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 transfer value for divorce or dissolution purposes

This is because there are several kinds of transfer value: we work them out differently for divorce purposes than for transferring your pension to another pension scheme. We need to make sure we give you the right one.

You should expect to receive the transfer value within three months of asking. It sometimes takes this long because we need to gather information, for example from HM Revenue & Customs or your ex-council. We can only work out the transfer value once we have all of this information.

There may be a charge for providing you with a transfer 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 the pension benefit you’ve built up. Your ex-partner’s pension credit belongs to them in their own right. It is completely separate from your remaining benefits.

Your ex-partner may be able to transfer their pension credit out to another pension scheme or they can start drawing this pension at any time from age 55, when it will be payable for life.

The UK Government has announced that the earliest age a pension credit member can take their pension will increase from age 55 to 57 with effect from 6th April 2028.

They could be protected from this increase if they joined the LGPS in England and Wales before 4th November 2021. However, they will only be able to use this protection when they take their LGPS pension, if the LGPS rules allow them to take their pension before age 57.

The UK Government makes the LGPS rules. It has not yet confirmed if it will allow members who qualify for protection to take their LGPS pension before age 57, from 6th April 2028.

An Earmarking Order pays part of your benefits to your ex-partner at the point you start to receive your LGPS Councillor pension. 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 pensions 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 Councillor pension.

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