TXT From Ex-Wife after 16 years threatening me with Court

I divorced my ex approx. 16 years ago, David represented me.

She won a pension sharing order

She has just text me now saying the following:


Jason
I would like you to transfer the Standard Life pension into my name as what was ordered by the courts.
REF for Standard life is xxxxxxxxxxx
You did receive the consent forms at the time but refused to sign.
I would like it to be finally sorted and to move on, I hope you do.
If not it needs to go to court I will seek an order of costs against you for being unreasonable
Cxxxxxxxxxx


This was 16 years ago and I am guessing at the time I would have done whatever I had to do as ordered by the courts so I am confused as to what I should do now.

I do know that Standard life refuse to speak to me as they say that the pension has a sharing order and its up to her to sort out

It was hell then and I am sure she loved it, last thing I want is to go to court again but threatening me straight off the bat really fin winds me up

Any advice?

If the pension policy is still in your name, even though it is subject to a pension sharing order then they should still be talking to you. They should at least be telling you what it is they are outstanding to implement the order.

Thanks for the advice :-)

Also, she was the sort of person that kicked off about every little detail (that is why it was hell, she dragged it on and on and on) so again I am so confused because if I had refused to sign any papers (as she is suggesting) then she definitely would have kicked off.

I will more than happily sign any paper to do with this pension order.

All she has to do is send me the relevant paperwork.

Am I being unreasonable in this suggestion?

This is sixteen years after the event and, as you say, your ex wife was a certain type of person. Therefore you cannot necessarily assume that anything she says is actually true. All you can do is to make sure that all the paperwork demonstrates that you are not being unreasonable so you should keep your communications with in writing and keep copies. Tell her that so far as you recall that the court order between you was implemented a long time ago but that if she thinks differently she should supply you with a copy of the court order, explain exactly what she says remains to be implemented and account for the long delay on her part. Tell her that when you receive this information you will consider the matter further.

If and when she does supply this information you should, of course, consider the matter further (and take advice if necessary). I say this because without this information it would be risky just to sign something your ex wife sends you. After all, if it should turn out that this pension is still in your sole name and that some or all of it was to have been transferred to her then the chances are that the values are very different after 16 years. There is also the question of whether any further payments were made into it over that time. These factors (as well as the overall value) affect whether it would still be appropriate to effect what she wants or whether it just might be appropriate to take this issue back to the court under the general 'liberty to apply' provision.

You are certainly entitled to more information and it is for her to supply it. But make sure that your communications are in writing, that you can be seen to be reasonable and keep copies.

Thank you David for the response :-)

I have been onto Std Life and they said they need her to send in 3 documents

SHARING ANEX
COURT ORDER
DECREE ABSOLUTE or FINAL ORDER

They said that they have had a draft document for 16 years waiting to be finalised

When she does this then the pension is hers

I can guarantee (as you can probably remember what she was like) say that I have to do it.

As far as im concerned we did all that and it was up to her to then follow that up which she has not

David, how are you doing anyway? did you say you are retired?

>>I have been onto Std Life and they said they need her to send in 3 documents

SHARING ANEX
COURT ORDER
DECREE ABSOLUTE or FINAL ORDER<<

Remember, if she says YOU need to do anything she must send you those documents too so that you can check for yourself. It isn't a matter of just accepting what she says.

Yes, I have now retired although quite busy. Here is a pic of a goshawk I reared this year from an egg. I hope you are keeping well.

Ok, if she does reply then I will make sure she sends me the documents, thank you once again :-)

Last August I had a brain infection, was in hospital over a month but if I can get through a divorce with my ex then I can get through anything ha ha ha


Beautiful bird :-)

Does he/she have a name?

Does he/she eat mice & chicks etc. I once had a barn owl, I didn't really like cutting up the little yellow chicks when it was a baby for it to eat but it had to be done

All I have in my garden now are crows and squirrels but I feed them daily, infact the crows wait in the tree and start squawking when they see me

for your help yesterday and today can I donate some food for your Hawk?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2024 01:15PM by JASON.PARKER.

Hm, well, from hatching at 48 grams goshawks grow insanely fast to their adult size at about 12 weeks. Growth like that needs a lot of food and, in particular, it means the bird has to eat everything it needs to grow bones, feathers, talons, beak etc. So day old chicks have to be plucked, chopped up very fine, bones beak and all, and fed every couple of hours. She would get through about five in a day. Later she could cope with mice and now she mainly eats quail and mice. The other adult birds (of which I have six) are not quite so demanding because they are no longer growing although they still need to be fed twice a day.

I had a crow for some years which used to hop around among my geese but when one of my goshawks started flying free in the woods around the house I had to put him in an aviary for his own protection. There are loads of squirrels here because of the trees. Two of my hawks (red tailed hawks) are very partial to squirrels so when a squirrel occasionally makes the mistake of entering their aviary the squirrel doesn't last long.

Sorry to hear about the infection. I hope you have recovered.

Hello David,

Hope you are well :-)

This beep beep pension has raised its ugly head again.

I have just received this from the pension company and unsure how to respond


Dear Mr Parker,
I’m contacting you in relation to your above noted plan and the Pension Sharing Order grated against it by the Bradford County Court. You former spouse had provided us with copies of the documents; however we cannot give effect to them as they stand. We sent the below explanation to your former spouse in January 2025, detailing why we cannot accept the documents, and have chased repeatedly without response or reply.
Having reviewed the documents we must advise that we are unable to act on these as they stand as the Court Order states a fixed monetary amount of £6416.00 and the annex specifies a percentage of 100%.
In accordance with section 21A(1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 which stipulates that for the purposes for this Act, a pension sharing order is an order which, amongst other things, in subsection (b) specifies the percentage value to be transferred, we cannot accept an English pension sharing order which states a monetary amount.
Furthermore, the Court Order and pension sharing annex must both show an agreeing percentage to be shared.
Please contact your solicitor to arrange for the necessary amendments to be made and approved by the court.
To enable us to give effect to the pension sharing order we will also require a copy of the Decree Absolute.
On receipt of the amended pension sharing documents and Decree Absolute, the paperwork will be passed to our implementation team.
As we are unaware of which solicitor firm was acting for you or your former spouse in regard to the legal proceedings, we are contacting you to obtain resolution.
We look forward to hearing from you or your solicitor in due course.
Regards,

Am I correct in thinking that at the time of the sharing order, the pension was valued at £6k = 100% but since then it may have gone up (or down) thus making the 100% now not applicable?

And I'll be honest I dont want to really get involved with all this, at time of divorce I did and signed what I had to do thinking that was the end of it, its my ex that has dragged this on which in turn has now meant more problems.

I certainly dont want ANY expense to do with this but fear that I will be charged if I have to get legal advice and/or go back to court

>>Am I correct in thinking that at the time of the sharing order, the pension was valued at £6k = 100% but since then it may have gone up (or down) thus making the 100% now not applicable?<<

Probably, because that seems to be the most likely reason a figure and a percentage were mentioned. Having said that, if both were mentioned it is also quite possible that the figure was what is called a recital and that the operative part is actually the percentage. In that case the pension company would be wrong. It is hard to tell without seeing the order. The point you make about the value is valid but also depends upon the exact wording of the order. If it is possible it may be worth checking to see what the value of the pension is now before deciding what to do next.
















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Hi David,

Thank you for your response, I have contacted the Pension company asking for more information, specifically around the content of the sharing order and the current value of the pension

I will post when a reply has been received.

Will the connecting with the ex ever be severed, she keeps on somehow retaining it, and guess what she has re-married but kept my surname, wtf?

I sent the following email on Monday 15th September @ 08:50


Morning,
Before I proceed with any new legal advice (my solicitor has since retired) I would require the following please:
1.] A copy of the order so that I can show my new legal advice the exact wording that was written almost 20 years ago
2.] An up to date summary of the Pension value
3.] Any other documents relating this Pension Sharing order
I will move forward as soon as I receive these
Thank you
Jason Parker



No reply as yet

As all this was sorted going on nearly 20 years ago and my ex should have claimed this back then I feel that I should just have responded to the pension company "Not Interested" or simply ignored the email sent from them.

Why should I help them to re-finalise the pension sharing when I'm not going to get anything from it
OR
If the value has changed (lets assume for the greater of) can I them claim the extra money and my ex only gets the stated value at the time this was drawn up?

I honestly feel like NOT co-operating towards this when only my ex benefits from work I will be doing now when she should have done this or am I being wrong?

I suppose I need the actual order to see what it states and then make up my mind

Hi David,

I have received this by email yesterday (29/09/2025) from the pension people.


Dear Mr Parker,

Thank you for your email, please accept my apologies for the delay in responding. I’ve been investigating this case/your Pension Sharing Order in greater detail.

I’ve attached the copies of the legal documents your former spouse provided to us. Upon review, our legal department had pointed out to your former spouse that they could not give effect to the order.

The Financial Remedy Order stipulated a fixed monetary amount, whereas the Pension Sharing Annex stated the percentage award was to be 100%. According to the law in England & Wales, Pension sharing orders must be a percentage of the Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV) and both the order and annex must match.

While our legal department were trying to get updated copies of the legal documents, separately and unbeknownst to them, another area of the business acted upon an instruction from your former spouse and transferred the full value of your plan to her own pension plan. Whilst this is in line with the Annex we were provided, as we had not given effect to the pension sharing order, these actions should never have been taken. We are actively trying to resolve this matter separately.

We accept and acknowledge this is an error that should never have happened, and we can only apologise for this oversight and failing.

As noted above however, we do require a valid/correct order/annex and decree - ensuring that the order and annex match in terms of what percentage of your plan was/is to be split with your former spouse.

Well, I suppose the pension company has the problem. I can't see your ex handing it back. Of course, what you asked them should really be answered but whether you think it worth the hassle is your call really.

For what it’s worth, I would raise a complaint with the pension company saying you are expressing dissatisfaction at the way they have handled this as they have acted incorrectly as it would appear that they didn’t have their requirements to effect the sharing order.

Tell them that you expect them to reinstate your plan immediately as it is their problem that they transferred your fund into your wife’s pension not yours and they can deal with any fall out from that.

They should acknowledge your complaint within a few days and tell you that they will investigate and give you a timeframe as to when they will respond fully. They need to respond within 8 weeks and if you don’t get a response or you are not happy with the response you can then raise it with The Ombudsman. Pension companies don’t like this as they get charged £650 per complaint so it is in their interests to not let it get this far.

Thanks for the response guys much appreciated.

The order states this (From screen shot of what pension sent me)

THERE SHALL BE A PENSION SHARING ORDER IN FAVOUR OF THE RESPONDENT WIFE IN RESPECT A LUMP SUM OF £6416.00 OF THE APPLICANTS HUSBAND STANDARD LIFE PENSION REFERENCE K3040207000 (THE COSTS OF IMPLEMENTING THE PENSION SHARING ORDER TO BE BORNE EQUALLY BY THE PARTIES) IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ANNEX ATTACHED.


I then found this in the annex

THE SPECIFIED PERCENTAGE OF THE MEMBERS CEV TO BE TRANSFERRED 100%

What I will do is ask them how much it was valued at the time they gave it to my ex (just out of curiosity).

So out of interest lets say that pension was worth £12000 (IE doubled) when it was transferred to ex does this mean I can get £6000 back?

If its worth more or less the same back in 2011 then I'll leave it be

I'm so confused

There are certain dates that they have to use when it comes to the valuation of your plan, in theory it should be the 100% of the value at some date in the past when the order was made so whilst it might be 100% of your policy, that value might have gone up in the time it takes them to implement it.

You might want to Google Effective Date and Implementation Date in relation to Pension Sharing Orders for more information.


Either way they should not implement them order u till they have all the necessary paperwork, which it would appear that they didn’t if there was some issue with one document stating and amount and another a percentage. the other thing is that they are obliged to notify both parties once the implementation is complete,so if you were not made aware that this had been done,that could be another angle ninny our complaint to them.

Don’t let it lie, ask them for a full breakdown of the value of your plan before the implementation, what they transferred, when and what dates they used in the valuations. Nit sounds like they have effed it up big time and it is down to them to sort it out and out you back to the position you should be.

I received this from pension people just now



Hi Mr Parker,

Thanks for your email below. I am unable to provide a valuation of your plan as the full plan value was transferred to your former spouse, the amount transferred was £15,911.12.

As noted below, our legal department had highlighted the discrepancy in the legal documents to your former spouse and advised that we required updated/corrected documents as English legislation does not allow for fixed monetary amounts to be specified, only a percentage of the CETV.

Based on your comment below, I have already passed your email and details of my findings into this situation to our Customer Relations Department who will link in with you regarding your complaint.

Kind regards,


Does this mean that they have given my ex an extra £9,495.12 that they should not have?
As I see it, at the time of the order was made she was entitled £6416 which was 100%
but...

What if I had kept paying into this pension and it made more money, is this in effect what has more or less happened (IE accumulated wealth) and then Std Life have just transferred the whole amount



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2025 10:22AM by JASON.PARKER.

It's hard to tell without seeing the order and annex. As I recall this actually went to court so the order was probably settled between two barristers and approved by a judge. It is impossible to know for certain without seeing the order but my guess would be that the pension was worth £6,000 odd at the time and the intention was to pass 100% of that to her, I doubt that anyone anticipated that the transfer would take place 20 years later.

Whether a fixed sum should have been transferred or a percentage is impossible to say without seeing the paperwork but in most cases it is a percentage because if it was a fixed sum that could cause big problems if the pension fell in value as they often can do

Hi David,

Thanks for your response.

I'm just going to ignore all communications now from the pension company, We did everything correct at the time the order was made.

To be honest, why should I help the pension company and my ex, to get this sorted.

And I believe (from what I have been told) that she has left the country anyway

Jason