§ 10-4. Exceptions – Court orders.

(a) In general.

All or any portion of a member's vested account may be assigned pursuant to:

(1) a decree or order of alimony or child support issued by a court of competent jurisdiction;

(2) a court order issued by a court of competent jurisdiction appointing the assignee as guardian over the property of the member; or

(3) a domestic relations order, as defined in subsection (b) of this section.

(b) Domestic relations orders.

(1) "Domestic relations order" defined.

In this section, "domestic relations order" means either of the following that satisfies the conditions of paragraph (2) of this subsection:

(i) a member's court-approved property settlement agreement incident to a divorce decree; or

(ii) a division of marital property pursuant to a court order that:

(A) creates the right or recognizes the existence of the right of an alternate payee (as defined in IRC § 414(p)(8)) to receive all or a portion of a member's benefit under the Retirement Savings Plan; or

(B) assigns to an alternate payee the right to receive all or a portion of a member's benefit under the Plan.

(2) Conditions of agreement or order.

The property settlement agreement or court order:

(i) may not require the Plan to make any distribution to the alternate payee in a form of payment other than as required by § 9-1 {"Form of payment"} of this article;

(ii) may not require the Plan to provide to the alternate payee an amount greater than the value of the member's vested account;

(iii) may not require the payment of benefits to an alternate payee if the benefits are required to be paid to another alternate payee under another order previously accepted as a domestic relations order;

(iv) must clearly specify the percentage or amount of the member's vested account to be distributed to the alternate payee or the manner in which the percentage or amount is to be determined; and

(v) must clearly specify (or, to protect the parties' privacy, require submission by separate writing of) the name, Social Security number, birth date, and last known mailing address of the member and the alternate payee.

(3) Implementation of agreement or order.

Following a determination by the Board of Trustees that a property settlement agreement or court order is a domestic relations order:

(i) a separate account must be established and maintained on behalf of the alternate payee;

(ii) the alternate payee must be afforded the same rights with respect to the account as a member has under this article, including the right to make an investment election under § 6-2 {"Investments"} of this article; and

(iii) distributions to the alternate payee must be made at the time specified in the domestic relations order, which may be before the member (to whom the domestic relations order relates) has a distributable event under Subtitle 9 {"Distributions"} of this article.