Is there any way the court can divide the retired pay prior to retirement?
Some states, such as California, allow payments to be made under court order while the member is still on active duty. Most states, however, do not. In all states, however, the law allows the present value of the pension to be used as a set-off or trade against other property that the nonmilitary spouse will receive. Thus the retired pay might be traded against the marital residence if the values of each were roughly equal. If the values were not equal and the servicemember received “too much” of the marital property, the judge could order him or her to transfer other property to the nonmilitary spouse, or to make regular payments to the other party (called a “distributive award”) until the shares of the parties were adjusted as the judge ordered.
