I recently moved back to New Jersey to be closer to my family. Will New Jersey still enforce the child support order that originated from the Florida?

Yes, this order will enforced in New Jersey. However, first you must register this order in the Garden State. An out of state court order must first be registered in New Jersey to be enforceable. Once the order is registered, then it is fully enforceable in New Jersey. Moreover, you have the same legal rights to file enforcement applications as if the order was originally executed here in New Jersey. Once the order is registered, then you can make the same applications for wage garnishments, arrest warrants for non-compliance, driver's license suspension for non-payment, etc. Basically, once the child support order is registered in New Jersey then you have all of this state's legal rights to enforce it. Nonetheless, it is important to emphasize that the law of the issuing state governs the nature, extent, amount, and duration of support obligations and payment of arrears. Thus, in your case once the child support was registered in New Jersey, the order would still be subject to Florida law being applied to it. This legal issue can create some rather complex legal issues as to the correct application of the choice of law to be used.

N.J.S.A. 2A:4-30.103 provides the legal procedure for registration of orders from other states. "A party seeking to enforce a support order issued by a tribunal of another state may send the documents required for registering the order to a support enforcement agency of this state." More specifically, a child support order may be registered in New Jersey by forwarding the following documents to the support enforcement agency: