Supreme Court rules that half of undisclosed pension owed in separation
June 24, 2026
A judge in the Supreme Court of British Columbia has ruled that the entirety of a cashed-out pension is to be divided as part of equalization payments, despite the Claimant failing to disclose the value of the pension.
The parties in this case had entered into a separation agreement which required the disclosure of all assets for the purposes of calculating spousal support and equalization payments. In the agreement, the Claimant misrepresented her pension as being worth only $5,000 and the Respondent agreed not to include the pension as part of the assets listed in the equalization payment calculation due to its small size. However, it was later revealed that the Claimant’s pension had been cashed out for a value of $183,367.13. As this amount was significantly higher than the $5,000 that had been claimed, the Respondent requested that half of the pension payout be offset against the equalization payment he owed the Claimant as he would have included it in the original calculations had he known its true value.
The court awarded the Respondent $89,183.58, representing one-half of the undisclosed portion of the pension. It is noteworthy that the Claimant in this case failed to provide any documentation regarding this pension payout, including whether she had paid tax on the pension amounts or if any portion of the pension had been accrued after their separation, which may have ultimately lowered the amount awarded to the Respondent.
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