Wrongly distributed 401K post death

[Executor]

Greetings, I am the Executor of an estate.  Immediately post death the wife send in the beneficiary form to her spouses company.  The decedent had been the plans administrator and never send in his beneficiary form for two reasons 1.  He had discussed with his wife he wanted some of the money to go to his mother and the wife (third wife- with a prenuptial agreement) refused to agree to allocate some of th 401K money to her husbands mother.  2) since she wouldn't sign we refused to send it in because his believed his prenuptial agreement would direct all the money to his estate. 

The company is small -only two employees. when the man diet, the other employee. wss then named to Fiduciary for the business.  He inaccurately signed a new distribution form and transfered the money to the wife's 401K.    The Fiduciary has been made aware of this error ( which was conveniently hidden).  Now what do I do to get that money to the decedents estate?

 

[david rigby]

Pre-nup is not relevant.  The Plan must follow its own rules for distribution and who is defined to be the beneficiary.  Hint: likely, the plan defines beneficiary as "spouse".

[justanotheradmin]

1 hour ago, david rigby said:

Pre-nup is not relevant.  The Plan must follow its own rules for distribution and who is defined to be the beneficiary.  Hint: likely, the plan defines beneficiary as "spouse".

100% correct. 

Executor - you need to listen to David. 

it is a very common mistake that people think their pre-nup has any bearing on the 401(k). It doesn't. The spouse has to sign the beneficiary form waiving their benefit if the participant wants any portion to go a non-spouse. The spouse has to sign after the marriage occurs. Some basic searching online for court cases will demonstrate this. 

The plan administrator doesn't care what the pre-nup says. All they can follow and should follow is the terms of the plan and a valid beneficiary form. 

If the widow received the 401(k) $$ and some other agreement says they shouldn't, well then the estate or whoever typically would take legal action to try to resolve that, against the widow. It isn't an issue for the plan. 

Any competent estate lawyer would know about this when drafting the pre-nup and explain it to the parties. And that is why a post-marriage checklist exists for a reason. But no one can force people to sign anything. I suggest you contact an experienced family law attorney if you want to pursue it further. 

[Executor]

thank you.  Per the website it states that the individual must submit it prior to death or the it goes to the estate for distribution.  Just out of curosity why is the prenup no good?  Wouldn't the widow only be eligible for the moneys from the time of marriage to death?  He had the account and roll overs into it prior to marriage. 

[justanotheradmin]

14 hours ago, Executor said:

thank you.  Per the website it states that the individual must submit it prior to death or the it goes to the estate for distribution.  Just out of curosity why is the prenup no good?  Wouldn't the widow only be eligible for the moneys from the time of marriage to death?  He had the account and roll overs into it prior to marriage. 

You really need to consult with a family law attorney. The fact that a potential future spouse cannot sign away retirement plan rights they do not yet have is very well established. 

I don't know what website you are talking about. The only thing that matters is the plan's actual legal document. This usually comprises of several parts to make up the whole - an adoption agreement, a basic plan document (all the definitions and boilerplate) a trust document, and an opinion letter. 

You will find that in an every regular 401(k) document the default beneficiary is the spouse. Not the estate. I've never seen one bypass the spouse for the estate, and for good reason. Some split the benefit if there is QJSA, but that is less and less common. And of course there are always exceptions, I'm talking about for the vast majority of regular 401(k) plans 99.9% the spouse is the default beneficiary of 100% of the benefit. 

The fact that some of the account existed before the marriage is immaterial. You should just google prenuptial 401(k) court cases and start reading.