Social Security Benefits for Divorced Spouses: Can You Claim on an Ex-Spouse’s Record?

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can I get Social Security benefits based on my ex-spouse that’s the question we’re going to address today and all the details associated with it can you get benefits based on someone that you were married to in the past will it impact you today will it impact them their new spouse your new spouse all the intricacies associated with marriage divorce and Social Security are what we are going to cover today we meaning Tony Shore Tony welcome to the show we’ve done this show two years ago

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and it’s been our most popular one but our audio was terrible so we’re doing it again we’re doing it again and this time you’re going to get all the questions right well let’s see let’s see what I remember how about that so exactly a lot of people come to me and say can I get ex-spouse Social Security and the answer is yes you can under certain conditions and how much you’re gonna get and and the details associated with it are unique for each person but in general if your ex-spouse

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is alive you’ll be able to get 50 of their benefit up to that and this is the same if you’re married to someone I’ll give you a story to start off um when I got started doing financial planning um and I focused on retirement income planning I met with a woman who had just lost her husband and she was struggling with income so I sat down with her and we started talking about social security and I said what do you get for Social Security because that is fundamentally where I start Social

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Security is the linchpin of retirement income planning for most of my clients and a lot of my clients are single that and divorced so this you know in this case she was not divorced she had just lost her husband but she was single and she said I don’t get Social Security because I never worked I never worked enough of the 40 credits to earn him so I said okay moving on your husband that just passed what was he getting for Social Security because now we can get a Survivor benefit she said he doesn’t qualify for Social

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Security because he worked for the U.S post office and didn’t put anything into it so that’s where it stopped for her for all of her previous discussions about finances with her friends family and even her financial advisor but eventually I found out through a bunch of other questions that I ask everybody that she was in fact married prior and I wanted to know how long she was married for and she said I don’t remember I guess around 10 years and I said I really need to know how long it was and it turned out it was

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10 years and three months and that’s key and that’s the 10-year rule is something that people need to be aware of the 10-year rule is that you need to be married for 10 consecutive years to someone in order to qualify as a ex-spouse and claim Social Security so she didn’t have her marriage certificate she had her divorce decree but she had to go back to the old Township and request a copy of her marriage certificate to then send to the Social Security Office once they looked at it and she also didn’t know if her

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ex-husband was alive or dead so I get that question very frequently one of the first things they say is if I claim against an ex-spouse will they know or if I claim against my ex-wife will her new husband be able to claim Social Security against her or can I steal it from him in some way you know they always want to stick it to the ex-spouse and it doesn’t impact it doesn’t impact them at all um but can you imagine you know about it you mentioned something that I have a question about so if the if you were

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married for 10 years and then got divorced you can collect Social Security off that ex-spouse’s uh work history uh but uh if that ex-spouse is now dead does that make a difference you said if they’ve passed yes so back to the story she didn’t know if her ex-spouse who she was married to for just over 10 years so important she met the 10-year rule yeah she didn’t know if he was alive or dead and that would have impacted whether how much she got if she if he was alive if your ex-spouse

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is alive then you would get what they call a spousal benefit which you can get to a spouse that you’re currently married to as well and that basically is 50 of their benefit if it’s higher than your own so here’s how it works say you’re 62 and you claiming your own benefit you’ve claiming early and I’ve done we’ve done shows on maybe why you might consider claiming at 62. probably not the best idea but it makes sense for some people so you’re claiming your own benefit at

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62 and it’s really tiny let’s call it 500 a month and you’re like I can’t live off of that I didn’t work I stayed home and or in the case of this client that I’m describing she has no benefit what do you get well if you are married or were married to an ex-spouse you can get a spousal step up to up to half of their full retirement age benefit but you took it at 62 so you’re going to get a reduction of half so if you’re getting 75 of your own benefit which is 500 you would you

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could get a step up to 75 of half of your ex-spouse if they’re still alive ah okay right so you don’t get just half of whatever because you would you but you took it early so you get a reduction of half so you’re getting like what 37 or something sure okay now if they’re passed away in the case of my client you would then qualify for a Survivor benefit and that could start at age 60. but getting ahead of myself so I told her check it out she found out um that her ex-spouse was dead she found

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out she qualified for 10 years of marriage and she submitted the divorce decree in the marriage certificate it turns out he was dead she started getting a check for 1800 a month and that was about 12 15 years ago she’s getting well over 2 000 now a month and she would not have gotten any of that had she not known that as an ex-spouse you can qualify for spousal benefits including survivor benefits so this step up now they changed some of the rules but something to note when you get a spousal benefit for a living for

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someone that’s alive an ex-spouse that’s alive you were fundamentally claiming your own and then getting an increase up to half of the ex-spouse so you can’t take half of the ex-spouse and then switch to your own later you’re claiming your own first and then getting an increase um and now like I said if you take it early your own benefits decreased because you’re claiming early your spousal benefit is decreased the same you know so you can’t claim your ex-spouse early and then claim yours at the full

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retirement age doesn’t work like that ah another rule claiming it against out a next spouse does not impact their record or their new spouse I mean I can’t stress enough how many clients say hey I don’t need it but I just want to claim against my ex-spouse so that they get less right a new wife yeah it doesn’t work that way it’s they’re not gonna know it’s not gonna even affect them so yeah right yeah so fundamentally you got to be married for 10 years another um Factor is you can’t remarried so you

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can’t get spousal benefits from an ex-spouse that’s alive if you get remarried because you then would work off your existing spouse right so you must use your current spouse’s record for spousal benefits if they are alive if they are passed away that’s a different story so we’ll get to that in a minute and you can’t claim against an ex-spouse’s social security benefit if you’re not eligible for social security benefits on your own so you can’t be 45 years old marry

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someone that’s 70. and then get divorced and then say Oh I want to claim against theirs no you have to be 62 typically to claim against because remember in order to get a spousal benefit you’re fundamentally claiming your own and then getting a step up sure at the same time you can’t claim against an ex-spouse’s benefits if they’re not eligible to claim themselves so let’s use an example of you Tony let’s say you’re 63 years old and your wife is three years younger and

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she’s 60. and you guys have been divorced you were married for 10 years you’ve been divorced you’re 63 and you want to claim against your ex-spouse because you’re a radio show co-host salary has your Social Security really low so you want to get that step up right you can’t claim against the next spouse if they’re not yet eligible to claim on their own uh so if they’re younger than you yeah if they’re less than 62 years of age then no they don’t have to be claiming though so

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I’ve gotten that question I don’t want to say they’re 63 if they’re 63 and haven’t taken Social Security yet you can still claim against their social security even if they haven’t claimed themselves right you can’t do that on an existing spouse you can’t claim unless they’ve claimed right which is tricky but an ex-spouse you can claim if they haven’t which is it’s a weird scenario but think of it this way I’ve had people say to me I’m not claiming Social Security because

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I don’t want to open the window for my ex-spouse I’ll I will not claim ever if it can be prevented to get from her to get any or from him to get any it doesn’t work that way as long as you’re eligible they are then eligible for that spousal benefit but if you’re married currently you have to wait till your spouse claims before you can get that spousal Step Up you know that’s a tricky that’s you know that’s a technical advantage to being divorced sure um the other day someone was watching

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our older version of this and commented give me a call and said hey isn’t there a two-year rule about claiming against an expense don’t you have to be divorced for two years so you need to wait two years to claim a spousal benefit against an ex-spouse if they aren’t claiming already if they’re already claiming then yeah but if they aren’t claiming it there is that two-year rule so you have to be aware of that um the case was hey if I get divorced I want to be able to claim against a

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previous ex-spouse I want to get divorced now from my current ex-spouse I said that’s fine there’s no waiting rule against the previous ex-spouse but your current spouse would have a two-year waiting rule before they can claim against you so you got to remember that so the two-year rule has to do with claiming a spousal benefit um again though if they die that’s not a spousal way of it that’s a Survivor benefit and there’s no two-year rule for that ah okay so let’s say you want to do this

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and in the case my client wanted to claim against the ex-spouse that she had forgotten about for the most part you need proof of birth and citizenship if you don’t have that so you need to prove yourself who you are that goes for claiming any social security benefit uh tax info would be necessary if you have tax withholdings the IRS can garnish Social Security if you owe money so they would I will not have my wages garnished Flash all right um divorce decree and marriage certificate you might have it hanging on the wall

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the divorce decree uh marriage certificate um so you need to prove that you’re married now I mentioned in the beginning the 10-year rule 10 consecutive years I get this you know what if we were divorced first you know married for seven years got divorced and got married for seven more got divorced that’s 14 years of not Bliss but it’s more than 10. they want to see consecutive years so when you’re showing your divorce decree and marriage certificate make sure it shows 10 years however you

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decide to do it um you do need to know your ex-spouse’s info now in the case my client that she didn’t even know if he was alive yet she actually called her ex-sister-in-law and got the social security number but you could get it if you know their date of birth and their parents names you can talk to them but a lot of times Social Security office has this data so but you need to be able to give something to prove the person you were married to your ex so sometimes it’s useful to keep

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that info on the next yeah um also and I’m going I’m rambling here but this is so much good info um just slow it down put it on you know repeat and listen again if you have a question you can always contact us with more questions after the show I’ll put it up here I get this question a lot Tony uh not a lot actually because I’m in Florida and doesn’t apply but common law marriage does Social Security recognize common law marriage that’s the question because we don’t have a marriage I would say no

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yes they do really I knew I was gonna find something you’ve missed yes uh Social Security does recognize common law marriage but you’d have to contact them and figure out what your state rules are and how to prove it but it can be done and it has been done so um we talked about getting that spousal benefit gonna be 10 years you have to be eligible they have to be eligible um but when it comes to deceased ex- spouses you can’t be remarried I’ll get to that in a second you can but there’s a rule on

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that but you could start that as early as age 60. or 50 if you’re disabled so that’s another thing that people don’t realize about the ex-spouse thing uh you might have a next spouse more than 10 years of marriage that you haven’t thought about it’s important to keep tabs as to whether or not they’ve passed away because half of their benefit might be less than your full benefit right so you you’re not getting a spousal increase and you’re like darn it you know that good for nothing is

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still good for nothing but if they pass away you can get a Survivor benefit which could be more than yours and you get their full Survivor benefit depending on how old you are so I’ll put it the link up here watch the show on spousal survivor benefits if you lose a spouse whether through uh whether they’re divorced a ex-spouse or current spouse you still qualify for a Survivor benefit very important to note and you could claim it as early as 60. so people don’t realize that oh I think that it’s 60 and then switch to

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your own later yes so watch that show okay here’s the biggest one that people don’t realize remarriage you can get survivor benefits from an ex-spouse even if you remarry so the rules say you can’t be remarried but they changed that I think in 83 to say you can remarry past age 60. so if you’re thinking about getting married for a second time or a third time whatever and you’re 59 you may want to wait a year so that if your ex-spouse dies you can still claim against their Survivor benefit even though you’ve

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remarried and are still currently married you could claim against a deceased and receive a Survivor benefit even if you’re currently married to someone who’s still alive as long as you marry after age 60. a lot of people don’t realize that wow so you may want to think about that just like you should think about if you’re getting divorced and it’s been nine years and six months maybe draw out the paperwork I’m not telling anyone to stay in a bad relationship but if you could draw out the paperwork so that

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divorce decree is official after 10 years you never know what’s going to happen in the future so if you have a child make sure and again I’m going through divorce make sure you ask them hey has it been 10 years and if it’s close drag it out same if you’re thinking about getting married hey I want to get married let’s wait until I’m 60. why I’ll tell you later right you know because you want to have that window of opportunity open from my previous spouse just in case and

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last point about getting remarried if you happen to get remarried prior to age 60. and you’re like darn it where were you Dan where was Tony why don’t you guys tell me this prior right we did a show on getting divorced and then getting remarried after 860. so watch that show if you’re if you got remarried prior to 60 and you’re like darn it I wish I didn’t I got the love of my life here I don’t want to get divorced but just watch that show because there’s a little bit of a

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loophole there about getting divorced after age 60 to claim against the first marriage Okay so you know I ran through it quickly because I mean I’ve done this so many times I’ve talked about this topic so many times There are rules about when it comes to claiming Social Security against an ex-spouse very specific there are extra things an ex-spouse can do that current spouses you can’t deal with and that’s to protect people that get divorced and didn’t have their own Social Security record so you need to

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know those strategies because it can make a huge difference huge difference like I said a lot of my clients are single people and it’s even more important for them to understand this stuff so my recommendation is if you have more questions about this you’re going to get information from all over the place I suggest you contact us I’ll put the contact info on here it is dolphinfinancialgroup.com we have a separate page there service called Social Security maximization you click on that and you’ll see

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this contact us forms everywhere you can just click on that put your info type your question boom it’ll come to us and we’ll respond to you or you can comment on this video and someone will usually have a comment or send you a link to the law or the rule clarify things it’s really important that divorcee’s understand these things because if you don’t who will take the case of the client that I talked about she’s getting over 2 000 a month 25 000 a year of income she had no idea it was coming her

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way no idea yeah that’s huge and Social Security is not going to call you up and say hey your ex-spouse died you should are you do you want the Survivor benefit they’re not they’re not going to send you a notification in the mail or email or call you and tell you that you’re eligible for this right you don’t get a birthday card at 60 saying hey do you know you’re eligible for your ex-spouses how did you know I was married for 10 years I don’t how do you know my ex-spouse is dead they don’t you have to

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keep tabs on this you have to be proactive wouldn’t it be great to know if they did that I’m telling you that might be a little service you know you keep tabs on your ex-spouse a little uh private investigator type thing yeah in reality um no one wants to deal with this stuff but we’re talking big money here we’re talking retirement success can be made a break make a break when it comes to getting survivor benefits or spousal benefits on an ex and I’m hopefully you’ve learned a few

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things Tony thanks for listening to me jab and blab for 20 minutes on this but it’s critical God bless Social Security God bless Social Security I got you Tony I had one question for you and you got it wrong so I’m a victory for me thanks for listening catch everyone next week foreign [Music] Financial Group are affiliated or endorsed by any government agency investment advisory services are offered through Dolphin Wealth Management Inc a registered investment advisor in the State of Florida Insurance products and

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services are offered through Dolphin Insurance Inc dolphin Wealth Management Inc and dolphin Insurance Inc are affiliate companies doing businesses as dolphin Financial Group you should talk to someone at Donovan Financial Group before implementing any of these strategies or ideas