Quoted:


Isn't a 401K an asset belonging to the company?

Quoted:
Cash it out, call the adminstrator and tell  them you want to cash out and to NOT, I REPEAT NOT take any Taxes out. You have 90 days to roll your money into a retirement account before taxes are due. If they will not release your money still contact a lawyer and have them send a nasty note may cost you a $100 or less or call those federal outfit listed by other posters. KY has an outfit called Ominbus at state level maybe your state does too that may also help. It''s is your money and fight like hell to keep it. If a company is hinky about releaseing your retirement money they are up to something shady with it and the squeaky wheel gets the grease so to speak.

Quoted:


"your employer has no control over your 401k"

A: False. The company owner is likely the "plan administrator". Employer does not have custody of the funds, but must sign-off on rollovers/distributions. They may simply not be "getting around to it" yet.



Parties involved:

You

Employer (plan sponsor and plan administrator)

3rd-party Administrator (TPA) (a company that does the bookkeeping)

Custodian (the company that holds the funds and sends you statements)



IMPORTANT NOTE: When transfering/rolling qualified plans the receiving firm is worthless. They have no pull whatsoever. EVERYTHING happens at the origination end. Hounding the receiving firm will get you nowhere and just piss you and them off. Apply all pressure to the TPA, employer, and plan-custodian in that order.



Possible causes:

1) If you terminated less than 30 days ago there are no red flags yet. 401k stuff is slow. 3rd-party admin may still be in the process of calculating your vesting percentage for company match. They can't process a rollover request until they calculate how much you get. If you worked there less than 6 years you probably won't get 100% of your company match.

2) Plan admin (boss) stalling on signing off on the rollover due to being lazy, procrastinator, busy, a-hole.

3) Payroll dept may not have updated your employment status with the TPA/Custodian yet. This usually takes at least one full payroll cycle in my experience.

4) Employer is delinquent paying 401k administration fees or properly funding the 401k in a timely manner



Possible remedies:

1) If you've waited less then a month take a chill pill

2) If you submitted your paperwork more than 6 weeks ago it's time to start making calls unless your summary plan description says something antiquated like "rollover distributions will be processed twice annually on the 1st of January and 1st of July" in which case that's the time-line.

- Call the Third Party Administrator (TPA) if they are separate from the custodian

- Call the custodian if they are acting as TPA

- Call your plan administrator (not HR, not payroll, the actual person who signed plan documents as administrator)



3) If you get nowhere inform the TPA and plan admin that you have no choice but to contact the Department of Labor ERISA division and lodge a complaint. For them to get a visit from an ERISA inspector is like you getting a visit from the IRS. They'll definitely want to avoid that.

Quoted:
The last time I left a company, the HR manager told me I had 90 days to roll over my company 401K into a new account, or they (the 401K administrators) would simply cut a check to me.  This was a "warning" of sorts because if I did not provide them with roll over info, I'd be on the hook for the taxes and penalties as they were basically going to cash me out.  This is directly contrary to the OP's situation.  Something doesn't smell right here.

Quoted:
cash it out and transfer the funds?

Quoted:
Most of the time its just an oversight by the HR folks and will eventually get fixed.

I've only seen this once where it didn't turn out to be an oversight.

The money was all gone, the 401K trustee  fucked up bad and killed himself when his embezzlement was discovered, and the employee never got any of that cash even after she sued.