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An Overview of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act

Since 1969 the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act was enacted in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. In 1980 the federal government enacted the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act4, to address interstate custody problems that continued to exist after the adoption of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. The Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act mandates that state authorities give full faith and credit to other States’ custody determinations, so long as those determinations were made in conformity with the provisions of the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act. The Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act provisions regarding bases for jurisdiction, restrictions on modifications, preclusion of simultaneous proceedings, and notice requirements are similar to those in the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. However, there are some significant differences. For example, under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act there are four interchangeable bases of initial jurisdiction. In contrast, the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, prioritizes the "home state" jurisdiction by requiring that full faith and credit cannot be given to a State that exercises initial jurisdiction as a "significant connection State" when there is a "home State." In addition the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act authorizes continuing exclusive jurisdiction in the decree State so long as one parent or the child remains in that jurisdiction. The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act did not directly address the issue.

The purpose of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act is to revise the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act to bring the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act into compliance with the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act and other federal statutes such as the Violence Against Women Act,5 as well as to make those changes to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act which are necessary as a consequence of inconsistent court int... Read More »

Moscow apt. privatization

KARINA KRASNOVA, being duly sworn, deposes and says:

1. I am an attorney duly licensed to practice law in the Russian Federation. My registration number is 78/857. My specialty is a matrimonial and family law.

2. I have been licensed by the Appellate Division, 2nd Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York as a legal consultant from Russia pursuant to Section 53(6) of the Judiciary Law of the State of New York, as limited by Part 521 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals. I am often called to testify in the United States courts as an expert on Russian laws. Attached hereto as "Exhibit 1" is the document indicating same. Read More »

U.S.-Russian Couple Fight for Kids in Court

A young Russian emigre couple from Boston, Natalya and Igor Sidorin, will be fighting over custody of their two sons in a Moscow courtroom on Friday. The boys are living with Igor here, where he says they are getting better medical care. Natalya has a custody order from a Massachusetts court, but it is not recognized under Russian law.
The case, which Moscow's ombudsman for children's rights calls a "collision of two legal systems," illustrates a common but painful problem in custody disputes between Russian and foreign spouses as well as emigre couples like the Sidorins.
Unless Russia joins 74 other countries in an international agreement on custody rights, children will remain unprotected against kidnapping by a parent to Russia -- which Natalya claims Igor committed -- or out of Russia, which Igor says he fears Natalya will do.
Parental abduction is not a criminal offense in Russia.
Igor and Natalya met and married while studying in California in the mid-1990s. They and their
American-born sons, Sasha, 6, and Dima, 4, have dual citizenship.
The marriage was deteriorating when the couple planned separate vacations last June. They agreed that Igor would have the boys for a month in Moscow, where his family lives. After that, Natalya would take them to visit her family in Petrozavodsk, in the northwestern Karelia region.
Igor says the boys have chronic health problems that American doctors dismissed as normal. Natalya refused to discuss treatment in Russia, he says, so he took matters into his own hands. Igor says American medicine is very good for major emergencies but not for smaller but persistent problems.
Natalya says the boys were healthy and Igor just wanted to take them away from her. She says he
disappeared with the children for several weeks last summer. During that time she filed for divorce in Boston and got an uncontested custody order, according to Natalya's lawyer, Yelena Zinger.
When Russian authorities refused to act on it, Natalya moved t... Read More »

IS TAX REFORM ON THE HORIZON?

TO THE TAX LAW AN ODE:
A LABYRINTH SEWED INTO A ROBE
OF SYMBOLS, THIS CODE
THAT TORTURES OUR BRAINS,
WHILST OUR POCKETS IT DRAINS -
REFORM IT, NAY, KILL IT I SAY!
Who hasn’t felt that sentiment when facing an unexpected tax liability in April? Congress continues to waltz with the debt ceiling as the band begins to play: “It’s the last dance, we’ve come to the last dance… the orchestra’s yawning…” (Song: “The Last Dance” by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, featured on Frank Sinatra concept album “Come Dance with Me,” (Capitol Records). We’ve all grown weary of congress’ dysfunction. Whatever the outcome of this political Greek Tragedy, however, everyone agrees that the Internal Revenue Code is in need of serious repair.

REVENUE RELATIONSHIP TO DEFICIT
Tax revenue is one side of the deficit coin, the other side is spending. Which is heads and which is tails is irrelevant. Some like to say that the deficit is due to spending more than revenues. But, a deficit also will result from collecting less revenue than is spent. In fact, our present deficit and debt are attributable as much to declining revenue as to increases in spending. FactCheck.org reports (July 17, 2011) that spending in 2009 was 25% of GDP, the highest since 1945. Revenue was 14.9% of GDP, the lowest since 1950 when it was 14.4% of GDP. In 1950, the US population was 151.6 million; today it is about 318 million. Thus, increased spending is at least to some extent due to more services being needed for more people; declining tax revenue stems largely from tax policy decisions although the sluggish economy and changes in cultural attitudes towards voluntary compliance may also contribute. TV personality Arthur Godfrey (41St on Miami Beach bears his name) once quipped, “Heck, I don’t mind paying taxes, it’s patriotic; but I’d feel just as patriotic at half the cost.”
Federal revenues for fiscal year 2010 were $2.2 trillion generated mostly (80%) from ... Read More »

Breakthrough in State

Last month's passage by the New York Legislature and signing into law by Governor Cuomo of the Marriage Equality Act ("the Act"), which became effective on July 24, 2011, is the biggest breakthrough in this State. This law now formally recognizes otherwise-valid marriages without regard to whether the parties to the marriage are of the same or different sex. Under Section 2 of the Act, the marriages of same-sex and different-sex couples must be treated equally in all respects. The law does not preserve any legal distinction between same-sex couples and different-sex couples with respect to marriage!

Besides simply allowing same-sex couples to marry, the impact of the Act on real estate and bankruptcy laws is huge:

1. Under New York law, married couples are allowed to own real property as tenants by the entirety. Real property owned as tenants by the entirety receives extra protection from creditors. A debtor spouse may sell her interest in a tenancy by the entirety under execution upon a judgment against her and the purchaser at such sale will become a tenant in common with the debtor's spouse subject to her right of survivorship and is entitled to share in the rents and profits, but not the occupancy of the house. See, In re Weiss, 4 B.R. 327, 330 (S.D.N.Y. 1980).

So, a creditor can execute a judgment against a debtor spouse's interest in real property, and collect half of the rent from that property, but cannot foreclose on occupy that property.

Thus, same-sex couples who had acquired property as tenants in common could convey the property to each other as tenants by the entirety after their marriage.

2. Under federal bankruptcy law and the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules and Debtor and Creditor Law, married debtors can file a joint bankruptcy petition.

Section 302(a) of the Bankruptcy Code provides that "[a} joint case under a chapter of this title is commenced by the filing with the bankruptcy court of a single petition under suc... Read More »