Pensions can be a very important aspect in many separation and divorce cases especially for older spouses.
The court has power to make a pension adjustment order over pension benefits accrued to the date of divorce if fairness cannot be achieved by other financial orders. This is done by assessing the period of reckonable service of the member spouse during which the pension accrued or was built up and deciding the percentage share that should be adjusted in favour of the other spouse.
Pensions can be complicated as often a spouse will be a member of a numbers of schemes depending on their employment history and sometimes include pensions abroad. High value pensions may also be subject to CET tax (chargeable excess tax) if over the allowable limit or likely to reach it at retirement age.
Muriel has wide experience of dealing with pensions and lectures on the Diploma in Pensions Law and Applied Trusteeship course run by the Law society.