Part 4- Pensions
You may remember me talk about 8 important action steps in my second video including action step 3
So, please ask the mediator ASAP for the list of questions to send your Pension Scheme, to enable you to complete the relevant boxes in this Financial Disclosure Booklet.
Some Defined Benefit Schemes, also known as Final Salary schemes, can take many months to provide the information so if you do not want to delay the financial settlement discussions please request this information asap
It is important that you use the list of questions I refer to which cover every aspect of each pension you will need to be able to reach a fair financial outcome in mediation.
If you don’t use these lists and the pension scheme does not provide all the information needed there is a risk of further delay if you later find you require this.
The information required will mainly depend on the type of pension. These fall into 3 main types:
- Defined Contributions -Money Purchase, Private Funds
- Defined Benefits- Final Salary schemes including the various Public Service Pensions
- Pensions in Payment- Despite what many believe, it is possible and usually necessary to obtain a cash equivalent value for Pensions in Payment
- Additional Voluntary Contributions
Although not requested on this form please also obtain your Basic State Pension forecast figures. When you receive this it is worth noting whether you have a full NI record and currently entitled to a full state pension
If you require support with obtaining and understanding your pension information and pension options, please start by reading Chapter 10 of the Divorce Manual- How to treat pension on divorceIf you feel that you need more support than the information and guides in our Divorce Manual, please ask your Mediator to recommend a suitable expert from our Panel
Whether or not you will need a pension report Pensions on Divorce Expert (PODE) will be discussed in mediation so please do not rush into this since there will be a number of options to explore which may shape whether you need a report and if so, what kind of report.
There is more about this in the Divorce Manual Pension chapter.