It is essential that you understand all potential retirement benefits and pension benefits that are earned by your husband as well as you over the course of your marriage. You also will want to know if your husband is currently receiving benefits from any of these plans. Contact all former employers and current employers to find out about your own benefits. In an ideal situation you can ask your husband for details on his benefits but you might need to go to his current or former employers. Your husband may still need to provide written authorization or an order from the court in order for you to receive this information. It is essential that you have all necessary details about your husband's retirement benefits prior to your divorce. If you learned about additional benefits after the fact and your qualified domestic relations order has already been prepared, it is too late. This is why you need to do your research ahead of time.
Your Options for Retirement Benefits: Let the Courts Decide or Negotiate Your Own Agreement
Where possible it is always in your best interest if you and any other spouse can negotiate a property settlement between the two of you. This will go into detail about who gets what and who pays what. Covering issues like child custody and visitation, property, child support and alimony. If you can come to an agreement with your former spouse on this, it will become part of your divorce decree. You may rely on your family lawyer to negotiate these terms. However, if you and your former spouse cannot agree on how to divide any aspect of the issues involved in your divorce, you will need to go to court to ask the judge to decide. Of course, this can be quite expensive but in some situations it is your only option because you and your spouse cannot come to an agreement.
Dividing Retirement Benefits
You and your husband could come to your own agreement about dividing your retirement benefits in half. There could be other alternatives, however. For example, if you and your husband have multiple retirement accounts between the two of you, you could equalize them. If the divorce involves a very traditional pension plan, it may be necessary to hire an actuary to determine the accurate value of the benefits. Think long and hard before waiving your right to any pension benefits in exchange for your husband's share of the house. This is a common arrangement that many women enter into during a divorce. It might seem simple to own the house but if you are unable to keep up with the taxes or the mortgage in a couple of years, you could be in a major financial situation. Deciding to sell the house a few years down the road could hit you with the capital gains taxes. This is why it's a good idea to network not just with your divorce attorney but also a qualified domestic relations orders specialist and a CPA so you understand the full implications of getting divorced.
Source : articlesbase.com
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