Raleigh Retirement Account Attorney

Retirement Account Lawyer in Raleigh, North Carolina

It is not unusual for the largest asset in a Raleigh marriage to be retirement accounts. It is important to divide retirement benefits without incurring taxes or penalties for the immediate division of the property. To avoid paying unnecessary amounts of money in taxes, it is highly recommended that you consult with a Raleigh Family Law Attorney to represent you.

A Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QRDO) refers to a court order that is entered to divide a retirement plan that is qualified under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Once the means of dividing the retirement account is decided upon, one needs to decide how the plan will be divided. A Raleigh retirement account lawyer will need to help you during this process because the division can create serious issues for pension and other defined benefit plans. (A defined benefit plan is a plan where future benefits are to be paid based upon the value of the plan at the time of distribution.) The courts have used a fraction based upon the concept of the marital covertures fraction. It is defined as a fraction having the numerator as 50 percent of the total months of marriage, and the denominator being the total number of months of service by the employee spouse, also known as plan participant.

There are many ways to divide the retirement account, but the trick lies in having an experienced Raleigh lawyer who knows how to protect your hard earned money in the retirement account. At Hopper Law Firm, our attorneys know how to divide your retirement accounts in a way that is fair to both partners and is perfectly legal, all the while retaining as much money in the account as possible. Dividing a retirement account can be extremely complicated in Raleigh, and if you don’t receive the proper legal advice and direction from a lawyer, you risk losing money unnecessarily.

Contact a Raleigh Family Law Attorney at Hopper Law Firm today to discuss your retirement accounts.