Pension sharing orders
This is a highly complicated area and you will need to obtain advice and assistance from a solicitor if you are seeking a pension sharing order. We can draft pension sharing orders and can advise you about a pension sharing order.

Only a court has the power to make an order regarding pensions and it has various options in doing so.

Off-setting

The first is known as off setting. This means that the court looks at the value of a pension and decides that the person without the pension should receive an allowance in respect of its value in some other form, for instance by awarding that person a larger share of the equity in the former family house.

Pension sharing order

The second option open to the court is a pension sharing order.

A pension fund is divided, or can be transferred in its entirety, over to the other person. 

Because the costs involved in pension sharing orders are sometimes high, if there is more than one pension it may be advisable to transfer one pension in its entirety rather than duplicate costs by having pension sharing orders in respect of, say, two separate pensions.

Pension attachment

The third option, not often used, is pension attachment, formerly known as ‘earmarking’.

The court has the power to order that a proportion of a pension, both the annual income and a lump sum, should be paid to the other party. The court has the power to order that a proportion of any death in service benefit should be paid to the other party as well.

The problem with pension attachment orders is that if the person receiving the attachment order remarries then no continuing annual payment will be made. We do not usually recommend pension attachment orders.