I attended an info session at my workplace (federal government) yesterday about our pensions, and learned some surprising things I have to share, as there are no doubt other federal public servants on here, and there may also be people with pensions that have similar rules.
First: the Pension rules supersedes court orders. An ex-spouse can always apply to the federal government for a 50-50 split of pension (from the portion during the relationship), no matter what else may have been agreed to and is written into the separation agreement or court order. So if you did not split your pension (doing something like one spouse gets the house and the other keeps the full pension or whatever), the ex can come back (years later - there is NO time limit) and get the pension split anyways! You then have 90 days to prove that the ex got the equivalent of their share by some other means. So from my previous example, if the house share and the pension share were not perfectly identical, you could be out more pension than you expected. YEARS later. So it's really like child support in that you can't negotiate out of it in a separation agreement.
Second: when you die after retirement, and were separated but never divorced, your ex is entitled to 50% of your remaining pension. It doesn't matter what you put in your separation agreement or even in your will. It will not be honoured. If you have subsequent common-law spouses but never bothered to divorce the previous one, they each get a proportion of that 50% based on how long each relationship lasted. So if you had an ex-spouse of 20 years when you were young, and a common-law of 5 years before you died, the ex-wife would get 40% of the survivor pension, and the new spouse only 10%. And I stress again, this apparently supersedes whatever you put in a LEGAL will.
Third: you only have to be common-law for a year before you qualify for that half the pension split. The facilitator told of a horror story where one gold-digger would cohabitate with some poor sap for a little over a year, break up with them, apply to the government for half their pension for that year, then move in with the next dupe. Now that's some forward thinking as none of the money would be available till retirement, but crikey! Apparently this will also supersede any cohab agreement.
So the lessons are:
Keep your separation documents that prove the pension was accounted for in equalization handy for the rest of your life.
Don't delay the divorce after separation any longer than you must.
Don't live with anyone who doesn't have an equivalent pension to yours.
First: the Pension rules supersedes court orders. An ex-spouse can always apply to the federal government for a 50-50 split of pension (from the portion during the relationship), no matter what else may have been agreed to and is written into the separation agreement or court order. So if you did not split your pension (doing something like one spouse gets the house and the other keeps the full pension or whatever), the ex can come back (years later - there is NO time limit) and get the pension split anyways! You then have 90 days to prove that the ex got the equivalent of their share by some other means. So from my previous example, if the house share and the pension share were not perfectly identical, you could be out more pension than you expected. YEARS later. So it's really like child support in that you can't negotiate out of it in a separation agreement.
Second: when you die after retirement, and were separated but never divorced, your ex is entitled to 50% of your remaining pension. It doesn't matter what you put in your separation agreement or even in your will. It will not be honoured. If you have subsequent common-law spouses but never bothered to divorce the previous one, they each get a proportion of that 50% based on how long each relationship lasted. So if you had an ex-spouse of 20 years when you were young, and a common-law of 5 years before you died, the ex-wife would get 40% of the survivor pension, and the new spouse only 10%. And I stress again, this apparently supersedes whatever you put in a LEGAL will.
Third: you only have to be common-law for a year before you qualify for that half the pension split. The facilitator told of a horror story where one gold-digger would cohabitate with some poor sap for a little over a year, break up with them, apply to the government for half their pension for that year, then move in with the next dupe. Now that's some forward thinking as none of the money would be available till retirement, but crikey! Apparently this will also supersede any cohab agreement.
So the lessons are:
Keep your separation documents that prove the pension was accounted for in equalization handy for the rest of your life.
Don't delay the divorce after separation any longer than you must.
Don't live with anyone who doesn't have an equivalent pension to yours.
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