher than yours?
• should you get more because he has 12 more years in which to build his pension, whereas you cannot do this whilst caring for disabled children
• should you get more because you expect to care for your children past 18?

Now I’m not saying you will get more because of those things. But that’s where your solicitor comes in - they have the experience to tell you what a court will consider, and what they’re likely to award.

What a solicitor won’t do is advise you on things like how a DB pension works. So my advice is really to push back on your solicitor for advice on what to go for. Don’t be embarrassed that you don’t know - that’s your solicitor’s job!

Good luck

He’s actually got a very good pension. You definitely need to push for a share of it. Good luck.

Basically all the assets go into a pot - pension value, house equity and savings, then it's split, if you can't agree a split the court will. He'll need a statement of his pension pot from his provider, I'm guessing it's larger from those estimates of payout

@Cocomarine - thank you for your post re state pensions.
MY NI record says: 31 years of full contributions, 13 years to contribute before 2034. 7 years when I did not contribute enough (3 of those I was a full time student & the other 4 I worked part time, all back in mid 90's)
Really good news to know that I only need another 4 years contributions for a full state pension though (Carers allowance depends on DLA which is High on both but reassessed every 3 years)

It's interesting that others think that exH pension is worth fighting for a bit of. I think so too, because I'll live on beans otherwise & the house is actually a millstone that I'm staying in for the sake of the kids (roomy enough & they hate change)

I just got an email from my Solicitor. She is leaving today and has passed me onto a male lawyer. Ho hum.

Because I am in Scotland we can draw up a Minute of Agreement which forms a Separation Agreement which is legally binding. I would prefer that to it going to Court so fingers crossed the new lawyer & exH are 'reasonable'.

You should not be crossing your fingers that your new (male) lawyer is “reasonable”. If you have any reason to believe that your lawyer is giving you bad advice because they’re a misogynistic arsehole - then change lawyer. And complain.
Male lawyers represent women all the time, and vice versa.
He should want the best outcome for you as his client. Expect that from him.

Don’t fight for “a bit of” the pension - fight for “a lot of” it 😀

Absolutely, a defined benefit pension is a very valuable asset, because it is guaranteed to be paid, entirely independent of the stock market or any other investments.

To illustrate just how valuable that is, you could look up what size pension pot would be needed to convert to a guaranteed income (annuity) of £17,000.

It would take a high pension pot.

Your solicitor is supposed to be getting you the best possible deal they can. That's their job. Good luck.