My stbx hubby started an affair 18 months ago. I filed for divorce but dropped it & got back with him last Nov, (found out he was still seeing the woman) I restarted the divorce in April 08. He has confessed to adultery and this week i sign divorce papers & they go into court. Ive just heard that 2 weeks ago he cashed in a pension for £2.000 and spent it all. My solicitor asked him in May to produce all pension statememts etc. Was he right to cash that one in & has he got away with that? Should i inform my solicitor what he has done?
Thanks
Cindy

Hi Cindy,

My understanding is that you are still married.
However many times you filed or are filing for divorce, you remain married.

Therefore any assets - including pensions, whether cashed in or not - form part of the marital pot.
You say he has spent the pension he cashed in.
If you have the paper work to prove that this is actually the case, I would take it to the solicitor and it should be included in the financial Form E.
All that happens for the moment is that he 'owes' you £ 2,000 - well, ok, £ 1,000 if the division is going to be 50/50.

No, he has not got away with it - it is/was an asset and should be considered as such.

Red XX

Hi RedOctober, thanks for that advice, i'm at solicitors on Wednesday to sign the divorce petition, i will see to it then,
Cindy

Cindy

Sorry to have to inform you of this, but you may as well class your share of that £2,000 gone. It is highly unlikely to be added back in (spent assets rarely are) and in any event, it has happened before you have even petitioned. I would be amazed if a judge was even interested in this.

Sorry, I know you won't like the advice, but do tell your solicitor all the same.

Amanda

hi...my husband has encashed everything.....except his pension....he denied having any policies or shares on form E but his bank statements clearly show assets of over 30,000 going in and out of his various accounts....i guess i wont see any of that either...how could he do that and get away with it...??? seems so unfair

Hi & thanksfor replies. I told my solicitor that he cashed the pension in for 2.000 & he didnt seem interested! He just smiled & said, 'Well he cant do anything with the property as ive fixed your name to the deeds'.
So basically it just proves they can cash in all they want until the divorce.
Never mind, at least i understand it all now.
Cindy

The concept of “cashing-in” a pension is interesting and somewhat different to what could be implied from this thread. It is much easier to say than do, in fact, there are very limited opportunities for truly “cashing-in” a pension.

If someone joins an occupational pension scheme to which they make their own contribution and they leave that scheme in the first few years the scheme may make a refund of the member’s contributions. This is done because it is cheaper for the scheme to do this than administer many very small pension benefits for early leavers. Someone who receives a refund of contributions looses the contributions that the employer makes to the scheme, which are usually much larger.

Once a pension is established, the options are to transfer it to another pension arrangement or take the benefits as a pension. If the benefits are transferred, they are not cashed-in at all they are merely re-located and therefore they are still available for redistribution on divorce.

Taking the pension at retirement is subject to various rules, not least of which are age restrictions. In principle, when the pension is taken it must be in the form of an income of some de­script­ion and therefore it too is still available for redistribution on divorce. There is the option on retirement to take up to 25% of the value of the pension as a tax-free-cash-sum, which could be seen as “cashing-in” the pension but the balance of the value is still available for redistribution.
Oh, there is one other way in which some pensions can be turned into cash – the death of the scheme member – quite an extreme option!

I suggest that the “cashing-in” is either a bluff or merely a matter of the pension having been moved (transferred) and therefore not so easy to identify.

Peter.