My husband's 401(k) is in his name alone – do I have a right to any of it?

Retirement accounts are always in one person's name alone. That is just the way they are created. 401ks, IRAs, 403bs, pensions, they can only legally be held in one person's name. But to your question, yes, even if the 401k is only in your husband's name, you may still have a legal right to a portion of it if it was contributed to during the marriage. Here's how that works: one of the biggest misconceptions about divorce and property is that if something is in your spouse's name, it belongs to them. That is just not the case when it comes to retirement accounts like 401ks or IRAs. Ownership or title on the account doesn't determine whether or not it's marital or shared or joint property. For the divorce, timing is what matters. If your spouse contributed to that 401k during the marriage, then all or part of that account is likely considered marital property, which means it can be divided during the divorce or as part of the divorce process, even if your name isn't on it. This is regardless of whether the 401k is tied to their employer or held separately, or even if you never saw a single statement or didn't know anything about it. If the retirement account was built up during the years that you were married, the law often considers it a shared asset.

So here's what typically happens. You go to court and decide on the division, or you guys work out together the division about the retirement how that account is going to be divided. You get a court order ordering that division, saying, for example, that the 401k that's in your husband's name is going to be divided equally pursuant to the divorce. After the divorce is done, you will go back to the retirement plan. You might need a special court order in order to implement this, but you would then go to the plan. The retirement is ultimately divided and you will get your portion of that retirement in a retirement account in your own name, and then you are free to do whatever you want with it moving forward. So this doesn't necessarily mean that you automatically get half. Every state's different. There's a lot more nuance to this, but to the basic question, yes, you can absolutely divide retirement and you may have a right to a retirement account even if it is all held in your husband's name. Check out PartWise. Learn more. There is a ton of information about how to deal with retirement, how to deal with marital and shared property and all of the other assets that you might have questions about.