COMMENT

Registration of an order in a tribunal of the responding state is the first step to enforce a support order from another state or foreign country. If a prior support order has been validly issued by a tribunal with continuing, exclusive jurisdiction, see Section 205, such an order is to be prospectively enforced against the obligor in the absence of narrow, strictly defined fact situations in which an existing order may be modified. See Sections 609 through 614. Until and unless that order is modified, however, it remains an order of the issuing tribunal and is fully enforceable in the responding state.

Although registration that is not accompanied by a request for the affirmative relief of enforcement is not prohibited, the act does not contemplate registration as serving a purpose in itself. In that regard, registration is a process, and the failure to register does not deprive an otherwise appropriate forum of subject matter jurisdiction. Note that either or both a state support order or a state income-withholding order may be registered. However, although a foreign support order also may be registered, this section does not contemplate recognition of a foreign income-withholding order.

Related to Convention: art. 23. Procedure on an application for recognition and enforcement; art. 26. Procedure on an application for recognition.