I am frequently asked to help divorcing parties who require a Pension on Divorce Expert (PODE) Report encompassing pensions accrued outside of the UK. These are generally cases where the clients do not have particularly large assets or investments but have been employed or worked in other countries at some point.
It is clearly not possible to apply a UK Court Pension Sharing Order to these funds, but they do need to be considered to ascertain a full picture of the benefits available.
Fortunately, most of these offshore pensions are akin to our Defined Contribution Plans rather than our beloved and complicated Defined Benefit Schemes. That means I can value the benefits relatively easily – I just need to ascertain the exchange rate on the date of valuation and I have GBP estimate.
I do of course need to understand some basics about the taxation aspects and restrictions in terms of retirement ages and format of benefits. Google (other search engines are available) makes all that possible. Additionally, I have worked with many offshore advisers over the years and can seek some additional guidance if I need it. I enjoy the associated expansion of my knowledge and it keeps the little grey cells active.
This overseas residence frequently results in the individuals having some accrual within the relevant state pensions. That of course tends to be a promise of benefits and requires an assessment of value. Again, the ability to research such information online makes this possible.
As time goes on, I am building up a library of the terminology and notes about the structures, rules, and requirements in different countries. This complements my much larger scheme library which has been acquired over the last twenty years or so.
Having ascertained the information, I can allow for these benefits and assess the required Pension Sharing Order to apply to the UK Pensions to achieve the Parity of Income as instructed. I can also of course extend that to look at Offsetting.
In short if you have clients in the process of divorce with overseas pension benefits, I can help!