Practice Area · The Children
Interstate & international custody.
Families with two homes, a relocation in progress, or a parent abroad face a question that comes before custody itself: which state’s courts decide? The UCCJEA answers it — and the answer is frequently won or lost on timing.
The Home-State Rule
Six months decides the forum.
Colorado’s UCCJEA, C.R.S. § 14-13-101 and following, gives jurisdictional priority to the child’s home state: where the child lived with a parent for at least six consecutive months (182 days) before the case began, counting temporary absences. Crucially, a left-behind parent preserves the prior state’s home-state status for six months after a move — a relocating parent cannot manufacture jurisdiction by arriving somewhere new and filing. For mobile families, the calendar is strategy: where the six-month clock stands on filing day often matters more than any argument made afterward.
Once Decided, It Stays Decided
Exclusive continuing jurisdiction.
The state that enters the initial custody determination keeps exclusive jurisdiction to modify it while a parent or the child still lives there with a significant connection and substantial evidence in-state. Another state cannot modify the order merely because the child now spends more time there; the issuing court generally must first determine it has lost jurisdiction or that another forum is more convenient. Colorado courts have voided orders entered after jurisdiction was relinquished carelessly — the doctrine is unforgiving of shortcuts, in both directions.
Emergencies & Misconduct
Narrow doors, sharp edges.
A Colorado court may take temporary emergency jurisdiction over a child present here who has been abandoned or needs protection from mistreatment or abuse — but the jurisdiction is temporary by design: the court must confer with the child’s home state and set deadlines, and emergency orders ripen into permanent ones only in defined circumstances. The statute also polices self-help: a parent who wrongfully removes or retains a child to create jurisdiction faces mandatory declination and fee awards. The inconvenient-forum factors — domestic violence and which court can best protect the parties, distance, finances, where the evidence lives — give courts a structured way to place the case where it belongs.
Enforcement & International Cases
Out-of-state and foreign orders in Colorado courts.
Colorado registers and enforces conforming custody orders from other states through an expedited process — a hearing on the next judicial day after service in enforcement proceedings, warrants for a child’s physical custody where serious harm or removal from the state is imminent, and prevailing-party fees. Foreign-country orders are enforced when rendered in substantial conformity with UCCJEA standards, and abduction-prevention measures — passport surrender, travel bonds — are available on a credible risk of abduction. For international families, this framework runs alongside the Hague Convention, and the interplay is precisely where experienced sequencing pays.
The rest of this chapter.
Parental responsibilities and parenting time under Colorado's best-interests standard, support that reflects real income, and the hard cases: relocation and custody across state lines.
- Parental Responsibilitiesbest interests, decided on credibility→
- Parenting Timeschedules engineered for real life→
- Child Supportthe 2026 guidelines, and owner income→
- Relocation & Move-Awaytwo doors, different rules→
- Interstate & International Custodywhich state decides, before what it decidesYou are here
- Custody for Executives & Business Ownersparenting plans for demanding careers→
- CFI & PRE Guidepreparing for the evaluator→
- False Allegationsdefending against abuse claims→
- Supervised Parenting Timewhen it is ordered, and how it ends→
- Colorado Custody Termsthe vocabulary, translated→
- Parenting-Time Schedulesthe common arrangements and their trade-offs→
Engagement
Jurisdiction is the case before the case. Get it decided in the right courtroom.
A consultation is a scheduled working session — in person in Greenwood Village or by video — in which we go through your situation and I tell you what I would do. It is a paid meeting, not a free call and not a sales pitch; my assistant quotes the consultation fee when you schedule. There is no chatbot here: the contact form and the phone both reach my office, my assistant reviews every inquiry personally, and the meeting goes on my calendar. Please hold the confidential details until we have run a conflicts check.