Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Washington

Re: Primary Beneficiary

I hate to quibble but the answer is it depends. You really need to take your divorce decree and any exhibits thereto (such as a QDRO), and go back to the person who handled your divorce and ask them.

There is a fair amount of law on this question, and I cannot give you a fair answer without seeing the documents.

Best wishes, but this is a question that cannot be answered responsibly in this forum.

Powell

Re: Primary Beneficiary

I whole heartedly agree with Ms. Powell....you should allow an attorney to review the decree along with the IRA specifics and the beneficiary designation. However, in Washington the decree may not be the deciding factor. Please review the following text I cut and paste from a good article on the matter. You will note that the real issue is whether the IRA is subject to ERISA. See an attorney.

In Egelhoff v. Egelhoff, 139 Wash. 2d 557 (1999), a plan participant had named his spouse as beneficiary of a life insurance policy and of pension benefits provided by employee benefit plans under ERISA. Two months after the participant and spouse were divorced, the participant died without having changed either beneficiary designation. The Washington State Supreme Court, applying a state statute that provided automatic revocation of the designation of a spouse as the beneficiary of a nonprobate asset upon divorce, held that the divorced spouse was not a beneficiary. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Washington state statute was preempted by ERISA � 514(a), which provides that ERISA �shall supersede any and all state laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan� covered by ERISA. Egelhoff v. Egelhoff, 121 S. Ct. 1322 (2001). The court ruled that the state statute had an impermissible connection with ERISA plans because it (1) required plan administrators to pay benefits to the beneficiaries chosen by state law rather than the plan documents and (2) interfered with nationally uniform plan administration, requiring administrators to master the laws of 50 states (exacerbated by choice-of-law problems) and to contend with resulting litigation.