If you are going through a divorce, or dissolve a civil partnership, the Court will take your pension assets into account when determining any settlement.
You and your ex-spouse or partner will each need to tell the Court the value of the benefits you have built up. You don't have an automatic right to know the value of your ex-spouse's or partner's benefits, and vice versa but you can each decide to tell each other.
Your solicitor may require specific information about your LGPS benefits including an estimate of the Cash Equivalent Value (CEV) of your pension rights. Sometimes this is also referred to as a Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV).
Under the Pensions on Divorce etc. (Provision of Information) Regulations 2000, we may also be required to provide similar information directly to the Court if so ordered and certain information (excluding a valuation of your pension benefits) to your spouse if requested to do so.
Life cover
As a member of the Surrey Pension Fund Scheme you have valuable life cover which may be payable on your death.
If you have previously expressed a wish for your husband, wife or civil partner to receive this, you may want to update your Nominations section of the My Pension Portal or fill in a new expression of wish form to let us know of any changes.
To request a value of your pension pot, you must first contact us at crtpensions@surreycc.gov.uk and request a PSO2 form. This will give us your written consent to provide you (and your solicitor if you so wish) with all the pensions information that will be necessary in connection with matrimonial proceedings.
Please note, if you have more than one pension account with us, you must complete a form for each account.
Currently paying in
Once you have sent us the completed PS02 form, you will need to contact your payroll provider directly and ask them to complete an LG29 form (your payroll provider has access to this) using the last day of service as the date you have signed the PS02 form. Once both your PSO2 and LG29 have been returned to us we will calculate and check the CEV.
Not currently paying in towards your LGPS pension
We do not require an LG29. We will issue correspondence to your home address within the time scale specified below.
We suggest that you inform your solicitor if you have any other pension rights that you have not transferred to the LGPS administered by Surrey Pension Fund. This would include:
- Any pension rights you have in another pension scheme,
- Any deferred pension rights you have in another LGPS Fund,
- Any pension rights where a transfer to the Local Government Pension Scheme is currently being negotiated,
- Or any Free Standing Additional Voluntary Contribution plan you may have.
We are required to send you information in accordance with the Pensions on Divorce (Provision of Information) Regulations 2000. This must be sent to you within 3 months of the date your completed PS02 form was received.
In certain circumstances, a shorter time scale may apply. To do this, the information must be supplied:
- Within 6 weeks of the date we receive notification that formal divorce or annulment proceedings have commenced.
- Within the deadline specified in a Court Order sent to us (where such an Order has been made), or
- Within 21 days of the date we receive a notification that a Pension Sharing Order may be made (or any longer period specified by the Court).
The information we will send to you within the specified time scale will include:
- The Cash Equivalent Value (CEV) of your accrued pension rights in the Local Government Pension Scheme administered by this Authority.
- The information necessary to complete the pension section of the Form E financial statement; and
- All other information we are required to provide under the Pensions on Divorce. (Provision of Information) Regulations 2000.
Certain information may need to be gathered from other sources before we can provide you with the information you require, for example, your Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) figure must be obtained from the Inland Revenue.
Please note that a charge may be payable by you for the provision of the CEV if:
- A CEV or the provision of information has already been requested and provided in the previous 12 months, or
- The CEV is required in the case of Scottish divorce or nullity proceedings where the relevant date to be used for the CEV is greater than 12 months prior to the date of receipt of the CEV request.
When you go to Court, you and your ex-spouse or partner can decide how any pension benefits are split. There are usually three options to choose from:
- Pension sharing - the pension is split at the time of divorce or dissolution so that you each receive a separate pension pot and can continue to build pension benefits for the future
- Pension offsetting - you each keep your own pension benefits but adjust the proportion of other assets to take account of the value of the pension benefits. For example, you could keep your pension, and your ex-spouse or ex-civil partner could get a larger share of the value of the house.
- Pension earmarking - arranging that when one person's pension benefits start to be drawn down, part of them will be paid to the other person