{"id":676381,"date":"2023-04-09T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-09T07:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=676381"},"modified":"2023-04-06T15:36:12","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T13:36:12","slug":"divorce-and-pensions-what-south-africans-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/676381\/divorce-and-pensions-what-south-africans-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Divorce and pensions &#8211; what South Africans need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A divorced person previously married in community of property can claim a share in the pension of their former spouse.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wri.co.za\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wright-Rose Inne<\/a>s said that spouses have the right to enjoy the assets brought into and accumulated during a marriage in community of property. A deviation from this would be a denial by a spouse of this right.<\/p>\n<p>However, a spouse may feel that it is unfair that a former spouse shares in their pension post-separation, especially if the former spouse did not share in the pension during the marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Wright-Rose Innes looked at a recent Pretoria High Court which dealt with the issue.<\/p>\n<p>The court dealt with a case where a wife in divorce proceedings said that her former husband forfeited his share in her pension post-divorce.<\/p>\n<p>She said that the husband used her to provide for his children and squandered his own pension by resigning from his position.<\/p>\n<p>However, the court found that the husband had used his pension to settle over R400,000 in debts of the joint estate.<\/p>\n<p>It also said that the wife did not substantively prove misconduct on the part of the husband and that he would unduly benefit from sharing in his former wife&#8217;s pension.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the court looked at the length of the marriage and the overall conduct of the husband when making its decision.<\/p>\n<p>It ruled that the wife must pay R1.2 million of her pension interest to her ex-husband at the date of divorce.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, although the courts may allow for the forfeiture of a share in the pension of a former spouse, they will not lightly override the patrimonial consequences of the marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the party requiring such forfeiture must prove the other party would unduly benefit if the share is not forfeited.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/671261\/warning-for-pension-funds-in-south-africa\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Warning for pension fund members in South Africa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wright-Rose Innes looks at a Pretoria High Court case where a wife said that her husband forfeited his share of her pension. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":646975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-676381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676381"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678991,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676381\/revisions\/678991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}