QUESTION
Does she have any rights to any part of my 401k?
Asked on Jun 07th, 2015 on Divorce - Oregon
More details to this question:
We have been married for 14 months and I’m seeking a divorce. I have not filed yet. I have a 401 k plan through work I contributed to. I pay all the bills (electric-gas garbage-internet etc.) with my earnings which include her and her daughter’s phone -car. My house is paid off before we were married. She has contributed maybe 5 of her pay checks over the 14 months. She brings home maybe $750-$800 a month plus she was getting $800 child support. She has paid for some food and some interior upgrades (not a lot) to house. She has her own debt. I have my car and one credit card for debt. She had a house she was paying on when we got married and sold her house 3 months after we got married and came out $40,000 ahead which she kept and has recently bought a house with some of that money. Is that a date you would use when she legally moved in? We have no joint accounts-no children-no pets.
1 ANSWER
From the facts recited below, you have a really short-term marriage and I am not seeing any basis for either of you to argue that there has been any significant transfer of your separate property or her separate property to joint property status. If she were to try to assert that your 401K contributions were ?joint property,? you could assert that at least some of the profit she made on the sale of her home would be joint property because you were providing her with a place to live with her daughter in your house while she was going through the process of selling her home. The best approach for both parties would be for one of you to file a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage that alleges there is no joint property and no joint debt and all you want is a straight dissolution of the marriage. In that case, there would be no basis for opposing the petition because there is no defense to a married parson?s statement that ?irreconcilable differences have arisen in the marriage.
Answered on Jun 09th, 2015 at 12:12 PM