The following blog written by Barbara Whelehan for www.bankrate.com is an excellent example of how important it is to have a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst assisting you with your divorce. Where qualified employee benefit plans are concerned it is critically important that you have a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) pre-approved before the divorce is final. This will ensure that you are actually entitled to the benefit awarded to you in your divorce and obligates the ‘Plan’ to you as well as your spouse. This extra step would have prevented Ms. Langston’s post-divorce dilemma.
I had dinner some time ago with friends and witnessed some friendly banter between a happily married couple. The husband teasingly threatened to trade his wife in for a newer model. “That would be a very costly decision on your part,” was her rejoinder.
Divorce among couples in their 50s can be very expensive, indeed, particularly as it pertains to retirement planning. But those who choose this route should be sure to cross all their t’s and dot their i’s when they get a divorce decree, or they can lose some benefits to which they might otherwise be entitled.
Patricia Langston learned this lesson the hard way. As reported in Plansponsor.com earlier this week, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Langston wouldn’t be entitled to surviving spouse benefits from her ex-husband’s pension plan, though her 1993 divorce judgment and decree seemed to ensure that she would.
Splitting up fairly
When married couples split up, their marital assets are fair game to be split up as well. This might include the pension benefits of either party, but you have to follow the rules.
Pension benefits are protected by the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974, or ERISA, a complex set of regulations designed to ensure that workplace retirement plans meet certain minimum standards. But it wasn’t until 1984, when the Retirement Equity Act passed, that spousal protections were put into place.
First a bit of history in this case: According to court documents, Patricia and Gary Langston married in 1964 and nearly three decades later, divorced in 1993. Gary was a participant in the Twin Cities Carpenters and Joiners Pension Fund at the time. In 1993, Patricia was awarded half of all future pension payments, as well as survivor’s benefits. But the divorce decree wasn’t enough to guarantee those benefits.
Years passed, Patricia’s ex-husband married someone else and retired in 2004, at which point he chose a joint and 50 percent survivors benefit to be payable to his new bride.
Then in July 2005, well after Gary’s retirement began and nearly a dozen years after their divorce, Patricia served a domestic relations order to the plan administrator to claim her share of the retirement benefits. The plan rejected the order, saying it didn’t satisfy the requirements of a qualified domestic relations order under ERISA. The reason: The pension benefits were already being paid out when Patricia got around to notifying the plan to cough up her share. She should have notified the plan before her ex began receiving pension checks.
A few months later, Gary Langston passed away, and Patricia’s claim for joint and survivors benefits wound its way through the court system. The district court found in favor of Patricia. The plan administrator appealed, and the appellate court found in favor of the plan. Finally, the Minnesota Supreme Court reviewed the case and concurred with the appellate court. The reason: Surviving spouse benefits vest at the time a person retires. The plan cannot award benefits to two people (a spouse and an ex-spouse) because actuarially, it can’t plan for such contingencies.
Bottom line: Patricia should have hired a knowledgeable attorney shortly after the divorce went into effect to put in place a qualified domestic relations order, as required by ERISA, that could stick. Because she waited too long, she lost the opportunity to get her share of her ex’s pension benefits.
To add insult to injury, reimbursement for attorney fees incurred by Patricia, awarded by the district court, was denied by the court of appeals and then affirmed by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Patricia is out at least $55,692.50 in legal fees. Meanwhile, Gary’s widow gets the goods.
Don’t let this happen to you, contact Mitchell Hayes at 404-870-9040 to ensure that you receive the best possible settlement; all supporting documents (such as QDRO’s) are approved and executed; you have a budget for your future; and you have all of the tools and resources to successfully implement your goals for the future.
© 2016 Mitchell Hayes