Pre-marriage pension treated as zero growth!

pension sharing is about the final thing to be agreed in my financial settlement. After a lot of nonsense from my Ex trying to factor in an add-back, the suggestion switched to equal shares of the pension based on contributions during the marriage (12 years), which seemed much fairer to me.

To keep the story as simple as possible, the value of my pension before marriage is about half the value of contributions made during the marriage, so by my thinking there are 3 approximately equal portions to consider - the prior pension (mine), the half share of contributions (mine) and the half share of contributions (Ex's). The whole of the prior pension has had 12 years' growth so would in fact be larger now than the other two, but to a first order I was expecting the suggested split to be 2/3 to me and 1/3 to her.

However, what is being asked for is much higher as her 'calculation' is to just take off the prior value (mine) from the total value at separation and divide what's left in half. That effectively says there was no growth from the prior to marriage portion at all, or alternatively she's wanting half the increase in value of that prior bit in addition to what half the contributions during marriage have yielded. That to me is just not right and not fair against the original aim.

My solicitor's response however is that this completely flawed calculation is 'normal'. So my question is, is it really normal to miscalculate it in that way? Is that just a lazy way when any kind of actuarial assessment isn't used, and so is a recourse to insist we get some kind of proper assessment? The total pension value at separation is around £200k, so the difference between the 40%+ being requested and the 33%ish that would be fair is about £15k, so could justify a reasonable amount of cost in fees.

Thanks.

Using CEVs/capital value of pensions as the basis for division is a bit of a blunt instrument.

The fairest way to look at pension sharing is to consider income at say normal retirement age and seek to equalise it. Calculations may be done for the whole pension pot and for just the funds accrued during the marriage. It is then a matter for you to agree (or the judge to decide) whether the circumstances dictate that the whole pension should be shared or only the bit built up during the relationship.

Those sort of sums are best done by an actuary.

Hadenoughnow

Thanks Hadenoughnow.

I guess ultimately I'm trying to decide if this is worth pursuing, or as with so many other aspects I just have to allow myself to be shafted, as to not do so just ends up costing more money and time. On this pension point the potential benefit is clear - about £15k - but what is less clear is what the likely actuarial costs would be, or to what extent I'd be swimming against the tide.