Depending upon the state's date of division, the amount of time you have been married may be judged by different criteria. This means that Texas may view you as being married nine years, while California considers you having been married 10 years. Not qualifying for the DFAS direct pay does not mean you are ineligible for a portion of the payment.
To receive your portion, the criteria would need to be included as part of the divorce settlement agreement. Keep in mind that the award of military retired pay may be in addition to child support, and alimony, or maintenance. Once the order is filed with DFAS, it will take three months 90 days for the direct payments to begin if the ex-spouse is already receiving their pension. In the situation of active military members, the payments will begin 90 days after the newly retired member becomes entitled to receive their first payment.
There are different methods of calculating what percentage of the pension to which ex-spouses are entitled. The document filed with the court will need to clearly state the formula used to derive the amount of payment. Again, the length of the marriage will come into play.
Then search for "divorce. The amount of child support in a divorce is determined by state law. It is ordinarily based on the total entitlements that is base pay, Basic Allowance for Housing, Basic Allowance for Subsistence, and any special pays of the servicemember. Generally, once the amount of child support has been set by a court, only a court can change it. Changing the amount requires another court hearing or else the consent in writing of the other party, set out in a "consent order.
However, before a court has determined the amount of child support, you can get assistance directly from the military. Service members are required to provide adequate child support for their children. Each of the services except the Air Force has rules on how much the parent should pay. Later, the court handling the divorce, or child support case, can make its own decision of how much support should be paid - based on the laws, rules and guidelines of that state.
Courts usually follow the state's child support guidelines to decide the child support amount. The court should also understand the potential for those amounts to change based on deployments, base transfers, and other factors. Generally, states provide for the direct payment of child support by "garnishment," or wage assignment.
If you have such an order, submit it promptly to the military pay center. This order must meet specific requirements before DFAS will provide a "wage garnishment" i. Merely submitting a copy of the divorce order may not work.
The local JAG or military legal assistance attorney can explain how to do this so that the pay center will act on the order.
After a divorce, the non-military spouse has two possible options. A former spouse may also get continuing medical coverage through CHCBP for an indefinite period not just 36 months if they meet these conditions. The former spouse:. The scope of coverage is the same as that for federal employees. Service members have the option to contribute to a Thrift Savings Plan during their active service.
Many people overlook this asset when going through a divorce. This TSP can be divided between the parties. It can also be given to one party in exchange for some other asset. The person named as the "beneficiary" of the Plan - usually a spouse or former spouse - will get ongoing payments after the service member dies. Without SBP coverage, the pension payments end when the service member dies.
The court can require SBP coverage upon divorce. To find a free military legal assistance attorney on an installation near you, visit the Legal Services Locator. Generally, the military views divorce as a private civil matter to be addressed by a civilian court. However, military spouses have access to free military legal assistance services through installation legal assistance offices.
In a divorce, a service member and dependent spouse will need separate attorneys to advise them to ensure both parties receive independent and confidential advice, and to avoid any conflicts of interest. Communications between a client and a legal assistance attorney are private and confidential.
While military legal assistance attorneys may not be able to draft specific court documents or represent members or their families in court, they can provide helpful advice on a range of legal issues including divorce and child custody, income taxes and wills. Military legal assistance offices can help with this. The Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act is a federal law that provides certain benefits to former spouses of military members.
A divorce filed overseas can be complicated, as U. FACT 9: There is no minimum number of years for divisibility of the military pension. As mentioned earlier, the rule deals with how payments are made. A overlap of marriage and military service means that the payment will come from DFAS if you serve the court order there. Without a overlap, payments come from the retiree. It has nothing to do with eligibility for a share of retired pay.
Federal law only makes pension division available, under rules set out in state statutes. There is NO federal entitlement to anything, and a clause stating this is worse than worthless.
It gives the spouse nothing. I know they'll accept that. FACT Disposable retired pay is often a lower amount than gross retired pay; know the difference!
This change of wording could mean a loss of several hundred dollars or more. And there was nothing she could do about it! He just retired.
Reilly receives none of these annual adjustments for inflation. There are other approaches to pension division — percentage, formula and hypothetical clauses — which allow the sharing of COLAs between the parties. FACT Military pension division is specialized work. Get a specialist to help you. The specialist doesn't have to be your main lawyer for the divorce; the divorce lawyer can simply associate co-counsel to help with the military pieces of the divorce, like family support, pension division or SBP.
Don't go it alone! JAG officers can be very useful, and the help is free, of course. But often they don't have the in-depth knowledge necessary for a serious case, they cannot go into court, and they usually have short-term assignments in legal assistance, yielding limited exposure and expertise. If you are going to use a military legal assistance attorney, ask him or her whether it would be a good idea to get some help from a civilian attorney, preferably one in the state where the divorce would occur.
Says Ft. Dix chief of claims Jackey Nichols,. The saddest story is know about a client I'll call Helge Schmidt. Since Texas law does not provide for life-long alimony, she and her attorney thought she was getting a good deal.
But the attorney didn't know beans about the military pension and benefits for a former spouse. There was no mention of retirement benefits in the decree. Now, many years later, she struggles with no health care, no retirement, and no cost-of-living increase in her monthly support.
Reilly, we finally got that agreement on military pension division. That finishes my job. Good luck with your divorce next month. I'm seeing more and more abandonment of clients when the attorney has finished writing up the property settlement or the separation agreement, and then thinks that the job is finished.
That's NOT the end. That's not full and competent service to the client. To handle a military pension division properly, you must prepare a military pension division order or incorporate the separation agreement into the divorce decree.
That way, if there is any problem in the papers submitted, it can be caught and cleared up promptly. It can be waived, with the written consent of both spouses, or it can be given to a former spouse or a present spouse. It can't be divided between an ex-spouse and a current one.
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