Divorce can affect BAH in a variety of ways. BAH-DIFF is the amount of housing allowance for a service member who is living in single-type government quarters but is authorized a BAH solely by reason of the member's payment of child support. There are unique considerations for members of the military who are going through divorce. The factors that affect BAH can be quite complex. Sometimes, individuals rely on limited personal experience or newspaper and magazine articles to make that judgment.
BAH is designed to address the cost of housing in each area. CONUS COLA is based on grade and dependency status with or without , and specifically considers the availability of commissary, exchange, and hospital facilities, because a member without this infrastructure tends to have a higher cost of living. How do you geographically define a locality?
For the purpose of defining the term, "locality," used as the basis for calculating local housing costs, the uniformed services have concurred in aggregating individual zip codes into groups called Military Housing Areas MHAs. A MHA includes rental markets surrounding a duty station or a metropolitan area.
The principal goal of defining an MHA around a duty station is that members ought to receive a BAH sufficient to permit the typical member to live a reasonable distance from his or her duty station.
Of course, each member is free to choose a neighborhood that suits the individual's needs, e. Operationally, an MHA is defined as a collection of zip codes, and its boundaries generally follow county lines. There are about geographic MHAs in the United States, named for the installation or the nearest city e. Who actually collects your data for you? Robert D. Niehaus, Inc. Established in , RDN is a professional economic and public policy consulting firm located in Santa Barbara, California.
The firm specializes in applied analysis of military housing, water resources, environmental resources, industry economics, and community socioeconomic issues. RDN possesses many years of experience with DoD military housing projects and housing market research.
All inquiries should be directed, via your chain of command, to the Compensation Director of your Service. What method do you use to calculate BAH in places without directly-collected cost data?
BAH is defined for every location in the United States, even though some locations may have no military population. This is because BAH rates must be available should a member ever establish eligibility in that location. It is not cost effective to collect rental data for all such locations.
To handle this situation, these areas are combined with other areas of similar cost for which RDN cost data is available.
Pooling the data in this manner gives us sufficient data necessary to attain statistically reliable housing costs and BAH rates. There are 39 separate CCGs, each with similar housing cost. Each group includes a statistically sufficient quantity of cost data to calculate average housing costs by size and type of dwelling for that group of counties.
Although roughly half the U. My spouse and I are both Service members and we have two children. Why couldn't we each claim one child and collect full with-dependent BAH? The rules reflect the law and the policy of the Services. What is BAH-Diff? BAH-DIFF is the housing allowance amount for a member who is assigned to single-type quarters and who is authorized a BAH solely by reason of the member's payment of child support. I am divorced with children, what is my BAH allowance?
If you have legal and physical custody of your children, then you are authorized BAH at the with-dependent rate if not assigned adequate family-type Gov't quarters.
May both members receive BAH with dependents? If resolution is not happening at that level, then contact the local JAG office, then possibly the inspector general. Support provided outside of a court order can not be made through garnishment - it is up to the service member to set up an allotment or provide the support directly. The command can, however, encourage the service member to provide such support and use remedies such as officer fitreps, enlisted evals, and non-judicial and judicial punishments as appropriate.
Also, it is possible for DFAS to recoup BAH that has been paid to the service member and has not been appropriately used for support of family. It doesn't happen often, but it is possible. All these guidelines are designed to encourage the service member and the spouse to seek permanent court or administrative judgments on the subject of support.
The military services does not intend these guidelines to be used in place of appropriate civil judgments, but rather to bridge the time between a separation and legal action. It is in both parties' best interest to come to an outside agreement or pursue the issue through the civil courts or administrative departments. I'm starting with the Air Force for two reasons: it comes first in the alphabet, and it has the shortest and least clear guidelines.
Air Force Instruction , Personal Financial Responsibility states that commanders are to "Advise members of the Air Force policy that they are expected to provide adequate financial support to family members and the procedures which the family member may implement to obtain involuntary collection of support through garnishment or statutory allotments.
Members will also comply with the financial support provisions of a court order or written support agreement. The Air Force does not specify suggested amounts of support. If a commanding officer receives a complaint of non-support, they are supposed to require the service member to prove that they are supporting their family.
The commanding officer is not permitted to define what level of support is considered adequate. In the Army, if the spouses cannot abide living together, the Staff Judge Advocate SJA makes the determination who remains in housing, the member or the spouse, until such time that a decree of dissolution of marriage has entered:. If reunification is not possible, the military spouse remains a spouse until the marriage is legally dissolved.
Where a Soldier is married to a service member, the senior Soldier is considered the sponsor. In cases where a sponsor and spouse are unwilling, or otherwise unable, to cohabitate due to marital discord, the garrison commander, in consultation with the sponsor and the spouse and with the Staff Judge Advocate SJA , will make a determination as to who, if either party of the marriage, will remain in housing.
Such determination should be made in consideration of the involvement of other dependent Family members of the marriage. Can a former military spouse live in base housing after divorce? Upon a decree of divorce entering, the former spouse is no longer a military dependent, and therefore not eligible to live in government housing.
The specific requirements vary by branch of service, but the former spouse will typically have 30 days to depart the military housing:. Is a civilian spouse married to a service member entitled to spousal support while living in government housing?
Generally yes, but the value of the housing will usually count as a credit against the spousal support obligation.
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