Marital property and quitclaim deed

My spouse and I are in the process of getting divorced. We own a house and 10 acres of land (house is not located on the 10 acres - these are two distinctly separate properties). We are trying to determine the most efficient way to remove his name from the title/deed of the house and mine from the 10 acres (land is paid off; house is not). Our idea was to use a quitclaim deed to do this (one for each property). Can we do this? If not, what should we do? Also, are there any unexpected fees we should be aware of (other than the fee to draw up paperwork and have it filed)?

A quitclaim deed would suffice to retitle both the land and the house (you would need to record 2 separate quitclaim deeds). If you draft the deeds yourself, your only fee would be the recording fee at the register of deeds.

My husband retired from the military in Feb 2003 and designated me as his beneficiary for the Survivor Benefit Plan. (Pension is not an issue or involved)

We have separated everything and have no loose ends - our Separation Agreement is therefore simple and simply states that fact. (no children-no alimony, etc.) The one issue that it does specifically mention, is that husband will continue to maintain monthly payments to the Military Survivoir Benefit Plan and that any Divorce Decree will order him to provide a “deemed election” to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

My question is: Does there need to be an ED Order also?

DFAS provides that former-spouse coverage can be established if the member was required by a court order to provide former-spouse coverage, or the member agreed in writing to provide former-spouse coverage. If you have a written separation agreement, this should suffice, but to be sure I would incorporate this into your divorce decree so you also have a court order on the same. You could also separately file for ED and enter an order on ED that includes provisions you agreed to in your separation agreement.