Pension Sharing Order

Section 21A of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, inserted by the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999, provides that 'For the purposes of this Act, a pension sharing order is an order which' provides that one party's shareable rights under a specified pension arrangement, or their shareable state scheme rights, 'be subject to pension sharing for the benefit of the other party, and' the order 'specifies the percentage value to be transferred.'

A pension sharing order operates by debiting a defined percentage from the pension-holding party's rights and crediting the other party with a corresponding pension credit, which they can typically take as a pension in their own right rather than remaining dependent on their former spouse's scheme. It is one of the range of financial orders the court can make on divorce, alongside lump sum orders and property adjustment orders, and the Act's reference to 'shareable rights' is defined by reference to which pension rights pension sharing is available for under the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999.