401k Division As of Date of Filing for Divorce vs. As of Date of Marriage

[Mardee]

My question involves divorce in the State of: NJ

Post-divorce and I must give my ex-husband half of my 401K. Divorce decree says that it's half of the value as of the date that I filed for divorce, OR half based upon the value as of date I filed for divorce, MINUS the value on the date we got married.

We got married in '97. Unfortunately, I cannot find my 401K records as of the marriage date. I DO have records from '98, about 10 months after we were married. There is no way to get any back records, I tried. The 401K plan has changed at least twice and unfortunately, I am my only source of records at this point.

Value of the 401K in 1998 was about 70K. (I was a single girl making the maximum contributions in a relatively good economy.) Due to decreased contributions, market fluctuations and hardship withdrawals for health reasons, the value of the 401K as of date of filing for divorce in 2010 is 90K. Obviously, I'd rather give my ex half of 20K, as opposed to half of 90K.

Not sure what the "rules" are here. Is there a way to reconstruct/approximate the life of the 401K for that 10 months based upon the '98 statement in an effort to establish the "marital" portion of the 401K? Or, due to my poor recordkeeping, will I be forced to go with the 90K value as of the date of filing for divorce?

Thanks for your input!

[Mr. Knowitall]

If you do not have records of your account, and the plan administrator does not have records going back to the start of your marriage, then there's no obvious way to get the records. You can try contacting the former plan administrator(s) to see if they still maintain any records.

If you can propose a reasonable value based upon records you have, and your ex- finds that acceptable, you can proceed accordingly. If your ex- disagrees with your proposed figure I expect that the issue will be litigated and you will have to convince the court that your reconstruction is correct.