Individuals
How Can We Help?
As pensions and divorce specialists we hope to be able to help you with dealing with most pensions related issues following the breakdown of your relationship from beginning to end, if necessary.
Basically, we are here to assist either the husband, wife or both together, if that helps, in whatever way we can, and in whatever way it is felt that we can be of most assistance, regardless of who currently holds the greatest share of the pension assets.
Whilst having pensions knowledge is important, it’s how you use it that makes the difference!
We achieve this by trying to explain issues in ways that you can understand – and sometimes with a drawing or two!
We are aware that there is very little information available to you of how the process works from beginning to end and how long it takes at each stage, so we have prepared an outline of the process – end to end – and have called this The Journey.
Hopefully this will give you some idea of what is ahead of you – but don’t worry we appreciate that pensions at the best time are difficult to understand, but on divorce the additional stress and pressure of having to make potentially life changing decisions requires time and consideration for you to be able to make these important decisions. That is why we look to take things at your pace.
If you have already appointed a family lawyer to assist you they may already have advised you how they view us assisting most effectively either as a shadow expert, a single joint expert, or with implementing any court order.
If we are asked to act as a shadow expect – we work specifically for you and this may involve us
- having a discussion with you and/or your solicitor to explain matters
- helping data gathering your own pension arrangements
- analysing the pensions information provided by your spouse/partner and identifying any additional information required
- identifying whether a pensions report may be required and if so assisting with composing the questions to be put forward
- assisting with explaining the results of any pensions report and looking at creating an overall solution
- assisting with the implementation of any pension sharing orders in conjunction with our financial planning partners
If we are appointed as a single joint expert to prepare a pensions report, then this means that we must comply with certain protocols to maintain impartiality and our duty is to the Court with all correspondence being copied between both parties.
If either party later asks us, having acted as a Single Joint Expert, to provide additional assistance, whilst we would be delighted to do so, we always ask the other party to confirm that they have no issues.
Having worked in this field for many years it is Clive’s personal belief that the implementation of a pension sharing order is as fraught with difficulties as deciding how to divide the pensions in the first place and that you should seek specialist independent financial advice.