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Good morning to All, Have you ever had a case where no DRO or QDRO was ever done, yet the participant is demanding a distribution? This is a first for me. One of our clients has a 401(k) plan with a participant who was an unwilling party to his divorce. He says his ex wife "did it all" - hired the lawyer and paid for the divorce. The lawyer made a one paragraph passing reference to the participant's retirement account in the Marital Settlement agreement. "Respondent has a retirement plan with XX Company. Upon distribution of the funds in this plan, Respondent will direct the Plan Administrator to divide the funds equally between the Respondent and the Petitioner, that being 50% to each party, however distributed." That's it. The participant has now terminated employment and claims to be in very dire straits and wants his half of his money RIGHT NOW so he can move in two weeks. He does not know or care how a DRO or a QDRO might eventually be created and he does not particularly care about the rules and regulations we are all trying patiently to explain to him. He has stated that he most certainly is not going to pay any lawyer to do a DRO. His HR department knew enough to call me as the TPA, send me a copy of the marital agreement and question whether he wasn't supposed to have a QDRO before anybody could get paid. I knew enough to alert John Hancock not to process any termination requests from this person and effectively "freeze" his account until we can get this all sorted out. What the participant wants is for the Plan Administrator (the employer/ Trustee, effectively) to liquidate his account, send half to his ex and half to him, tomorrow if at all possible. I do not know of any legal way to accommodate this participant, but I thought I would run it up the flagpole to see if any of you have ever processed a marital division of an account without a QDRO. I have certainly never heard of any such thing. Your advice is appreciated, as always.

My ex-wife passed away before a QDRO was done. The requirement for the QDRO is in the Family court order for my pension only. I'm going to request the court/judge remove the need for the QDRO since my ex-wife has passed and we can't move forward to begin a QDRO as originally intended. By the way, I spoke to the originally assigned QDRO attorney and he told me that given the complexity of getting a QDRO now, I would essentially lose the entire retirement benefit to legal fees! Huh!? Court date is tomorrow - just found this website today! Trying to have the court/judge provide a MUCH cheaper solution to getting my pension released without going through Probate and whatever legal gears this QDRO attorney said would eat the entirety of the pension fund! Please advise and thank you in advance. Best regards, Michael D. in California

Seeking advice....my father retired two years ago and start receiving his pension from a labor union, which is 100 percent funded by employers. I am the only child, he is single, and I was left with a large burial bill, property taxes, and other estate bills. I discovered he changed his beneficiary on his pension to a friend, who will start collecting his monthly pension. Is there anything I can do at this point to receive his pension? Override the beneficiary or Obtain a DRO to assist with the expenses?

How do you define receipt of a DRO? I have seen some interesting questions here and on other sites lately, which caused me to take a closer look at my firm’s QDRO procedures. One thing that I am a little stuck on and that I’m hoping for some good input from the benefitslink community on, is at what point do you consider the Plan Administrator being in receipt of a DRO for a QDRO determination? And more specifically, what triggers the Plan Administrator’s duty to segregate and separately account for the assets subject to the QDRO. Our current QDRO procedures states: “Upon receipt of a written notice of a domestic relations order, the Plan Administrator will…” If I (the Plan Administrator) get a request from an alternate payee’s attorney asking for certain information to assist them in drafting a DRO, am I in receipt of a DRO that would require me to not process distribution requests from the participant? Technically, I would say no, I’m not yet in receipt of a DRO. However, processing a participant’s distribution request after you know that a DRO is in the process of being drafted seems to go against the spirit of the law. I have not seen any advisory opinions or other guidance on what is considered receipt of a DRO. Would anyone here argue that there is such a thing as constructive receipt of a DRO? Thanks in advance for any input and (hopefully) spirited discussion J

I submitted my prepared(draft) QDRO to the pension plan administrator and received a letter from them stating that the order "qualifies" as a QDRO. MY EX WON'T SIGN IT!. A 50% division of his pension plan for the length of our marriage( 23 years) was a stipulation in our divorce settlement 10 years ago. He has not remarried, and he is not collecting benefits yet. What will happen if I submit the QDRO to the court for the judge to sign without my Ex’s signature? Someone advised me to file a request for order to have the judge appoint a Elisor to sign it in my Ex’s behalf. I’m hoping I don’t have to go back to court to get something that was already agreed on in the settlement. It's my understanding that I need to have the judge sign it off before sending back to the plan for final approval.

Hello, I administer a 401k plan in a corporate envirement. To improve efficiency and keep the costs down, we are looking at outsourcing the administration of the incoming DROs from employees. Can anyone recommend companies that do this (we are already looking at QDRO Consultants)? Thank You!