not sure if this is the right section - "how to deal wiith retirement pensions"..... but at this time i am preparing for our mediation. Keeping this simple - we are both 50 our three kids are older (18-23) and marriage was for 24 years. I understand seperation means just that - we are seperated and living in the same house for economic reasons. This I can say has been a very hard situation on the whole family - including the kids.
So the rules in spliting work pensions are clear - split 50/50. we have a verbal agreement to continue with the joint account living status quo as at this time i get 10k on cpp permanent disability and she gets near 50k as part of the agreement it is pool the money, pay the bills and split the left over 50/50 for now (I told her in the end the final tally will be in the settlement agreement or court order)
The last bit i suppose is the fact that in the 24 years i made 80% of the money and that includes maybe 8 years off on WCB from my work accident and now that i stopped working in 2003 forced onto CPP after 9 surgeries and tons of spinal nerve damage the doctors say will not change - it will lead to retirement as my condition will only get worse over time. I will always remember that day when we decided that I could not continue working and over night our family income dropped from 100k to 20k - looking back this marked the begining of the end of our marriage.....
Saying that this is about pensions and retirement savings for when we get to 65 years old. In the past i have been told that i need to leave the past behind and we will live seperate lives in the future - i know that but now it comes to the saving for retirement. Yes I have done the numbers and i have put more than 80% of our retirement funds into the pot and now she wants the divorce and i will not be able to contribute much of anything from here on. I will have to "depend on what gets settled".
Work pensions - easy as they go 50/50. Barring the division of the "net" marital assets RRSP"S will go 50/50 (there is about $160k). The year we are seperated my wife continues to add to her work pension as she rightfully should. At this time - i get nothing. 1) Would it be fair to ask for the 50/50 split of the pension to continue past the seperation date to the date of divorce when final decisions will be made? If not a direct split - is it then fair that i should be able to get the equivalent in cash for me to put towards my retirement fund?
It is a given that in our situation my wife will be paying spousal support but in my lawyer consultation he told me i had to make a good post divorce budget to live on which would be a factor in the amount of SS there will be. So I have read tons and not come across this issue - 2) If my wife will continue to work and put 4k a year into her pension is it fair to ask that come retirement we will both split the proceeds of her pension not in the 4 years during the marriage but the 4 years and the next 15 as i will not be able to hold down my own work to save on my own and based on the length of marriage of 24 years - this would be a reasonable request? 3) If 2 would not happen because it is never done - is it reasonable to ask for the equivelant in rrsp' donations on top of what would be my spousal support surviving funds? - again i think the pension plan my wife has is a really generous government pension it is like for every dollar the employee puts in the government puts in 2 or 3 dollars - a significant amount.
I thank those who took the time to read - if any have ideas on what i have suggested i would like to hear a perspective on what the court would do in a case like ours. For me this will be a matter of surviving - Mediation makes sense but in my condition (tons of meds every day to keep me moving) I really am begining to think that the more i learn the more i think that how can i negotiate all this without it going in front of a judge???? (Honest my wife thinks the house and rrsp's will get split down the middle, she is going to pay $200 a month in SS and we go our seperate ways? And we will remain friends after all this??? This post is long and i can go on forever - I stop here for now - thanks again for any help!
So the rules in spliting work pensions are clear - split 50/50. we have a verbal agreement to continue with the joint account living status quo as at this time i get 10k on cpp permanent disability and she gets near 50k as part of the agreement it is pool the money, pay the bills and split the left over 50/50 for now (I told her in the end the final tally will be in the settlement agreement or court order)
The last bit i suppose is the fact that in the 24 years i made 80% of the money and that includes maybe 8 years off on WCB from my work accident and now that i stopped working in 2003 forced onto CPP after 9 surgeries and tons of spinal nerve damage the doctors say will not change - it will lead to retirement as my condition will only get worse over time. I will always remember that day when we decided that I could not continue working and over night our family income dropped from 100k to 20k - looking back this marked the begining of the end of our marriage.....
Saying that this is about pensions and retirement savings for when we get to 65 years old. In the past i have been told that i need to leave the past behind and we will live seperate lives in the future - i know that but now it comes to the saving for retirement. Yes I have done the numbers and i have put more than 80% of our retirement funds into the pot and now she wants the divorce and i will not be able to contribute much of anything from here on. I will have to "depend on what gets settled".
Work pensions - easy as they go 50/50. Barring the division of the "net" marital assets RRSP"S will go 50/50 (there is about $160k). The year we are seperated my wife continues to add to her work pension as she rightfully should. At this time - i get nothing. 1) Would it be fair to ask for the 50/50 split of the pension to continue past the seperation date to the date of divorce when final decisions will be made? If not a direct split - is it then fair that i should be able to get the equivalent in cash for me to put towards my retirement fund?
It is a given that in our situation my wife will be paying spousal support but in my lawyer consultation he told me i had to make a good post divorce budget to live on which would be a factor in the amount of SS there will be. So I have read tons and not come across this issue - 2) If my wife will continue to work and put 4k a year into her pension is it fair to ask that come retirement we will both split the proceeds of her pension not in the 4 years during the marriage but the 4 years and the next 15 as i will not be able to hold down my own work to save on my own and based on the length of marriage of 24 years - this would be a reasonable request? 3) If 2 would not happen because it is never done - is it reasonable to ask for the equivelant in rrsp' donations on top of what would be my spousal support surviving funds? - again i think the pension plan my wife has is a really generous government pension it is like for every dollar the employee puts in the government puts in 2 or 3 dollars - a significant amount.
I thank those who took the time to read - if any have ideas on what i have suggested i would like to hear a perspective on what the court would do in a case like ours. For me this will be a matter of surviving - Mediation makes sense but in my condition (tons of meds every day to keep me moving) I really am begining to think that the more i learn the more i think that how can i negotiate all this without it going in front of a judge???? (Honest my wife thinks the house and rrsp's will get split down the middle, she is going to pay $200 a month in SS and we go our seperate ways? And we will remain friends after all this??? This post is long and i can go on forever - I stop here for now - thanks again for any help!
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