Bucksin6

Thank you both for your responses. So the steps SHOULD be: 1. Write DRO 2. Submit to court, judge signs off 3. Plan Qualifies or does not Qualify DRO 4. If Qualified, plan sends information to alternate payee about what they can do with their share of the money However, steps 3 and 4 aren't in order in this case. At least based on the dates of the files/forms Person B has been given: 1. Letter from Ascensus with distribution forms is dated END of April 2022 2. Letter from The Plan, signed by the Plan Administrator, indicating Person B will get information from Ascensus is dated the DAY AFTER the letter from Ascensus is dated 3. File signed and dated by the Plan Administrator qualifying the DRO in MID MAY 2022, almost two weeks after the dated letter and forms from Ascensus. Q: How can the Ascensus' letter claim Person B is entitled benefits, based on the information Person B has, from a DRO qualified after their letter was sent? One piece of information I received today is that the letter addressed to Person B from Ascensus with the distribution forms was sent to Person A/The Plan and then forwarded to Person B (not sure if this is standard procedure either). Person B already reached out to EBSA since they have never been given the QDRO procedure document (this document is mentioned in the file signed by the Plan Administrator in MID MAY 2022 qualifying the DRO so it must exist). Person B has also reached out directly to Ascensus for all documents they have on record concerning the QDRO, since all their communication with them has been through or with Person A attached.

I know have more information in regards to all the paperwork signed/filed etc. I can't say for certainty this is everything. I again want to point out that the Person A is the Plan Administrator. So any time I say Person A or Plan Administrator I could use either qualifier. This conflict of interest, lack of transparency and other fraud found out in regards to assets/income are why the actions of Person A/Plan Administrator are being questioned. MID January 2022, a file was submitted to court and electronically signed by the Judge, titled: QUALIFIED DOMESTIC RELATIONS ORDER. It lists out over a dozen definitions like plan name, participant, alternate payee and other legal information. At the end of the form it says: Approved As To Form Only and is signed by Person A/The Plan Administrator's attorney. However, the date on the signature says DECEMBER 2022. This attorney requested and received recusal from the case in JUNE 2022. A letter dated April 2022, Ascensus addresses person B, stating "regarding the QDRO dated END January 2022, a full two weeks after the judge's signature mentioned in the point above" and included Distribution Request Forms A letter dated the following day in April 2022, again addressed to person B, with the header "QDRO Notice", states "we are in receipt of a DRO assigning you benefits...". The next section says "Upon our review of the provisions of the Order in accordance with the attached QDRO procedure (not attached), we have determined that it meets all requirements to be considered a Qualified Domestic Relations Order ("QDRO"). The signature at the bottom is Person A/Plan Administrator. There is an attachment to this letter. That attachment is titled "Determination as to Qualification as QDRO", then lists court information, then again says "DETERMINATION AS TO QUALIFICATION OF DOMESTIC RELATIONS ORDER", then states the parties involved/case number. This letter then states its purpose "The Plan Administrator hereby states and agrees as follows: The Attached Order is a Qualified Domestic Relations Order. It is then signed MID MAY 2022 by the Plan Administrator/Person A. There are no court records for April or May of 2022. The only item signed by the judge was in January 2022.

Apologies for the delay and thank you to those that responded since my last reply. These two questions posed is the issue Person B has. Person A: Drafted the DRO without any input from Person B Qualified the DRO as they are the plan administrator Sent to the judge with their signature and their representation's signature Person B has never signed the DRO or the QDRO Has not given Person B the plan's QDRO policy despite being asked dozens of times over the course of months Person A is trying to strong arm Person B in accepting the QDRO despite lying about everything related to money for the last 5 years and also not providing the plan documentation Person B is legally required to have as a plan participant. It boils down to this: How can anyone outside of Person A know the DRO is legally qualified, if they handled every single step of procedure and also refuse to show their work as to how they deemed it qualified? Person B has reached out to EBSA in the last week but I don't know anything more about it at this point. Thanks!

Hi QDROphile and justanotheradmin, thank you, I will do my best to answer all the questions you have asked in your latest responses. Background information as to why Person B is asking for legal help. The company that Person A works for and owns changed during the divorce from a S corp to a C corp and then back again after the divorced finalized Person A filed, during the divorce and while still LEGALLY married and against the judges order, a tax return as a SINGLE filer After years of filings and back and forth, Person B finally received this illegal tax filing in the end of summer 2025 The tax filing uncovered that Person A, not only hid assets but sold marital stocks and other things during the divorce and hid them Person A has not updated their income with the State of Wisconsin since May 2021 (you are required to do so every time your income changes) Given, the new information acquired Person A lied about hundred of thousands of dollars in assets both during and after the divorce along with underreporting their income by tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Person B has not, nor anyone representing them signed off on the QDRO that was filed in 2022, they have not received any money from the account The filed QDRO was for 50% of Person A’s 401k account as of May 2021 The value of the account as of the valuation date was ~$360,000 The Plan 401k assets are held with Ascensus Person B had been in contact with their financial advisor in Summer of 2025, who instructed them on getting plan documents and account statements from Person A before signing off on any QDRO and as of writing this has not received them all still In Short, Person B can’t be sure that any information in regards to the filed QDRO is correct, they are missing the key piece of information (QDRO procedure document), as has been pointed out. As QDROphile suggested in his second response, Person B has been already been looking and meeting with lawyers to hire, in order to file and reopen the case to get a new judgement. In doing that, Person B is wondering if they should also hire a QDRO or ERISA lawyer on top of the divorce lawyer. Thank you.

Hi QDROphile and justanotheradmin, thank you for your responses. The issue that Person B is having is that they divorced Person A; Person A is the Plan participant, the plan administrator, the plan trustee and part owner of the company. Person A, submitted the DRO, to themselves as plan administrator and then approved it and filed it with the courts, so there is an QDRO signed by Person A, their lawyer and the judge. They did this without sharing any plan documents with Person B. Person B only saw the three documents I mentioned in my original post almost 4 years later. The SPD provided by Person A to Person B states "Domestic Relations Orders - "You may obtain, without charge, a copy of the Plan's QDRO procedures from the Plan Administrator". However, Person A has never given over that document (if it exists) and claims that Person B has all the information needed. Both of you say this is a must have. Without the plan QDRO procedures document, it sounds like Person B can't be sure Person A is being truthful when the DRO was created in the first place. From my original post, the valuation date of the QDRO is in May 2021, the Adoption Agreement states that the valuation date criteria changed to be "each business day". So did Person A, since they are in charge of the plan/company change the rules of the plan in order to screw over the alternate payee, Person B? Who is to say that prior to the Adoption Agreement the valuation date wasn't "end of year" and it was changed to hurt Person B. Based on my own research, most of the times when the Plan Administrator gets divorces someone else involved with the plan/company would handle it to avoid conflicts of interest, this obviously did not happen and if it did, anyone else that is qualified to do so is a blood relative of the Plan Administrator.

The question I am asking relates to the divorce of the plan administrator and their former spouse, this case takes place in Wisconsin. A brief overview of people involved: Person A: employee of company X, where they are not only the plan administrator but they are a partial owner (the other owners are family members as well) Person B: ex-spouse Lawyer A: Lawyer for Person A Fiduciary Divorced was finalized in May of 2021. In January of 2022, the QDRO was filed and signed off by the judge with a May 2021 valuation date (this is key point for later on). The QDRO was signed by Lawyer A, with a December 2022 date, however, court records show that they had withdrawn from the case in June of 2022. Does the dates above invalidate the QDRO? Since the signature date of Lawyer A doesn't make sense? As of August 2025 the QDRO was never executed and the assets in Person A's 401k were never split, Person A has been contributing to the plan since the divorce was finalized. In order to get things finished and complete the QDRO, person B asked for plan documents to understand what they were entitled to do with the money owed to them (like rollover, cash out etc) as they had not been given ANY documents prior to this. Person A supplied a SPD dated August 2021 and claimed that was enough information and that was all they had. Under Miscellaneous: Domestic Relations Orders - "You may obtain, without charge, a copy of the Plan's QDRO procedures from the Plan Administrator". If this document exists it hasn't been provided Person B spent weeks asking for more plan documents and then received a Adoption Agreement with the same effective date as the SPD (August 2021), Person A then stated again that they have provided everything they have and everything that Person B needs. Only relevant information in this is that the valuation date is "Each Business Day" More correspondence over another few weeks led to Person A sending Person B a Basic Plan Document and again stating that is all they had and is everything Person B needed. this document says copyright 2002-2020 through ftwilliam.com ISSUE: The QDRO filed, signed by Lawyer A and the judge has a valuation date that is 99 days prior to the Adoption Agreement passed in August 2021. During the correspondence outlined above, Person A, has suggested to the fiduciary and Person A that the valuation date should actually be a different day in May 2021. This new valuation date conveniently falls within 90 days prior to the Adoption Agreement in August 2021. Person A has repeatedly denied having any documents prior to the ones effective August 2021 and even asked the Fiduciary if they had any documents to try and avoid responsibility. The question then is. With the dates and timelines given, what, if any, legal actions can Person B take? Is an ERISA lawyer the best way to handle this? Or is another kind of lawyer that is versed in small/family business better?