Doing the splits over a pension

How courts divide up nest eggs during divorces

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Figures show a huge drop in divorces but the question of what happens to pensions during the fallout is never easy. The overall trend of divorces as a proportion of marriages remains near its lowest in almost 50 years.

In 2022 there were 80,057 in England and Wales in 2022, nearly a third less than the previous year when there were 113,505.

This drop is partly attributed to changes in the process brought by the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020, which introduced longer waiting periods.

But if the worst happens in a marriage, what happens to our pensions? There are three methods by which pensions are taken into account.

Offsetting

The oldest and still the most common method to deal with pension benefits in a divorce, offsetting allows you to balance the value of the pension against other family assets such as a house.