What to capture
- Plan name and type
- Balance or accrued benefit date
- Employment and service dates
- Loans
- Premarital and post-separation periods
The failure mode to catch
Assuming half the current balance is the community share or treating a pension like a cash account.
Keep the source date and any uncertainty visible. A reviewer should be able to distinguish a supported figure, an estimate, an unknown value and an affirmative statement that no such property exists.
Documents that usually resolve it
- Plan statement and service history
- Summary plan description
- Benefit estimate and loan detail
- Prior qualified orders
How it moves downstream
The entry should retain its form item, description, value date, character claim and source. If it enters the community division, it must flow into the face-value total. If it cannot yet be valued, it should remain visible outside the negotiable pool rather than disappearing.
A second disclosure may describe the same retirement and deferred compensation differently. Reconcile on durable identifiers and preserve differences in date, value, debt and characterization for review.
Continue the workflow
Build and check a California Schedule of Assets and Debts
A private, browser-only workspace for composing, reading and checking California form FL-142 without uploading a client filing.
FL-142 quality-control checklist
A practical California FL-142 checklist covering completeness, dates, secured debt, totals, documents and review.
Property-division document checklist
A source-document checklist for California real estate, bank, investment, retirement, business, vehicle, insurance, tax and debt entries.