Yes, probably, if there is going to be pension sharing.  By law, a pension sharing order must be expressed as a percentage of the Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV) or Cash Equivalent of Benefits (CEB – used in the case of pension already in payment).  It is not possible for a lay person, which in this context includes a solicitor, even a specialist divorce solicitor, to calculate what percentage is required to achieve a particular result such as equality of income in retirement.  It requires a pension expert to crunch the numbers.

The pension expert can be either an actuary or an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) who has the specialist pension ‘ticket’.

The basic rule is: don’t guess.  On the one hand, a 50% pension sharing order can give the parties incomes that differ by a wide margin.  On the other hand, the percentage pension share required to give the parties equality of income may be several percentage points off 50% – perhaps even above 60% or below 40%.

There is no substitute for a proper report.  It is tempting to skip having a report because of the cost, which is unlikely to be less that £500 + VAT and can be considerably more.  However the cost is usually shared equally between the parties and you wouldn’t want to be stuck with an income in retirement that was dramatically lower than you guessed it was going to be, would you?