Expert: Cynthia Bedell - 12/14/2008

Question
I just got married to a service member. We're both in the Army. We got married before I went TDY en route to another duty station. We had to go through our 1st Sgt for any finance issues so when we tried to get BAH so we could start setting up our household we got bad information. We did not have the money for first and last month plus deposit in California and we were denied both the initial month's BAH in advance that we would have gotten with a civilian spouse and any form of advance because the sgt said the money would be coming and would be backdated to our date of marriage or at least the date we first submitted the paperwork, just like civilian couples. Well, by the time we were told the lease had to be signed and paid for before they would pay the BAH I had outproccessed. And it's not getting backdated to anything. So my husband is getting his California BAH because he is still there but I'm told that even though we had submitted the paperwork before I left and I'm also responsible for the lease that I'm only eligible for in-transit BAH which is $500 less than the California BAH because we didn't correct it until I left. I don't understand why we're being punished for someone else's mistake when we were denied access to the people with answers and we are really struggling right now with me on TDY because my BAH hasn't even started yet. We were married in September, submitted the paperwork, I left in October and here in mid December I haven't gotten any BAH money. What do I do? What were we actually eligible for? And is there any way to get finance to help us with something that wasn't our fault?

Answer
Dear Sarah --

Unfortunately you are operating under a misconception.  Neither you nor your spouse will get BAH at the with dependent rate because you are both in the military.  

You are each authorized the unmarried BAH rate of the location of your duty station.  

If your marriage certificate shows you got married before you received notice that your permanent change of station orders were coming, then you should get BAH for California for the period of time between when you married, and when you signed out of your unit.  

Unfortunately, if you got married after the request for orders was issued, but before your orders were published, you will not get back dated BAH.  This is because you will be considered unmarried by the military, if you marry after you have received notice of PCS.  You are not authorized dislocation allowance under these circumstances.  

From the timing you provided me, I believe that you received your PCS orders, got married, applied for BAH, PCSed, and signed into your TDY enroute location, in that order.  PCS orders are rarely issued less than 90 days from departure date, so I think you knew about your impending PCS when you got married.  

However, you should still take all your paperwork to finance, and have them audit your account to see if you are owed any BAH payments.  One of you may also visit Army Emergency Relief to take out a low interest loan to help pay for the expenses you have right now.  Finally, your husband could request a change to the lease, and take on a room mate to help with expenses while you are gone.

You should both apply for joint domicile immediately, so that when your husband PCSes, the Army will be compelled to try and station him at a base near your base.  Once he has been on station for 24 months, he can apply for a PCS transfer to be near you.

Please write back, if you have more questions, or other issues arise.  Good luck to you both.  Thank you for your service.