822.35.Registration of child custody determination.

Section 822.35 lays out the registration process for bringing another state’s custody determination into Wisconsin courts. Subsection (1) states what must be sent to the clerk of any Wisconsin circuit court, with or without a simultaneous request for enforcement: a letter or other document requesting registration, two copies of the determination, one certified, along with a sworn statement that to the best of the registrant’s knowledge the determination has not been modified, and, except as provided in section 822.29, the name and address of the person seeking registration and of any parent or person acting as a parent awarded custody, physical placement, or visitation in the determination.

Subsection (2) tells the registering court what to do once it receives those documents: file the determination as a foreign judgment along with one copy of the accompanying documents, and serve notice on the persons named under subsection (1)(c), giving them an opportunity to contest the registration.

Subsection (3) sets what that notice must say: that the registered determination is enforceable, as of the registration date, the same way a Wisconsin-issued determination would be; that a hearing to contest its validity must be requested within 20 days after service of the notice; and that failing to contest will confirm the determination and bar any later challenge on a matter that could have been raised. Subsection (4) lists the grounds available at that hearing, if one is timely requested: the issuing court lacked jurisdiction under subchapter II, the determination has been vacated, stayed, or modified by a court with jurisdiction to do so, or the person contesting registration was entitled to notice but did not receive it in accordance with section 822.08’s standards in the original proceeding.

Subsections (5) and (6) close the loop. If no timely request for a contest hearing is made, the registration is confirmed as a matter of law, and everyone who was served, along with the person who sought registration, must be notified of that confirmation. Whether confirmation happens automatically or after a hearing, it precludes any further contest of the determination on a matter that could have been raised at the time of registration.