Q: Need advice about divorce qdro

A: Thank you for your question. I understand how concerned you are regarding your former spouse’s retirement and not receiving your share of his retirement under the QDRO. One purpose of the QDRO is to ensure you receive your share of this marital asset. Immediate action should be taken to further protect your interest. I strongly suggest that you schedule a consultation with an experienced family law attorney who can assist with the next steps to enforce your legal rights in this regard.

A: If you did not get your share of the pension monies when he retired ( regardless of whether he told you of his retirement), there is a problem with the QDRO and it needs to be addressed immediately and most likely will require an application to the court for relief. You do not have time to sit back and wait. Let me explain why.

A "Domestic Relations Order" (DRO) is the document that divides specific types of retirement assets in a divorce. The document tells the plan administrator that (1) you are the alternate recipient of benefits under the plan and (2) what percentage or dollar amount is your share of the plan. The document also identifies when you are authorized to begin receipt of your share of the benefits and in the document, you would have identified your address for where to send your benefits once available.

Once prepared, the DRO is submitted to the plan administrator for approval. Presuming that it is prepared correctly, the plan administrator "qualifies" the DRO, making it a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO), which is then submitted to the court for the divorce judge to sign off on and then it is sent back to the plan for administration.

Once the QDRO is sent back to the plan administrator, he will set up a separate account within the plan for you and for you to communicate with the plan as to your benefits, change of address, etc.

Once your former husband retired, you should have received notification at the address listed in the QDRO of the commencement of benefits for you. If you didnt receive that communication, presume that something went wrong and that you need to figure out what went wrong, how do you begin to receive your share of the benefits and how do you get your share that may have been paid out to your former husband ( if he has received monies that belong to you, you have a right to reclaim them by agreement or by court order).

If the QDRO was not properly submitted to the plan admin or if something else was done wrong at the time, presumably you will know it when the plan admin says that they cannot speak with you. That should be a telltale sing that you are not in their system and that you need to take immediate action to correct it.

Again, unless you have a good relationship with your former husband and he is willing to work with you to correct this issue, my sense is that you will need to file an application with the court for assistance..... and you will need to retain a lawyer to help you since this is a complicated issue.

My suggestion is that you contact the lawyer that represented you in your divorce and who prepared the QDRO to see if he / she can go through the file to find the paperwork for the preparation and filing of the QDRO with the plan admin and then ask that lawyer to assist you in getting this resolved. If you cannot get assistance from that lawyer, then put together a package of materials for a consultation with a new family law specialist to review. The materials should include your divorce agreement or order, the QDRO and all of the paperwork showing its submission to the plan admin and whatever paperwork you still have on the plan itself. With that material, the lawyer will be in a better position to figure out what is needed to properly assist you.