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Entering an Out of State CO - Foreign Judgment

still learning's picture
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I am in process of pursuing entering a foreign judgment. The original CO was entered in a state neither exH or I live in now so I am seeking to enter it either in his state or mine.  We both live in diff states and exH is being flaky about paying support.  DS is 16, has Autism/learning disability and will be in transitional high school until he's 21. DS19 is in college and will be attending until 21 or 22.  

CS has never been modified since 12ish years ago and exH does not exercise his custody or visitation with ds16.  I am seeking to have a CS review but in order to do that the CO has to be enforced and right now it's not. The original state said it would no longer enforce since neither of us live there.  

The original CO states that CS is elgible to be paid for Children attending school up to age 23.  The state I live in allows cs for Child attending school up to 21 and exH's state only to age 19.  

Does anyone have experience with foreign CO's.  Did the new state enforce the original CO even if the CS guidelines in the state were different?  I would hate to go through all this trouble just to have ds19 immediately cut off.  

Thanks for any helpful information Smile

Rags's picture

Who do the kids live with? 

My understanding, based on our experience, is that as long as either parent lives in the jurisdiction where the CO was issued that jurisdiction will retain authority over the CO..... unless.... the kid does not live in that jurisdiction and the resident county where the kids live full time has a transtion period that the kid must be resident before venue can be changed.

Our CO was issued in OR.  We never lived there.  My wife had left for college out of state under the original CO where she was named full legal and physical custody parent.  The BioDad had no defined visitaiton and a small CS order he had to pay.

A few months after we married we moved to TX.  After SS had been resident in TX for 6mos we could have initiated change of venue to TX.   We chose to not do that.  First, if we had changed venue to TX the BioDad's CS would have gone up by about 900%.  That was big leverage to hold onto for future negitiation.  We did not need the money and it would have been a severe strain on BioDad.  Second, visitation would have gone up significantly and we did no want to over expose SS to the toxic manipulations of his SpermClan.

So we kept change of venue as a stick to use when needed to get them back into line and compliance with the OR CO.

If the kids live full time with you and only visit BioDad, there is no motivator to change venue to BioDad's state of residence.  You can either leave it place where it is and push that state to enforce the CS judgement, or move to your current state. 

There is no compelling reason to change IMHO.  Most CS hearings can be done via telephone.  You can call the DA in the current state to push for collection.

I suggest that you review the supplemental state and county rules for all three jurisdictions to determine in detail what the options and benefits are to each location. Pick the one that makes the most sense in accomplishing what your goal is.

Good luck.

Dontfeedthetrolls's picture

OP states they won't do a review because the CO isn't being enforced and the state won't enforce it since neither parent is in their jurisdiction. I would think her best bet would be to transfer the order to her state where she and the children live so that the order will be enforced and child support can be reassessed and enforced.

justmakingthebest's picture

I agree with Rags. It would be transfered to the state that the children are living in. As long as you have residency there for 6 months it shouldn't be an issue. Just go to the court house and ask for the forms. Bring a copy of your current order.

still learning's picture

Thanks for all the suggestions. I've done many hours of online searching and have gotten various answers. I have a consult with a lawyer tomorrow. I'll update then.  

still learning's picture

We're going to have the judgment entered in the state I'm residing in and then move to modify since exH has not exercised his 50/50 custody in years.  After that we'll move forward with the next steps of getting a CS review.  

I hate spending the money on this but it will be 4 more years of dealing with this issue so I want it to be straightforward and have cs enforced by the state rather than me having to remind him and have it be a fight every month.  

still learning's picture

Does anyone know if a CAS, Child Attending School includes Community Transition School for special needs?  It is an extention of the public school system and includes life skills, community activities, vocational training, etc.  The kidults attend from 18-21.