A recent court ruling has determined that individuals who separate before divorce and have a marriage duration of less than five years are not entitled to pension division benefits.
According to legal sources on August 17, the Administrative Division 3 of the Seoul Administrative Court, led by Judge Ho Seong-ho, ruled in favor of A in a lawsuit against the National Pension Service (NPS) seeking to annul a decision denying a pension adjustment.
A married B in 1992 and divorced in 2000. A had been enrolled in the national pension system from 1989 to 2015 and began receiving old-age pension benefits in 2018.
In 2024, B requested the NPS to grant a division of A's old-age pension. The NPS determined that their marriage lasted 83 months and set the pension division ratio at 50%, instructing A to pay B a portion of the pension.
However, A contested this decision and appealed to the National Pension Review Committee. The committee ruled that approximately three months of the recognized marriage period did not constitute a genuine marital relationship and excluded that time from the pension division calculation.
A argued that this assessment was inaccurate and subsequently filed an administrative lawsuit.
Under the National Pension Act, a former spouse can receive a division of retirement pension benefits if the marriage lasted more than five years and the former spouse is eligible for old-age pension benefits. Periods of separation or abandonment that do not reflect a genuine marital relationship are excluded from the marriage duration.
A contended that since B left in 1995, they had not lived together, resulting in a marriage duration of less than five years.
The court sided with A, stating that B does not qualify for pension division rights. It explained, "Based on the resident registration records and the claims of both parties, they began living separately around 1995, and there was no cohabitation after at least March 1996, nor any exchanges that could be considered maintaining the marriage until their divorce in February 2000."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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