Legal Question in Family Law in California

Re: Military Pension

Washington is a Community Property State. So the same general principles apply as in California. I can not comment on details of California law (See Mr. Johnson's reply). Washington would require that the value of the pension be considered as part of the equitable distribution of the marital estate. No fixed percentages are set for any specific asset, because all assets and liabilities and their distribution are considered in making the distribution, but it is reasonable to work into the general distribution a value of the retirement and to allocate shares of that in proportion to the period of the marriage, that is the number of points accrued during your marriage divided by the number of points accrued during your service.

I am currently a retired officer in the Army Reserve, and give a military/veterans discount.

Re: Military Pension

California law requires that community property be divided equally between the parties. In the case of retirement benefits community property is the fraction consisting a numerator that is equal to the length of the marriage and the denominator is the total time over which the retirement plan is funded. In your case the numerator would be 11 and the denominator would be 15, at this time. The last 5 years would be added to the denominator and any time you were married would be added to the numerator. Thereby giving the 20 year period of service for retirement.