How to find out whether your ex has a pension abroad

Pensions are often the second largest asset in a divorce, after the family home. Foreign pensions are the ones most often overlooked, and it is rarely deliberate. Three years in Frankfurt or a posting to Singapore is easy to forget, and either partner can be the one who forgets, including the one reading this. A pension left abroad does not announce itself, to either of you.

If either of you worked in a country other than the one you live in now, there is a reasonable chance a record exists there for that person. Here is how to find out what you can establish on your own, and where the limits are.

Why foreign pensions get missed

Three reasons, and they compound.

People forget. A two year contract in the Netherlands in 1998 does not feel like a pension. It is not on any statement that arrives at the house. Nobody has thought about it in twenty years.

Nothing chases the member. Most systems wait to be asked. If you moved country and never sent a forwarding address, the paperwork stopped arriving and the entitlement carried on quietly existing.

The disclosure form asks a question the person cannot answer. In England and Wales, financial disclosure on divorce runs through Form E, and it does require overseas assets and pensions to be declared. Other jurisdictions have their own equivalents. But a form only captures what the person filling it in remembers. An honest answer given from a faulty memory looks exactly like a complete one.

What you can establish without anyone's records

This is the part most people do not realise. You do not need access to your former partner's pension accounts to work out that a pension probably exists.

In most European countries, and in many others, workplace and state pension enrolment is compulsory. If someone was legally employed in the Netherlands, they were paying AOW. If they worked in Germany, there is a Deutsche Rentenversicherung record. Switzerland has AHV. Australia has compulsory superannuation. Enrolment follows employment, automatically, whether or not the person remembers signing anything.

So the useful question is not who is holding something back. It is the factual one: where did your former partner work, in which years, and in which country. That, plus the rules of the country in question, tells you with a high degree of confidence which systems hold a record.

What is worth writing down, in as much detail as you can manage: - every country they lived and worked in, with rough dates - the employers, including ones that have since been bought, renamed or wound up - the cities, because some systems are administered regionally - any documents you can lawfully access: copies in your own name, paperwork you already hold or were given, or records requested through your solicitor or the disclosure process - any period of self employment, which follows different rules again

One line to keep yourself on the right side of: use only what you are entitled to see. Documents in your own name, papers shared with you during the relationship, and anything your solicitor obtains through disclosure are all fine. Going through someone's private post, email or accounts is not, and no finding made that way can be used anyway.

Vague is still useful. Somewhere near Zurich, mid nineties, an engineering firm is enough to begin with.

If you want a first answer in two minutes, our free two minute check asks where your former partner worked, and tells you which systems are likely to hold a record.

Where the limits are, honestly

We cannot obtain another living person's pension records without their authority, and we would not try. No legitimate service can. Institutions will not release an individual's record to a third party, and they are right not to.

What can be done is different, and in practice it is what actually moves a case forward. The existence, location and likely scale of a pension can be identified from employment history and the rules of each country's system. That is research, using public and institutional sources, not access to anyone's account.

Once you know that a pension almost certainly sits with a named institution in a named country, the request for it goes through the proper channel: your solicitor, the disclosure process, or a request your former partner makes themselves. The difference is that the question is now specific. Please disclose your Dutch pension entitlement from your employment with X between 1996 and 1999 is a question that gets answered. Do you have any foreign pensions is a question that gets a shrug.

What we do, and what we do not

We identify where pensions are likely to exist, in which country, with which institution, and we set out the evidence for it. We tell you how that country's system works, what the institution will and will not release, and to whom.

We do not advise on pension sharing, on offsetting, or on any other legal question. We are not lawyers and this article is not legal advice. How a foreign pension is treated in a financial settlement, and whether it can be shared at all, varies enormously between countries and is a matter for your solicitor and, where required, an actuary.

We take no percentage of anything anyone is entitled to. We charge a fixed fee for the research, agreed before we start, and it does not change with what we find.

If you are not divorcing

The same problem turns up in two other situations, and the method is the same.

After a death. Foreign pensions are one of the most commonly missed items in an estate, and survivor benefits in some systems are payable to a spouse who never knew the entitlement existed. Executors are often working from an even thinner set of documents than a divorcing spouse.

An elderly parent's affairs. If you hold a power of attorney or are simply the one doing the paperwork, a working life that crossed borders leaves the same trail. Here you may well have the authority to ask the institutions directly, which makes it considerably easier.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find out if my ex has a pension abroad? Start with where they worked, in which countries and in which years. In most European countries, and in many others, pension enrolment is compulsory and follows employment, so a work history plus the rules of each country tells you which systems are likely to hold a record. You do not need access to anyone's accounts to establish that.

Does a foreign pension have to be disclosed in a divorce? In England and Wales, yes: Form E requires overseas assets and pensions to be declared, and other jurisdictions have their own equivalents. The catch is that a form only captures what the person filling it in remembers. Knowing which country and institution to ask about makes the disclosure question specific.

Can I get someone else's pension records? No. Institutions will not release an individual's record to a third party without that person's authority, and we will not ask for it. What can be identified is where a pension is likely to exist, after which the request goes through your solicitor, the disclosure process, or your former partner.

Are foreign pensions included in a financial settlement? That depends on the countries involved and is a question for your solicitor. How a foreign pension is treated, and whether it can be shared at all, varies enormously between countries, and an actuary may be needed. We are not lawyers and do not advise on this.

Where to start

Write down the employment history, country by country, as completely as you can from memory and from whatever documents you can lawfully access. That document is the raw material for everything else, and it costs nothing to produce.

Then take it to whoever is advising you, or use our free two minute check to see which countries are likely to be holding something. It asks a handful of questions and tells you where to look. If you want the full picture evidenced properly, that is what our reports are for.

One thing worth knowing: nobody pays us but you. We take no commission and no payment from any pension provider, so what we tell you about where to look is not shaped by who would pay us for sending you there.