Pensions and divorce
In the event of a divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership, you may be asked for information about your pension benefits in the LGPS.
This is usually because the information will be needed when deciding how to treat your pension rights as part of a divorce or dissolution settlement. Your benefits may have an earmarking order or a pension sharing order applied to them.
You or your solicitor will need to get in touch to ask us for information. This will include an estimate of the cash equivalent transfer value (CETV) of your pension rights. If your solicitor contacts us, we'll need a signed document from you to say that the information may be given.
A CETV quote is free.
In the past, you may have put down your former spouse or civil partner to receive any lump sum due in the event of your death. As part of the divorce process, you should check your expression of wish form to make sure it is up to date.
For more information please read our divorce guide. To ask for a CETV please contact us on 01743 252130.
Pension sharing order granted after retirement
If a pension sharing order is granted whilst you're taking your pension benefits, they'll be reduced by the percentage awarded to your former spouse or civil partner. The reductions apply from the date of the order.
In the event of your death, if you've remarried or re-entered a civil partnership, the pension sharing order will reduce the benefit due to your new spouse or civil partner. However, if you've eligible children, any children’s pension due to them won’t be reduced.
Once we receive a pension sharing order and the information needed for the Order is put in place, we've four months to make the adjustment of the pension in payment, beginning with the later of:
• the day on which the order applies
• the first day the order is received.
We try to put in place an order as soon as we receive it. Where this isn't possible because of payroll deadlines, the order will be put in place the following month. Your pension reduction would be worked out from the date the order was given. This may mean a backdated reduction will be applied to your pension when we receive the pensions sharing order.
