(0:00 – 0:21)
Hello everyone and welcome to Family Law Matters. I’m Dr. Michael Mantell and I’m always privileged to be joining Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel, who is the owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group. Bonnie, hello, how are you today? Hi Michael, I’m good and you? Good.
(0:22 – 3:15)
Bonnie, interesting question that’s come up actually this past week. A couple were married in Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio and one of the couple decided to move to San Diego a while ago. They have legal divorce orders back in Ohio and now the one who’s living here in San Diego is concerned that the former partner living in Ohio is not following orders.
What can they do? How does it work cross-country? Well, if they have a valid order from another state, we do have reciprocity, so all you have to do is domesticate the order here, which means filing to have it registered here, which we can do for you, and then you file a motion to enforce and the judge here, once it’s been registered, recognizes it as a valid order and then will enforce it. And you know, there’s a hearing, there may be penalties or interest that the other person faces for not following a court order regardless of where you reside. And is that across every state or are there states where that they do not have that kind of reciprocity here in California? No, they’re across the United States.
I mean, we are still called the United States, so that kind of goes there. Okay, so you can deal with people who have been divorced in other states, one member moves to California and is a concern that the other person back there is still not following the orders properly. Now understand, as long as you have residency in California, you can domesticate the order here.
You can’t just come here, file a motion, go back. You know, if you’ve been living here and you’ve become a resident, then you have the right to have that order addressed here. Are there any particular areas that were in which this does not apply, like sharing child visitation or custody or spousal arrangements, anything like that at all where there’s, it just doesn’t apply? That’s a little bit more tricky.
You can always domesticate the whole order here. And if you are a parent wishing to exercise visitation in your home state, you will then be able to either file a motion here or the, and then unfortunately the other jurisdiction may get involved because they have continuing jurisdiction and it may be decided where this fight should happen. So for things like custody and visitation, you may still be required to address those issues there if the other parent and the child reside there, it always follows where the child’s main home is.
(3:15 – 4:10)
But for financial issues, as long as the other person is, you know, of age, then you can domesticate that order here. And I know Promise Family Law Group is always growing and adding new attorneys and, you know, other staff, professional staff as well. If someone does have to have a hearing in another state, does that mean that you send an attorney to that state? No, we’re only licensed to practice in California.
They would need to engage an attorney in that other state. I see. And if people have questions about this, it seems like a somewhat of a complicated issue.
If people have questions, how can they be in touch with you? You can reach us at 619-574-8000. And we offer a free 30 minute phone consultation to see how we can help you. Or you can reach us online at www.PrimusFamilyLaw.com.