QDROs, Ohio Division of Property Orders, COAPs, TSP retirement benefits court orders, military pension division orders and railroad partitions. Drafted for family law counsel in Lucas County and Northwest Ohio, submitted for plan pre-approval, and backed by free redrafting until the order is accepted.
Current to the Lucas County Domestic Relations local rules effective January 1, 2026.
There is no universal instrument. QDRO is a term of art from ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code, and using it on a plan governed by neither is the most common and most expensive mistake in Ohio family practice. Pick the plan.
Select a plan above to see the correct instrument, the governing authority and whether the plan pre-approves drafts.
Filing an ERISA-style QDRO against an OPERS, STRS, SERS, OP&F or Highway Patrol interest. R.C. 3105.82(A) requires the uniform form created under R.C. 3105.90, and the form itself warns that variance results in non-acceptance. The order is returned. Under R.C. 3105.88 the rejection goes to the clerk, who then notifies counsel. In practice nobody finds out for years, usually at retirement, by which time Ostanek has made the defective order voidable rather than void and Civ.R. 60(B) may have run.
The Lucas County Domestic Relations local rules took effect January 1, 2026 and superseded the 2021 rules. Rule 24 fixes the default substantive terms of a defined benefit and a defined contribution order, and dictates language that must appear in the order and in the judgment entry. The bench is Judge Karen K. Connelly and Judge Lisa D. McGowan.
The party entitled to the pension is responsible for preparation and payment. That tells you who your buyer is, and it is not both parties.
The final judgment entry must contain a date certain, not to exceed ninety days from filing. Miss it and you are filing a motion.
Separate interest, division per Hoyt v. Hoyt, valuation at the final hearing, all early retirement subsidies to the alternate payee, and the alternate payee deemed surviving spouse for QPSA purposes.
Valuation at the final hearing, earnings and losses credited, immediate lump sum permitted. New in 2026: a marital-period loan is charged to the participant but the divided benefit is reduced by the loan first.
Retained jurisdiction and anti-circumvention paragraphs are mandatory in the judgment entry. This is the clause most often omitted, because it lives in a different document.
New for 2026. Any document prepared with AI assistance requires a certification describing the technology, its role, and the filer's review. We supply one with every order so you are not left composing it.
Which instrument you need is usually decided by where the participant works. Plan-type classification is ours and should be confirmed against the actual plan documents in any given case.
| Employer | Interest | Instrument | What bites |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stellantis Toledo Assembly (UAW 12), GM Toledo Propulsion (UAW 14) | UAW DB pension plus savings plan | QDRO | Two separate orders. Post-2007 hires have no DB interest at all, which surprises clients who assume Jeep pension. |
| University of Toledo and UTMC | OPERS or STRS, or an Alternative Retirement Plan | DPO | The ARP question is the whole case. An ARP vendor has TEN days to reject, not sixty. |
| Toledo Public Schools | STRS or SERS, often a 403(b) on top | DPO plus a 403(b) DRO | A governmental 403(b) is not ERISA. The vendor sets its own rules and owes no duty to segregate. |
| City of Toledo, Lucas County | OPERS | DPO | No separate account, no survivorship, payment only when the member takes a benefit. |
| Toledo Police and Fire | OP&F | DPO | The DROP checkbox, and OP&F does not pre-approve drafts. |
| ProMedica, Mercy Health | 403(b) and 401(k), legacy DB often frozen | QDRO, or not | Check for church-plan status. A non-electing church plan is outside ERISA entirely. |
| Owens Corning, O-I Glass, Dana, The Andersons, First Solar | Private DB, largely frozen, plus 401(k) | QDRO | Gains and losses language and the loan question are the usual failure points. |
| Norfolk Southern, CSX | Railroad Retirement Tier I and Tier II | RRB partition | Not a QDRO. Tier I is not divisible property at all. |
| Federal employees | CSRS or FERS annuity, plus TSP | COAP plus RBCO | Two agencies, two instruments, two rulebooks. Both reject ERISA vocabulary. |
| Ohio National Guard, reservists, retirees | Military retired pay and SBP | USFSPA order | The frozen benefit rule and the one-year SBP deemed-election deadline. |
Ohio's public retirement systems are governmental plans, exempt from ERISA. QDRO has no meaning to them. They accept exactly one instrument: the uniform Division of Property Order created under R.C. 3105.90.
| Section | What it does |
|---|---|
| 3105.80 | Definitions. Six covered programs. Note that benefit is defined to EXCLUDE survivor benefits. |
| 3105.82 | Contents. (A) must be on the R.C. 3105.90 form. (D) the award is either a dollar amount, or a percentage of a fraction whose denominator is fixed when the participant elects. |
| 3105.84 | The administrative cost is withheld and divided equally between the parties. |
| 3105.85 | The fifty percent caps. The award plus the administrative cost cannot exceed fifty percent, and support withholding eats into what is left. |
| 3105.86 | Rights terminate on the earlier of the participant's death, the alternate payee's death, or termination of the benefit. |
| 3105.87 | The court may order a system, or Ohio Deferred Compensation, to produce personal history record information. This is your discovery hook. |
| 3105.88 | The CLERK transmits a certified copy. If the clerk fails to transmit, the system need not administer the order. |
| 3105.89 | Notwithstanding R.C. 3105.171(I), the court retains jurisdiction, and may modify a PRE-2002 decree to carry out the parties' manifest intentions. |
| System | Deadline to reject | Pre-approves drafts? | Administrative fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| OPERS | 60 days | Yes, OPERS Legal Services | Authorized, no published figure |
| STRS Ohio | 60 days | Unconfirmed | Published: lesser of $400 or 1% of the lump sum |
| SERS | 60 days | Yes, on request | Authorized, no published figure |
| OP&F | 60 days | No. File first, clerk transmits | None currently charged |
| Highway Patrol | 60 days | Yes, recommended | Not published |
| ARP (Ch. 3305) | TEN days | Vendor specific | Vendor specific |
The anti-alienation rule blocks any assignment. The QDRO exception in ERISA section 206(d)(3) and I.R.C. section 414(p) is the only door.
Names and last known mailing addresses; the amount or percentage or the manner in which it is determined; the number of payments or period; and each plan covered. GAO found only about half of orders qualify on first review, and the most common defect is the second element.
No type or form of benefit not otherwise provided; no increased benefits on an actuarial basis; nothing already assigned to a prior alternate payee.
Separate interest carves out an independent benefit. Shared payment gives a slice of each payment the participant actually receives, which means nothing if he never retires and nothing after his death. Lucas County Rule 24.02(A)(1) defaults to separate interest.
It runs from the date the first payment would be required under the order, not from receipt. Unresolved at eighteen months, the segregated amounts go to the participant and a later determination applies prospectively only.
A separate interest that has not yet commenced evaporates if the participant dies first. The QPSA and the QJSA are separate elections and both must be addressed every time, including who bears the cost. A QDRO may treat the former spouse as the surviving spouse under I.R.C. 414(p)(5), which also displaces any subsequent spouse to that extent.
29 C.F.R. 2530.206 means an order does not fail solely because of when it was issued. But there is no reannuitization: an order requiring a new annuity starting date violates the type-or-form prohibition unless the plan permits it. A posthumous order can usually capture an unconsumed QPSA. It generally cannot manufacture a survivor annuity where the participant retired in a single life form.
Governmental plans are exempt from ERISA and from I.R.C. 401(a)(13). Each system has its own instrument, its own rulebook and its own vocabulary, and each rejects ERISA terminology.
| System | Instrument | The trap that costs the most |
|---|---|---|
| CSRS / FERS | Court Order Acceptable for Processing, 5 C.F.R. Part 838 | A division of the annuity is NOT a survivor annuity. Without express language, payments end at the retiree's death, and the award cannot be modified after the employee retires or dies. A refund of contributions voids the entitlement outright. |
| Thrift Savings Plan | Retirement Benefits Court Order, 5 C.F.R. Part 1653 | TSP applies earnings ONLY if the order specifically requests them. An outstanding loan is included in the valuation unless expressly excluded. TSP charges a flat $600. Do not caption it a QDRO. |
| Military retired pay | USFSPA order plus a separate SBP election order | For any decree final after December 23, 2016 where the member has not retired, DFAS requires the High-3 base as an actual dollar figure and years of service as of the decree date. And the SBP deemed election is due within ONE YEAR on DD Form 2656-10. |
| Railroad Retirement | Partition under the Railroad Retirement Act | Tier I is not divisible. The RRB applies the order only to non-Tier I benefits regardless of the decree's language. Payments need BOTH parties' signatures and there are no back payments. |
| IRAs | Transfer incident to divorce, I.R.C. 408(d)(6) | Custodians reject award language. And I.R.C. 72(t)(3)(A) makes the ten percent penalty exception unavailable for IRAs, so take cash from the qualified plan under the QDRO first. |
| NQDC, options, RSUs | No order reaches these | Offset, a constructive trust with real enforcement machinery, or a plan-permitted transfer. Rev. Rul. 2004-60 leaves the income as the employee's FICA wages, so the former spouse receives a NET amount. |
Every item is a real failure mode. Most are invisible when they happen and surface a decade later at retirement or at death, by which time Ostanek has made the defective order voidable rather than void.
OPERS, STRS, SERS, OP&F, the Highway Patrol system and ARP vendors accept only the R.C. 3105.90 form. Anything else is returned, and you find out years later.
Ohio DC is a 457(b) outside the R.C. 3105.80(F) definition. It takes a QDRO on its own model, submitted directly rather than through the clerk.
OPM, TSP, DFAS and the RRB all reject QDRO-style language.
A shared payment order pays nothing if the participant never retires and nothing after his death absent survivor coverage.
Frozen is the dollar-amount method, traditional is the percentage-of-a-fraction method. Casner reverses when the method does not match the decree.
It does not. R.C. 3105.86 terminates everything on the participant's death, and survivor benefits are excluded from the statutory definition of benefit.
They are separate. Address both expressly, and say who pays for the coverage.
It does not, and it cannot be fixed after the employee retires or dies.
Two independent clocks, both one year, both fatal.
A refund voids the former spouse's future annuity entitlement outright.
A flat dollar award with no adjustment language in a volatile market is a malpractice generator in both directions.
Lucas County Rule 24.02(B)(4) now reduces the divided benefit by a marital-period loan before division. TSP includes a loan unless expressly excluded.
The default flips depending on whether the order is shared or separate interest.
Between $300 and $1,200, and on a small account it changes the settlement math.
The administrative cost counts inside the fifty percent ceiling, and support withholding reduces what is left.
The eighteen-month segregation clock, participant death, retirement, loans and hardship withdrawals all run against you. Get a hold letter at the outset.
R.C. 3105.88 makes clerk transmittal a condition of the system's duty, and SERS refuses copies sent by counsel.
A post-decree QDRO is a motion, a hearing, and a fight about whether the order matches the decree.
The plan documents rule controls. A decree waiver that is not a QDRO does not override the designation on file.
Only a spouse or former spouse is the distributee. A child payee's distribution is taxed to the participant.
Our drafting time is five business days. Everything after that belongs to somebody else, and anyone promising a completed accepted order in a fixed number of days is describing only the part they control.
Send the decree, the plan identification and the participant data. We confirm the instrument and flag any ambiguity in writing before drafting begins.
Plan document, summary plan description, the plan's own written QDRO procedures and the current benefit statement. ERISA entitles a prospective alternate payee to these before any order is entered.
Rush drafting in 3 business days is available.
The draft goes to the plan or system before the judge signs. Expect 15 to 60 days at this stage, entirely outside our control.
Execution-ready order, the Rule 24.03 language for the entry, the Local Rule 31 AI certification, a transmittal letter and filing instructions.
For Ohio systems the certified copy must go from the clerk. We follow up until the system confirms retention.
We redraft and resubmit at no charge until the order is accepted.
Send the first block on every matter. Add the second or third only if it applies. If something on this list does not exist, say so rather than leaving it blank, because a missing item and a non-existent item lead to different drafting decisions.
Flat fee, billed to the referring firm, payable on delivery of the execution-ready order. No hourly billing, no charge for revisions, no charge for a redraft after a plan rejects the order.
Includes plan document request, pre-approval submission, unlimited revisions and free redraft after a rejection.
CSRS/FERS COAP, TSP RBCO, USFSPA military pension division order, or RRB partition. Includes SBP deemed-election filing where applicable.
Second and subsequent orders in the same matter when submitted together.
Credited in full against a drafting fee if we then redraft.
Charged once per matter, not per order.
Requires a conflict check and a written limited scope agreement under Ohio Prof.Cond.R. 1.2(c).
An IRA takes a transfer incident to divorce under I.R.C. 408(d)(6), not a court order, so this is an add-on rather than an order.
We are engaged by referring counsel on a limited, discrete task. We do not enter an appearance, we do not contact the opposing party, and we do not take on the spouse as a client. That keeps Ohio Prof.Cond.R. 1.7 out of the analysis, because there is no adverse party in our engagement to begin with.
Where the alternate payee is unrepresented, we can act under a written limited scope agreement under Ohio Prof.Cond.R. 1.2(c), for one side only, subject to a conflict check.
We do not value pensions, run actuarial reports, or testify. We do not negotiate the underlying division.
If the decree is ambiguous about what was actually divided, we tell you so in writing before drafting rather than guessing. A drafter cannot cure a settlement that is silent. That is the whole lesson of McCoy v. Feinman, and under Ostanek the resulting order is voidable rather than void, so the error hardens once the Civ.R. 60(B) window closes.
The best time to involve a drafter is before the separation agreement is signed. Half of the failures above are settlement drafting failures that no order can cure. We review proposed retirement division language in a draft agreement at no charge for a referring firm.
admin@quaiil.comAttorney advertising. This page states general law as of its date and is current to the Lucas County Domestic Relations local rules effective January 1, 2026. It is not legal advice, it is not a substitute for reading the governing plan document, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. The approval guarantee is a fee commitment covering redrafting and resubmission at no additional charge; it is not a guarantee of any particular outcome, benefit amount or timeline, which are controlled by the plan administrator or retirement system.