Pension percentage

,Good morning My question is what happens. When your pension has already been subject to offsetting as part of a financial settlement from your first marriage. Do the courts just use the period accumulated in the pension during the second marriage . I have paid into a pension scheme for 33 years. My second marriage lasted 13 years, but I have already paid my first wife. Offsetting the pension against the first matrimonial home with her. Hope I have explained this correctly the total cetv is £160000 the cetv for the period of the second marriage is £53k there is £60000 equity in the house she wants the house . thank you

By offsetting I assume you mean that in the divorce settlement with your first wife she retained more capital in return for you keeping your pension. That means if you divorce for a second time the whole of your pension is available for sharing. You do not have any automatic entitlement to ring fence that portion of your pension which you had acquired by the time of your first divorce.

That is not to say that your present wife is currently entitled to one half. It very much depends upon the details of your respective circumstances. Say, for instance, you are both near retirement age. In that case a court is likely to want to see that you have similar incomes in retirement. That would mean that your chances of ring fencing the earlier portion of your pension were negligible. On the other hand if, say, your wife is in her early fifties, in employment and is contributing to a pension of her own whereas you are nearer retirement age then it may be more reasonable to adjust the pension share to take into account what you had accrued before you met.

Please note, though, that offsetting in your first divorce will ultimately not affect the division at all. It will be other factors which will be more important.

thanks for you replay David , i am ten years older than my wife ,would it be possible for you give some sort of percentage figure of what a cetv of £160000 could be valued against a liquid asset such as house with a £60k equity value . many thanks for your imput

Assuming (and I am going to make a lot of assumptions here which may or may not be true) that the total equity is £60K and that total pensions are £160K then your presumptive share of £60K is £30K and your wife's presumptive share of £160K is £80K. Therefore you would be looking to buy off her £80K share of your pension by transferring to her your £30K share in the equity.

It is true that £100K in a pension is not the same as £100K in a bank account or £100K in equity because, for example, you may not be able to cash a pension without tax consequences. How much of a pension someone would be prepared to forego in return for £30K in cash is really a matter for negotiation. There are no fixed rules about it. Having said that, would you give up £80K of pension in return for £30K in cash? Probably not or, at least, not unless you were desperate.

On these figures, though, I doubt that how much equity would buy off your wife's pension sharing claim is the real issue. Although you say that you are 10 years older than your wife you do not say how old you both are or whether your wife has any real capacity to build up a pension. These are factors likely to be much more important.

Im 60 she is 50 ,would that make much difference in the outcome of the division .she says she wants to hold on to the house . but she cant buy me out . it looks like my best option would be give up half the pension and ask for the sale of the home. as there is no more liquid assets available. thanks for all your advice David. yours Steve

You are assuming that you can force a sale of the house. That is not necessarily the case. There is only £60K of equity. If that was divided equally it might not enable you both to buy alternative suitable accommodation. Whether it is practical depends upon the cost of suitable alternative accommodation, your respective mortgage capacities and whether there are any dependent children.