Divorce
If you are getting divorced or dissolving your civil partnership, you may need to share out your assets such as the value of any property that you own or any savings or investments that you have. You may also need to share your pension.
Here’s what you’ll need to do.
Understand your options
You can book a free appointment with MoneyHelper to help you understand what this might mean for you and your pensions.
They can help you to understand what your options are, what questions you need to ask, and what your next steps are. They cannot tell you what you should do though, you’ll have to pay for financial advice for that.
Find out how much your Unilever pension is worth
Before you agree to sharing any pensions, you need to know what your Unilever pension is worth and receive other information about the pension sharing process.
Decide how you are going to share your pension
You can do this yourself. But most people choose to get help to share their assets, including pensions.
You can do this through a mediator or a solicitor. They will charge you for their services.
If you decide you will split your pension as part of sharing your assets, you will need a ‘consent order’ which will include a ‘pension sharing order’.
The pension sharing order normally means transferring part of your pension to a registered UK pension arrangement chosen by your ex-partner. A family judge reviews the consent order to make sure it’s fair.
If you can't agree how to share your assets, the court can make an order deciding how relevant assets (including any pensions) will be split. This is usually a more expensive process. As part of its decision, the court can issue a pension sharing order.
Before any pension sharing order is issued, the application for a pension sharing order should be sent to us as part of the divorce process.
Tell us how you will share your Unilever pension
Once the divorce process is complete and the final pension sharing order has been issued, it should be sent to us to put in place.
This can take up to 4 months to set up from when we have received all the correct information and all charges have been paid.
There is a charge for this service of £1350 plus VAT.
You can choose to share the cost, or for one partner to pay it. This will be agreed on the pension sharing order. If your ex-partner is paying the charge, they can choose to deduct the charge from their share of the pension. If you are paying the charge you will need to pay this to the Fund.
After your divorce / dissolution of your civil partnership
Once you are divorced or have dissolved your civil partnership, your partner will not be automatically entitled to any of your pension if you die.
You should also update your nomination of dependant form and your lump sum death nomination form to leave your pension to a new partner or to someone else.