Pension order

Dear Sir/Madam,

My final financial order was carried out in July 2019. A report was ordered to be carried out by an Excalibur. The Excalibur's report was produced in September 2019. The rest of pension order as below:


"iv. The Respondent’s solicitors shall prepare the appropriate pension sharing annex, to be appended to this
order, forthwith upon receipt of the report from Excalibur.

v. in the event that the applicant non-member spouse predeceases the respondent member spouse after
this order has taken effect but before its implementation the respondent member spouse shall have the
consent of the personal representatives of the applicant non-member spouse to apply to vary or to set
aside the terms of this order under FPR 2010, r 9.9A or to appeal out of time against the order under the
Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s 40A or s 40B (as shall in the circumstances be appropriate"

My ex is the respondent, so far, I have not seen the pension order, please advise what/ how I should do in order to get a pension order, please?

Many thanks, Effie

Are the figures not quoted in your financial order?

The respondents solicitor will need to send it to the pension provider so they know what the instruction is.

This seems pretty unusual. Was this an order that you agreed on or was it imposed by the court?
It sounds like there was an agreement ie that pensions should be shared to give an equal income in retirement but that there were no figures to back up the agreement. These would have had to be produced by an actuary.

You need to establish if a report has been produced. If it has you need to see it so you know what pension share should be implemented. This needs to be written up in a legal document called a pension annex (usually done at the same time as the order) and submitted to the court for approval. It would be sensible to include the order and a covering note for the judge.

Once you have the signed pension annex, a copy needs to go to the pension trustees so then can enact the share.

You should write the the solicitor to find out if the report has been produced. If you know the company that was producing it you could contact them to get a copy. If the solicitor is disinstructed (no longer acting) you may have to find another one to draft the pension sharing annex. We would probably be able to help. Give the helpline a ring.

If no report has been ordered or produced, this is a breach and you will need to apply to the court for enforcement.

Hadenoughnow

Thank you for your reply.

It is not a fixed figure. It is a percentage.

I will check to see whether my ex- solicitor has send it to the pension provider yet?

Dear Hadenoughnow,

Thank you very much for your reply.

Below is the pension share order from the final financial order in July 2019. We have both received Actuarial Report on Pension on Divorce in September 2019. So far, I have not seen pension Annex (which should be drafted by ex -solicitor, she is still my ex's solicitor ) or heard any thing from court. I will check that? Should my ex/respondent solicitor inform me the pension Annex before sending to court, please?

However, according to the Actuarial report, I only got 19% of from my ex-husband's pension (the marriage was 13 years and 2 years separation). I am very disappointed with the result, I wonder whether I will be able to appeal in this situation?

Many thanks, Effie

Pension sharing order
12. There shall be provision by way of a pension sharing order in favour of the applicant in respect of the respondent’s rights under his pension arrangements so that the pensions accrued by both parties from the date of first cohabitation (January 2004) to today’s date (23rd July 2019) shall be divided equally between the parties and the following directions shall apply: i. The Respondent’s solicitors shall write to Excalibur, who are undertaking the actuarial report in respect of the parties’ pensions and shall notify them of the contents of this order, thus limiting the scope of the actuarial report directed on 19th March 2019. ii. There is permission to the Respondent’s Solicitors to disclose this order to Excalibur for these purposes. iii. The report shall be served upon the Applicant forthwith upon receipt. iv. The Respondent’s solicitors shall prepare the appropriate pension sharing annex, to be appended to this order, forthwith upon receipt of the report from Excalibur. v. in the event that the applicant non-member spouse predeceases the respondent member spouse after this order has taken effect but before its implementation the respondent member spouse shall have the consent of the personal representatives of the applicant non-member spouse to apply to vary or to set aside the terms of this order under FPR 2010, r 9.9A or to appeal out of time against the order under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s 40A or s 40B (as shall in the circumstances be appropriate).

The difficulty here is that the question of an equal division is not necessarily straightforward - especially if there is more than one pension between you and they are of different types. The question of whether you can share within a scheme of whether funds would have to be transferred out to another pension provider may also be important.

Often, specially with a gold plated defined benefits scheme the benefits (income etc) that you get from £100 of pension CEV will be much better than you would get from £100 of CEV from a pension in a defined contributions scheme (so a standard private pension - although this also applies to a lot of company schemes these days). There are also variables around ages, state of health etc - and the intended retirement age.

If the objective is to equalise income on retirement and you cannot share within the scheme, you may need more than half the CEV to achieve the same income on retirement. Hopefully the actuary will have covered this in the report. If there is any dispute about the percentage share to be applied (and I would suggest equalising income) then you could apply to the judge for directions on this specific point.

Without seeing the Actuary's report and the specific options put forward (as well as the letter of instruction) it is hard to comment further. Ideally you need to show this to someone who knows how to interpret the report and can advise on what the pension sharing annex should say.

You can always ring the helpline to see if you can booked a fixed price consultation.

Hadenoughnow

Thank you very much for the reply .

Unfortunately the split was not based on the equal income but split between pension accrued by both parties from the first date of first cohabitation.

Although there are few pots of pension, they are all private company pensions, therefore, it is relevantly easy to calculate.

However, the current issue is I would like it to be transferred to my pension provider as soon as possible, and my ex's makes arguments to drag the pension transfer as long as he can. He argues that " as long as the pension transfer gets auctioned before either of us (myself and ex) retire the pension pot will still be invested. The Pension Sharing is of much lower urgency than other parts of this court order."

Therefore, he refused to tell me whether
1. His solicitor has drafted pension share annex yet?
2. The Pension Share Annex has submitted to the court?
(In fact, I am not sure whether the pension share Annex should be submitted to the court for approve or not?)

I wonder what I can do to push this pension transfer, please? Should I write to the court directly.

Many Thanks, Effie