Interstate Jurisdiction – Multi State Confusion in Child Custody Disputes
Child custody issues can be difficult for the parties involved at any time, but when the custody case crosses a state line, Dallas family law attorney Mark Nacol warns that many more conflicts and problems may arise.
Most states follow a uniform law regarding determination of appropriate state jurisdiction in custody matters known as the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), and related statutes laws which enforce or set procedures regarding proper jurisdiction such as the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act. Texas has adopted these statutes. The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act defines which state has or may maintain jurisdiction in a particular case and often mandates that other states recognize decisions handed down by the state determined to have jurisdiction.
The Act states, among other things, that a court may rule on custody issues if the Child:
- Has continually lived in that state for 6 months or longer
- Was living in the state before being wrongfully taken elsewhere by a parent seeking custody in another state
- Has an established relationship with people (family, relatives or teachers), ties, and attachments in the state
- Has been abandoned: or is safe in current state, but could be in danger of neglect or abuse in the home state
There are a number of core factors involved in determining which state is appropriate to initiate or maintain an existing suit. Usually, there are only two states involved, but it is possible to have more than two states involved in cases where there is a frequent moving of the parties and or the children. Generally, any state in which one of the parties and the child has continually resided for a year may establish venue to commence a lawsuit.
The Nacol Law Firm PC represents parents trying to enforce these laws; cases where there is a need to persuade courts to apply the specific, narrow exceptions to these general rules in order to have custody cases heard in the most convenient forum in which the most evidence is available; cases where the child’s home state or other basic questions need to be clarified, and cases where a parent has violated or has been falsely accused of violating these laws.
Divorce Checklist – Preparing your Finances for a Texas Divorce
Preparing for a Texas Divorce: Assets
Going through a Divorce is painful no matter the circumstances. Before you get into the Texas Divorce Process, you can reduce expense, stress, and conflict by making sure you are financially prepared. Advanced planning helps you in making sound decisions, start preparing for post-divorce life, and avoid many post-divorce pitfalls. Below is a list of items you need to gather before counseling with an attorney. Financial Documents are a must to show what your true assets and liabilities are in the marriage. This is a very general checklist. Disregard what is not pertinent to your situation.
Documents:
- Taxes (at least three years)
- Federal Tax Return
- State Tax Return
- W2
- Tax Liens
- All other IRS related documents
- Wills and Trusts with all attachments reflecting corpus and trust holdings
- Listing of all liabilities (including mortgages, credit card debt, personal loans, automobile loans, student loans, etc.):
- Name of entity, address, and telephone number
- Account number
- Amount owed
- Monthly payment
- Property securing payment (if any)
- Most current statements and account status of lenders (from last 3 years)
- A Listing of the address and location of all Real Property, (includes time-shares, vacation properties, commercial property, and lots):
- Deeds of Trust
- Notes including equity loans and second liens
- Legal Descriptions
- Mortgage Companies and Loan Servicers (Name, Address, Telephone Number, Account Number, Balance of Note, Monthly Payments) for all Primary and Secondary Mortgages
- Evidence of purchase gift or inheritance documents
- Current fair market value.
- Appraisals
- Motor Vehicles (including mobile homes, boats, trailers, motorcycles, recreational vehicles; exclude company owned):
- Year, Make, Model of all Motor Vehicles
- Value
- Name on title
- VIN Number
- Fair Market Value
- Name of creditor (if any), address and telephone
- Persons listed on debt
- Account number
- Balance of any loan and monthly payment
- Net Equity in vehicle
- Current statements from last 3 years
- Cash and accounts with financial institutions (checking, savings, commercial bank accounts, credit union funds, IRA’s, CD’s, 401K’s, pension plans and any other form of retirement accounts):
- Name of institution, address, and telephone number
- Amount in institution on date of marriage
- Amount in institution currently
- Names on Account and Account Number
- Social Security Documents
- Pension Documents
- Company loans and documents related to benefits
- At least 3 years statements on all pertinent accounts
- A listing of separate property (property owned prior to marriage, family heir looms, property gifted, inherited property):
- Records that trace your separate property. These assets will remain yours if properly documented
- Retirement Benefits:
- Exact name of plan
- Address of plan administrator
- Employer
- Employee
- Starting date of contributions
- Amount currently in account
- Balance of any loan against plan
- Documents (Date of start of plan is especially important for divorce settlement)
- Publicly traded stock, bonds, and other securities (include securities not in a brokerage, mutual fund, or retirement account):
- Number of shares
- Type of securities
- Certificate numbers
- In possession of
- Name of exchange which listed
- Pledged as collateral?
- Date acquired
- Tax basis
- Current market value
- If stock (date option granted, number of shares and value per share)
- Stock options plans and related documents
- Insurance and Annuities Policies and Inventory:
- Name of insurance company
- Policy Number
- Insured
- Type of insurance (whole/term/universal)
- Amount of monthly premiums
- Date of Issue
- Face amount
- Cash surrender value
- Current surrender value
- Designated beneficiary
- Other policies and amendments
- Closely held business interests:
- Name of business
- Address
- Type of business
- % Of ownership
- Number of shares owned if applicable
- Value of shares
- Balance of accounts receivables
- Cash flow reports
- Balance of liabilities
- List of company assets
- Hobbies or side businesses that generate income
- Mineral Interests (include any property in which you own the mineral estate, separate and apart from the surface estate, such as oil and gas leases; also include royalty interests, work interests, and producing and non-producing oil and gas wells:
- Name of mineral interest
- Type of interest
- County of location
- Legal description
- Name of producer/operator
- Current market value
- needs leases or production documents related to the asset
- Money owed by spouse (including any expected federal or state income tax refund but not including receivables connected with any business)
- Household furniture, furnishings, and Fixtures
- photos
- purchase documents
- Electronics and computers including software and hard drives
- Antiques, artwork, and collectibles (including works of art, paintings, tapestry, rugs, crystal, furniture, quilts) All major collections always need to be appraised! (Cars, Guns, Jewelry, Coins & Stamps, Action Figures, and Books)
- Miscellaneous sporting goods and firearms
- Jewelry including appraisals
- Animals and livestock
- Farming equipment
- Club Memberships
- Safe deposit box items
- Burial plots including documents of ownership
- Items in any storage facility
- Travel Awards Benefits (including frequent flyer miles)
You may decide to divorce or not, but it is very important to have all financial information before you enter into a Texas Divorce! This is a very general Divorce Financial Asset Checklist. Disregard what is not pertinent to your situation.
After reviewing this list, you may also decide to go and review the Family Information Form. This form is basic information about you and your spouse. By the time you are looking at this, you will realize that you may not really know your spouse’s information. You will need to know the correct information before filing for divorce in Texas.
These two informational lists will prepare you with the basic financial information that any divorce attorney will need to get your divorce started.
You can click on these links to download and print our Texas Divorce Financial Checklist and Family Information Form for a Texas Divorce.
Nacol Law Firm P.C.
Dallas Fathers Rights Attorneys
Call (972) 690-3333
Out of State Child Relocation and the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA)
In today’s hectic pace, moving to another state for business, family demands, or pleasure is a very common occurrence. But what about the family that is separated by divorce or separation and share custody of their children? What happens to this family situation when Mom or Dad decides to take another job or wants to move to another state and take the children to or from the other? A Child Custody Relocation Case?
Sadly this happens frequently. Most Texas attorneys employ a geographic restriction in divorce decrees for couples who have children. These restrictions dictate that the Child and Custodial Parent must live within a school district, County of Domicile, or consecutive contingent counties near the non-custodial parent. But what happens if this restriction clause is not contained in the divorce decree or if Dad/Mom were never married?
Forty Nine States, including Texas have adopted the UNIFORM CHILD CUSTODY JURISDICTION AND ENFORCEMENT ACT (UCCJEA) drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1997. The UCCJEA is a very helpful law since all states but one participate in the determination of the ”HOME STATE” and which jurisdiction will handle the family case. UCCJEA also helps to protect non-custodial Parents fighting for child custody out of state when their children have been moved to another state or over 100 miles away from them.
How does The State of Texas treat an initial Child Custody determination?
Texas Family Code 152.201 of the UCCJEA states, among other things, that a court may consider custody issues if the Child:
*Has continually lived in the state for 6 months or longer and Texas was the home state of the child within six months before the commencement of the legal proceeding.
*Was living in the state before being wrongfully abducted elsewhere by a parent seeking custody in another state. One parent continues to live in Texas.
*Has an established over significant time relationships with people (family, relatives or teachers), ties, and attachments in the state
*Has been abandoned in an emergency: or is safe in the current state, but could be in danger of neglect or abuse in the home state
Relocation is a child custody situation which will turn on the individual facts of the specific case, so that each case is tried on its own merits.
Most child custody relocation cases tried in Texas follow a predictable course:
- Allowing or not allowing the move.
- Order of psychological evaluations or social studies of family members
- Modification of custody and adjusting of child’s time spent with parents
- Adjusting child support
- Order of mediation to settle dispute
- Allocating transportation costs
- Order opposing parties to provide all information on child’s addresses and telephone number.
There is another important cause of action in Texas where the court will “take “EMERGENCY JURISDICTION’ over a case even though another state has the original jurisdiction. If the opposing party can prove that a legitimate emergency exists and Texas needs to assume the jurisdiction. These emergency situations could be abuse of the child, abandonment or cause neglect of the child, or any action that would put the child in immediate harm’s way.
The Nacol Law Firm P.C. @ www.nacollawfirm.com is committed to helping parents have the right to have frequent and continuing contact with their child at all times and encourage parents to co-share in the rights and duties of raising a stable, loving child. Many times, because of parental alienation or other personal factors, a child will be taken away from the non-custodial parent and this can cause some serious mental and behavior problems for the child which could follow her/him into a lifetime adult situation.
Sometimes you can settle, SOMETIMES YOU FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT! We can help!
Getting a Divorce? Should I Move Out of the Marital Home?
This is a complicated question to answer depending upon the facts of each case. If you have experienced domestic violence you need to immediately do whatever is necessary to secure you and your child’s safety. Many times a victim will go to court for a protective order and ask the judge to move the abusive or violent spouse out. In this situation contact an experienced family law attorney now!
In most cases, absent of violence or risk of abuse, we would not suggest that a spouse move out of the marital residence.
Why is this? One reason is once you have vacated the residence it may be very difficult to get back in! You have no legal obligation to leave the residence if your name is on the lease or mortgage personally and exclusivity.
Our suggestion to a client might be, to remain in the residence since the person who vacates may still have financial obligations and expenses of the family residence, while paying all expenses on a new residence for themselves. Double expenses are not a desirable result during the divorce process.
The higher wage earning spouse who moves out of the marital home must expect to continue to pay most of the household expenses, including the insurance and mortgage! What about the personal property and furnishings in the residence?
If an agreement has not been made between the divorcing couple, the moving spouse will generally only be able to leave with personal belongings (clothing & jewelry) until a court rules fairly as to temporary possession.
Secure a court order ASAP to equalize property and household expenses.
A Father’s Uphill Battle – I Love My Children
A regrettable truth in family law often finds one parent unilaterally removing a child from the other parent while dissolving a marriage without any grounds or evidence of wrongdoing. Not surprisingly, disturbing numbers of children are routinely separated from loving, responsible parents for reasons that have nothing to do with their wishes, safety, health, or welfare and many times have to do with a lack of proper legal counsel.
In 50% of the marriages that end in divorce, 80% of these are over the objection of one spouse (close to 100% when children are involved). I am sure you have heard about “custody battles,” but you probably do not know that many start out with one parent taking a child from the other and refusing visitation until a court orders possession sometimes months down the line. You have heard about the witch hunt for “deadbeat dads,” but did you know that many of these fathers are well educated men who have lost their jobs due to a downtrodden economy and still love their children and want to play a leading role in their lives and upbringing. You have heard the hysteria over “child abuse,” but did you know that many accusations against fathers are shown to be false and used by one parent as a weapon to alienate the children from the other parent.
David Popenoe in his book “Life Without Father” tells us that negative consequences of fatherlessness are all around us. Evidence indicating damage to children growing up in fatherless homes has accumulated in near tidal-wave proportions. Fatherless children experience significantly more physical, emotional, and behavioral problems than do children growing up in intact families.
Children from fatherless homes are:
- 5 times more likely to commit suicide
- 32 times more likely to run away
- 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
- 14 times more likely to commit rape
- 9 times more likely to drop out of high school
- 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances
- 9 times more likely to end up in a state-operated institution
- 20 times more likely to end up in prison.
(Information from Mark Hall, Father’s Manifesto).
In “My Rewar, My Punishment…My Son, Sons of Divorce,” Steven Manchester describes the situation many dads are dealing with when exercising visitation:
“I’d take my son for our court-ordered visits, only to drop him off two hours later, so another man could bounce him off his lap. Ironically, each new boyfriend was given all the time he wanted with my son. At first, it killed me, but I decided, “Whatever’s best for my boy. His happiness must come first!” Though it stung terribly, that attitude sustained me all the way to Christmas.
I waited in my old driveway for 4 excruciating hours, while three inches of snow muffled the screams from the cab of my truck. When they finally pulled in, my ex-wife snickered, “I must have lost track of time?” and handed over my son. I was livid! My boy was dead tired and half-asleep. And the EX…well…she just grinned, confident that there was nothing I could do about it. It took everything I had left to conceal my tears. I didn’t plan to give her anything for Christmas and was doing my best to stick to the plan.”
It is a sad scenario.
In divorce court, many fathers are left feeling that everything they have done, years of hard work, years of tender love, years of unstinting devotion to their family and children count as nothing.
In the 1960’s women fought hard to get laws passed to protect them against family violence, stalking and sexual harassment. The shame is that women of the 1990’s now use these same needed and appropriate laws wrongfully to their advantage and feel justified in punishing their spouse for wrongs they feel have been done to them by misusing the legal system; and in the process erase fathers from the lives of their children!
The facts are that many times the courtroom becomes a legal battleground. Inadequate counsel or absence of counsel can result in decisions that negatively affect children and the family for years to come.
NACOL LAW FIRM P.C.
8144 Walnut Hill Lane
Suite 1190
Dallas, Texas 75231
972-690-3333
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Attorney Mark A. Nacol is board certified in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization