A court decree of divorce, annulment or legal separation can make an award from a participant’s TSP account to someone other than the participant, such as a former spouse. The TSP will honor such orders if they are issued in connection with such an action and they comply with the Board’s regulations. The TSP also will honor preliminary court orders for the purposes of freezing a participant’s account as well as amendatory court orders issued after such a decree.
When the TSP receives a court order, the account of the participant is frozen, meaning that the participant is not allowed to withdraw the account, except to meet certain IRS mandatory distributions, or receive a loan from the account. All other account activity is permitted, however.