Benefits for ex-partners

If you need us to supply figures or benefit information, phone, email or write to us. You will need to tell us:

• Your name
• Your national insurance number
• Ask for a cash equivalent value for divorce or dissolution purposes

Then we can make sure we give you the correct value for what you need.

You should expect to receive the cash equivalent value within 3 months of asking. It sometimes takes this long because we need to gather information, for example from HM Revenue & Customs. We can only work out the cash equivalent value once we have all of this information.

There may be a charge for providing you with a cash equivalent value:

The Court may split your pension, either by a Pension Sharing Order or an Earmarking Order.

A Pension Sharing Order divides your pension at the point you divorce or your civil partnership is dissolved, so it makes a clean break. Your ex-partner receives a ‘pension credit’: that is, a share of your pension. They can start drawing this pension at any time from age 55, when it will be payable for life. They may also be able to transfer their pension credit out to another pension scheme.

Your ex-partner’s pension credit belongs to them in their own right. It is completely separate from your remaining pension.

An Earmarking Order pays part of your pension to your ex-partner at the point you start to receive your LGPS pension. As you are already receiving your pension, the Earmarking Order would start straight away. Your ex-partner may receive either a lump sum amount or part of your regular pension income. This payment will then stop when you die or if your ex-partner remarries or enters a new civil partnership.

• Your ex-partner will not qualify to receive a surviving partner’s pension if you die before them
• Children’s pension will still be payable. They’re not affected by divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership
• When your pension is shared to give part of it to your ex-partner, the part deducted off your pension is known as a pension debit

Bear in mind that you may want to change your Expression of Wish form to update your beneficiaries after divorcing or dissolving a civil partnership.

However, please note that if the Court issues an Earmarking Order, it may rule that some or all of the grant should go to your ex-partner if you die before them.

If a Pension Sharing Order is issued against your LGPS Councillor pension, any survivor’s pension payable will be reduced if you die before them. This is because the pension share has reduced the value of your pension. This will have a knock-on effect on your current partner’s pension value too.

If you remarry or enter into a new civil partnership and then end that relationship, the Court can issue another Pension Sharing Order or Earmarking Order against your remaining LGPS pension.

However, it isn’t possible to issue another Pension Sharing Order if an Earmarking Order already applies to your LGPS Councillor pension.