Welcome
This blog is intended to encourage an exchange of ideas and promote debate about the financial issues that arise in a relationship breakdown. The concept is to create a platform for discussion that is not available elsewhere. Aimed mainly at professionals working in this area; lawyers, accountants, financial advisors and actuaries, it is also a potential source of information for the general public.
In our experience there is a significant variance in how professionals handle pension assets in divorce, with little consensus on which methods give the best outcome. We feel this is due in part to a lack of centralised knowledge and debate on what can be a complex issue. We intend to address this by posting our original articles on key subjects, as well as those contributed by others. Our intention is to post quality, discussion-worthy topics at least once a month, or more often if the need arises.
We encourage comments and contributions from all. Comments can be added to the articles on-line, if you would like to submit an article please email us at ancillaryactuary@bradshawdixonmoore.com.
Before leaving a comment, please read our comments policy.
If you would like to know more about us and our reasons for blogging, please click here for a short bio.
Entries in Divorce Law (1)
Pensions in Divorce – a barrister’s perspective
As you may expect, our clients regularly ask us all sorts of questions about pensions and their valuation in divorce. Those about pensions and actuarial matters are easy enough, but life becomes much more difficult when lawyers query the legal basis for the use of one valuation rather than another.
We have a natural aversion to upsetting clients; which is why we do not attempt to tell anyone anything about divorce law. It is much better when we find someone to do the job for us! That is why we were so pleased to discover an excellent paper written by Mr John Buck, a member of the Family Law Bar Association. John is a barrister at Tanfield Chambers and he wrote his paper to accompany a “Pensions in Ancillary Relief” seminar last year. Even without the benefit of the seminar, we believe that the paper can help when wrestling with the challenges of dealing with pensions in divorce. For example:
“ … Bennett J rejected a submission on behalf of H that the value of his pension fund (which had not vested) should be the CETV less the 25% which can be withdrawn as a lump sum …”
In just nine pages, Mr Buck has succeeded in dealing with many of the issues that we regularly encounter. We are grateful to him for giving us permission to make his paper available here. The views expressed are of course those of the author and not necessarily those of our firm. Please click here to access and download the paper in pdf.
If you do not have a pdf reader installed on your computer, Adobe™ one of the world leaders in this technology, provide free downloads from their website.
Peter J Moore – Director, Bradshaw, Dixon & Moore Ltd.
© Bradshaw Dixon & Moore Ltd – March 2008
The Ancillary Actuary
Post a Comment