§ 19-6-26.Jurisdiction

Child support often crosses county and state lines, so this section answers a threshold question: which court may act. It borrows the federal concept of “continuing, exclusive jurisdiction” from the Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act, 28 U.S.C. Section 1738B, and defines terms such as “child support order,” “foreign child support order” (an order from another state), and “modification.” A “state” includes the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. territories and possessions, and Indian Country.

To enter a first order, a Georgia court needs subject matter and personal jurisdiction, and no court of competent jurisdiction may have already entered a support order for the same children. A Georgia court may modify its own order if the children or any party lives in Georgia. It may modify another state’s order if it has subject matter and personal jurisdiction over the nonmoving party and the issuing state’s court no longer has continuing, exclusive jurisdiction under the federal act. A third paragraph refers to the parties filing a written consent allowing the Georgia court to assume continuing, exclusive jurisdiction; the text joins the first two paragraphs with “and” but doesn’t say whether the consent is a further requirement or an alternative. The section is to be read to carry out the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act in Article 3 of Chapter 11 of this title, which has its own detailed rules on modifying out-of-state orders.

Enforcement is broader. A support order entered by or registered with a Georgia court may be enforced, by contempt or otherwise, in any of three places: the court that issued it; the court in the county where the person owing support may be found or is employed; and, for in rem proceedings only, the court in the county where property subject to seizure, sale or foreclosure may be found. Section 19-6-15.1 also requires support cases for dependent adult children to follow this section.