Sharing your compensation after divorce

If you’re a PPF member, getting divorced or dissolving a civil partnership may result in a court order which splits your compensation. This is called a compensation sharing order.

What is a compensation sharing order?

A compensation sharing order, is a court order splitting the compensation you’re entitled to between you and your ex-spouse or ex-civil partner, who’ll then become a PPF member with their own entitlement to compensation when they retire.  

What should I do if I receive a compensation sharing order? 

If you receive a compensation sharing order you or your legal representative should contact us to ask for what is called a cash equivalent value (CEV). This is the value of your benefits from the PPF as a cash sum.  
 
We'd strongly encourage you to send us a copy of any draft order or agreement drawn up by your legal representatives, and any related documents you receive from the court. This will usually be in the form of a compensation sharing order, a qualifying agreement, or a consent order and include a PPF1 Annex. 

 We can check the terms and make sure we’ll be able to apply them before they’re finalised in court. We’ll tell you within 21 days whether or not we’ll be able to implement the agreement and it can then be submitted to the relevant court. We don’t charge you for checking the draft documents, and this check should help avoid issues or delays further down the line.

What should I do after a compensation sharing order is granted?

If a compensation sharing order is granted by the courts we'll need you to provide us with copies of the following:

• the finalised compensation sharing order, consent order or qualifying agreement  

• divorce or dissolution final order 

• Annex PPF1 

All of this will be provided to you by your legal representative and it should give us the information we need to implement the order.

Once we’ve received all the information we need, we’ll write to you to confirm that we can implement the order.

For further information on how getting divorced or ending a civil partnership may affect your PPF compensation download our booklet or contact us.

Our booklet also contains more information on the differences which apply under Scottish law, and if you divorced or dissolved your civil partnership before your former pension scheme transferred to the PPF (which may be subject to a pension sharing order or earmarking order).

We recommend sharing our booklet with your legal representative.