Offsetting

Hi Marcus, I think I was helped because the first offer from the STBX solicitor had the offset in at 100% when I pushed her she said she thought it was fair. To cut a long story short, it's still ongoing the deal is completely the other way round I'm going to have no pension but hope to hold on to the house. Another point is the only dependent lives with me 98% of the time.

Hi Buster007, Thanks for replying. I hope you can work something out. When you say the offset offer was at 100%, does this mean that £1 of pension CEV is being traded for £1 of equity?

Yep, £1 = £1 I'm self representing and really have nothing to loose, I think she's going to push it to a final hearing so the Judge may not see it the same. I'd hate to have to pay her solicitors fee!!

I'm still waiting for the pensions actuary report before we start negotiations proper. I am going to argue for £2 of equity against £1 of pension. I'll let you know how it goes.

hi Marcus , lots of guys ,in the same situation as yourself regarding pension offsetting ,my self included. and most of the answers you come across will say its complicated . the best indication i found was to deduct 40% of your pension value. dont forget if your ex is keeping the FMH its tax free if they sell it on at a later date .and you may have tax to pay your pension. i would be grateful if you could post , if your successful with 2 to 1 ratio. ps i also came across on this site were a judge had valued a 170k pension , at just 30k in the final hearing .

Thanks for your post Bigman60. Interesting reading. Thinking about tax - in itself, paying 20% tax gives a ratio of 1:1.25 just to equalise cash value. The thing that really bugs me is the utility value. She gets the benefit of living in very a nice house from day 1, I retire in a couple of years and after that it takes me 30 years to get the money back. I'll be 90! I have a teacher pension, and if you want to turn that into cash in the form of a lump sum you pay 1/12 of the value each year, so if you want £240,000 cash you lose £20,000 a year on your pension (all of it!). Yet the CEV is £390,000 (before the actuary makes their own calculation, which will be more). Offsetting is basically turning pension into cash. I'll let you know outcome.

Hi bigman60. In the end the pensions actuary report was amazingly favourable to me. I have a £40,000 private pension and, rather than treating it as cash, the actuary converted it to a small annuity and let me keep it all. I can use it to pay off a mortgage when I retire. As a result the amount of pension being offset was much smaller so the discount rate didn't matter so much. My stbx also came down in the amount of equity she wanted so effectively I got some of the equity for free. I was happy to give her £1 for £1 on the rest. All done now - the Consent Order is being sorted and the house is up for sale. Good luck! Marcus.