Hi Andrea,
Need more information first.
1. Was this agreement drawn up by solicitors and appropriately signed by all parties?
2. Does the agreement specifically mention that you are to receive 50% of your former husband's super upon a condition of release (retirement etc)?
3. Was this agreement put to the superannuation fund for their approval so they can appropriately "flag" that the benefit is not to be rolled over or accessed due to a family law superannuation split?
4. Did the superannuation fund write to you once a year to provide a balance?
Note -
The term agreement is very broad and can mean many different things. In terms of a superannuation split, to avoid costly lengthy court processes, parties can split superannuation via a written Agreement.
However, the agreement must specify many things such as appropriately identifying the Trustee of the superannuation fund, your name, your former husbands name, the amount to be split etc. A draft agreement is put to the Trustee of the superannuation fund for the approval.
Once the Trustee confirms it is agreeable to the split, that is, appropriate information is contained within the agreement to allow them to split the super when a condition of release is met. The agreement is finalised with signatures etc and put to the trustee who will file a copy of it away and they will appropriately flag your husbands account to ensure it is not rolled over or paid out without X amount been split to you first.
The reason why I say this is because you can not simply provide any old agreement to the Trustee of a superannuation fund and expect them to pay X amount to you. I am hoping that this is not the case and that a formal agreement was put to the trustee years ago. Otherwise, yes, things can get very complicated.
If a formal agreement was put to the Trustee years ago, then theoretically you would have been receiving yearly statements from the superannuation fund providing to you very very general information about your former husband's super account. Kind of like how you would receive an annual statement from your superannuation fund (assuming you have one).
If a formal agreement was put to the Trustee previously, then when your former husband accesses his superannuation money, prior to the superannuation fund processing the benefit, they would get in contact with you to confirm your details and where you would like your share. You simply state where your share of the money is to be paid to.
Cheers
