“If you cannot explain it simply you do not understand it well enough”- Albert Einstein
If you are going through separation and divorce the chances are that you and your former partner will have one or more pensions to consider.
Pensions can be incredibly valuable assets to meet future income and capital needs. So please do not underestimate their importance and value simply because they may not currently be accessible (depending on your age).
Aims
The 6 main aims of this chapter are to help you:
- understand more clearly the types and value of the pensions you both have.
- obtain the correct pension information so that you can explore a range of options in mediation.
- understand the pension options available to you to so that you can ultimately reach a pension outcome which is fair in your particular circumstances.
- understand some of the more important things to look out for when considering these options to ensure that the right things are taken into account.
- decide whether you need any additional expert assistance and evidence and, if so, what type and,
- how to take into account the pensions as part of your ‘overall financial settlement’ by way of pension sharing, pension offsetting or pension attachment.
As with the other chapters in this book, our aim is to help you and your former partner work confidently together with the mediator and other financial experts, in the most efficient and cost-effective way (as a ‘mediation team‘)
We want to empower and enable you both to reach a fair financial settlement which meets your present (eg Housing and income) as well as your future financial income needs, so far as pensions are concerned, as part of an overall divorce financial needs package.
Also, as with all chapters, if you prefer to watch or listen to this information you can watch the videos relating to this chapter on our website.
In the useful document resources section of this chapter, you will find a list of documents we refer to in this chapter.
In the website resources section of this chapter, we also provide references to some great external resources, on the subject of pensions. These have been chosen for their independence, clarity, and usefulness.
Since creating this Divorce Manual Advicenow have produced an excellent Survival guide to pensions on divorce . We cannot commend it highly enough. It is a great tool to compliment this chapter of the Divorce Manual and, like this chapter, it emphasises the importance of understanding the potential value of your pension, when it comes to divorce, and the options available to you.
We hope that you will find this chapter, guides, documents and resources very helpful.
If you have any questions, please ask your mediator and any financial experts you are working with.