1. Employee vs. Employer Contributions
Employee contributions are always 100% vested. These can be divided without a problem. However, the employer’s profit-sharing or matching contributions might be subject to a vesting schedule—meaning the participant must work a certain number of years before fully “owning” those contributions.
If a divorce happens before the participant is fully vested, the unvested portion may be forfeited. That means allocating too much to the alternate payee may cause issues when the money simply isn’t there. A good QDRO will address that by specifying that only vested assets are subject to division—or it will include a reallocation clause to deal with any forfeitures.

