by Guest » Sun Nov 28, 2010 10:08 pm
My husband passed away on Nov 17, 2010. I have since been making some phone calls, I am not sure of his pensions yet, but I do know that on his credit union acct through his union, hes a sheet metal worker, his ex spouse is named beneificiary. What happens here? She will take the money and run, there is no "splitting" when it comes to money with her. If he in fact did not change the benficiary, am I out of luck? I know that in the divorce decree, there is a schedule D of assets, which is property to him and the pensions or any accts thru his union was his property, does that do anything for me?
Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 02:20 pm Post Subject:
I do know that on his credit union acct through his union, hes a sheet metal worker, his ex spouse is named beneificiary. What happens here? She will take the money and run, there is no "splitting" when it comes to money with her. If he in fact did not change the benficiary, am I out of luck?
So why did he never make you the beneficiary of the account? Did you just learn of this account following his death?
Although pension and retirement plan (IRA, Roth IRA, 401(k), etc) assets have spousal protection under federal law, life insurance, stock brokerage, bank, and credit union accounts have no similar protections. A named beneficiary is the beneficiary, and is generally inviolate.
Having said this, there are a few states whose laws take most rights away from the spouse at the moment a divorce is granted -- and this could be true in your situation. You haven't mentioned in what state this has occurred.
Are you a "signatory" on the CU account -- was it an individual or joint account? You could theoretically remove the money leaving nothing to be taken by the ex-spouse. But since most accounts are supposed to be frozen at the moment of a person's death, that "taking" would have occurred after the date of death, she would still have a claim on the money.
any accts thru his union
This may or may not include the credit union, but I'm guessing that a CU account is not the kind of account that was intended. They would be more likely to be some other union-sponsored welfare benefit/savings plan. The credit union is not normally a "union-owned" institution.
For example, here in the Los Angeles area, home to broadcasting and movie making enterprises, we have the "Technicolor Federal Credit Union" that most craft workers/union employees and others in the industry may join. It is not owned by the employee unions. It isn't even owned by Technicolor Corp. It was started in the 1950s by an employee of Technicolor.[/quote]
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