Divorce: insurances, pensions and other property |
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| Introduction |
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| This is one of many Net Lawman information articles about divorce. You can find links to the others at the end of this article. |
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| In many cases the best way of dealing with other property is to consider it part of the general ‘pot’ of assets together with the home in order to work out how to divide it. This might involve the sale or transfer of the property, but can also mean that, for example, one partner keeps a policy, pension plan or boat in return for a lesser share in, for example, the house. |
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| If this is agreed and done, you won’t need a court order but only need to list the value of this asset on your statement of means, a form you have to send to the court to get your consent order made. |
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| It’s important to try and not have any loose ends after a divorce, so make sure you deal with all your property, insurance policies, pension plans etc. You will also need to close all joint accounts and joint credit cards. |
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| In certain circumstances, it’s not desirable to deal with pension plans and insurance policies in this way. If you’ve been married for a fairly long time, for example, and only one of you has a pension, or if there is to be continuing maintenance, whether for your partner or children. |
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| Insurance policies |
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| Where there is to be continuing maintenance for one of you and/or children, having some insurance to protect them might be a good idea. The court cannot order someone to pay premiums on an insurance policy but you can give an undertaking, which is a promise to the court to make those payments. This is binding and there is an ultimate penalty of imprisonment if you don’t keep this promise. |
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| If you already have a policy you want to keep going check with your insurance company that any benefits will remain the same after divorce and remarriage. |
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| Pensions |
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| If one of you has contributed to a pension plan and the other one hasn’t, and this cannot be balanced against other property (see introduction above), you might want to consider assigning some of the benefit of the pension to the other person. |
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| There are two types of orders the court can make: a pension attachment order and a pension sharing order. The difference between them is that a pension attachment order gives the other person a share of the value of the pension as it is at the time of retirement, whereas a pension sharing order gives the other person a share of the value of the pension as it is at the time of the divorce. In practice, a pension attachment order is rarely used because it seems unfair that a partner should be able to benefit from something the other partner paid for after the divorce. A pension sharing order is available from us, together with detailed guidance notes. |
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| Further questions? |
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| If you have any particular questions that are not covered in this article, please don’t hesitate to contact our family law expert, who will deal with them promptly and sensitively. Alternatively, we have an e-booklet on negotiating all aspects of finances on divorce which has detailed information as well as lots of examples of possible solutions. All documentation together with guidance notes are also available from us and listed below. |
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| Important note about your will |
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| When you were married, your old will became void. This does not happen on divorce or separation. If you never had a will anyway, maybe it is time that you did. We provide a range of template will documents to suit everyone, with loads of advice and over thirty easy-to-read free information articles about aspects of wills and tax. More |
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| Net Lawman separation documents can be found here.Separation Agreements |
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| You can find links to information on wills here.Legal Wills |
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