Need help with QDRO for FERS

I'm the AP on my ex's FERS.  I believe since I got re-married after age 55, I'm still eligible for the survivor annuity.  That's going off information from the QDRO. However, the gov't won't send me a copy of the Plan until my ex retires (sometime this year). Not sure they can withhold the Plan document, but I got tired of asking.  Also, as an AP on a Pension benefit, I wouldn't waive my right to a survivor benefit unless I was paid a lump sum approximation of the cumulative payments (longevity runs in my family).

The FERS "plan documents", thousands of Federal statutes and CFR regulations are of no use to you.  If the FERS COAP awarded you survivor annuity benefits, and if a certified copy of the COAP was sent to OPM, and if it was approved by OPM, they would have sent you a determination letter telling you that the COAP was acceptable and how they planned to execute the terms of the Order as they understood them.  If you didn't receive that determination letter the most common reason is that you did not keep OPM advised of your current home address from time to time. Itg is possible that the Judgment of Divorce may have all the information that OPM needs to treat it as a COAP.  

If you remarry before your age 55 you will lose the survivor annuity...period, game, set, match (UNLESS you and your first spouse were married for 30 years or more).   

You should ask OPM for a copy of the  COAP under which they are operating and a copy of their determination letter.  Get a copy of the Judgment of Absolute divorce and email them to me at marylandmediator@gmail.com and I will be happy to provide you any further thoughts....no charge.  If you and your former spouse has a Marital Settlement Agreement, sent me the pages of that document that deals with the FERS.  

If the COAP was not approved by OPM for any reason you may still have time to obtain an Amended COAP from the Court, but that will depend on the State where you live and the laws that may restrict your ability to obtain an Amended COAP, for example, the Court's failure to reserve jurisdiction to issue an Amended COAP, the expiration of various time periods, and, in the case of FERS, the onerous provisions of what we call the "first order rule"  -  5 CFR §838.806 provides that OPM will not enforce a court order awarding survivor annuity benefits if the order is issued after the date of retirement or death of the Employee/Retiree AND seeks to amend or replace the first order dividing marital property between the Employee/Retiree and the Former Spouse. An order that seeks to award or eliminate a survivor annuity benefit, or to increase or reduce the amount therefor, or to explain, interpret or clarify the foregoing, must be issued on a day prior to the death or retirement of the Employee, or it must be the first order dividing marital property of the Employee/Retiree and the Former Spouse. 

David