Pension sharing versus Capital aka Do I Get to Be Rich Now or When I Retire?

Facts/Issues

The wife (W) was aged 40. Theirs was a 10-year marriage and they had two young children.  Before their first child was born, both H and W were employed in the City and W hadn’t yet   returned to work. The family lived in a large house in Essex. David was recommended to H by a former client.

H had a good income and substantial pension assets of over £1.5m, whilst W had very modest pension assets and was financially reliant on him.

W did not want to return to work or indeed even to look for work until the youngest child of the family started secondary school which was some years away. She sought all of the equity from the family home, half of all pensions and substantial maintenance for life.

H wanted a clean break (to bring an end to his financial obligations as regards to W as soon as possible) and so was willing to give away the majority of the immediately realisable assets to achieve this.

The combined assets totalled over £3m

Outcome

W was awarded 85% of the equity in/sale proceeds of the family home, but NO share of H’s quite considerable pensions.

H agreed to pay maintenance to W for herself until their youngest reached the age of 12 with no prospect of W applying to extend that term.

W took away the bulk of the liquid capital, but H largely retained his earnings and the entirety of his pensions.

Do contact David at david@j-lg.com to find out how he can help you.