November 14, 2024
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legal
pension rights on divorce
When a married couple divorce and finances are divided, any pension must be taken into account. In many cases, a pension can be more valuable than your home and therefore it is essential to know what your rights are to your spouse or civil partner’s pension on divorce or separation. The age at which the Government State pension is becoming available is continuing to increase and so it is important that you secure an income for yourself when you retire. On separation, pension and SERPs rights should be considered as assets to be fairly shared and there are various ways whereby a pension can be split.
offsetting and pension rights
Offsetting can be used to compensate one spouse for the loss of pension rights. The pension finances should be looked at up to the date of separation. It may be the case that a clean break can be effected, for example, by one spouse retaining items of matrimonial property in return for relinquishing a claim on the other’s pension or some of it. Generally the matrimonial property will be split equally between the parties on divorce.
Therefore the one half share of the property that one party would normally be entitled to can, in some cases, be given up, to offset their pension rights.
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