18 August 2025
If you have a dispute with your ex-partner about matters concerning your children, you can ask the court to take a decision. In international situations, the question may arise as to which court has jurisdiction to decide about your children.
Under Article 7 of the Brussels Regulation on jurisdiction, the court of the country where the children live has jurisdiction to take decisions on matters concerning the children (parental authority, main residence, care arrangements). The court takes into account the children’s habitual residence at the time the application is lodged with the court.
If the children are living in the Netherlands at the time the application is filed at the court, the Dutch court has jurisdiction to take a decision. If the children are living in another country at that time, the court of that country has jurisdiction.
As indicated above, the court will examine in which country the children have their habitual residence. The habitual residence is determined on the basis of all relevant facts and circumstances, taking into account, among other things, the duration, regularity, circumstances and reasons for the stay in the territory of a state and the family’s move to that state, the nationality of the child, the place and circumstances in which the child attends school, the language skills and the family and social ties of the child in that state. In the event of a move from one country to another, the habitual residence is primarily determined by the wish of the person concerned to establish the permanent or habitual centre of his or her interests in the receiving state, with the intention of giving it a permanent character.
In a judgment of the District Court of Rotterdam of 27 May 2025 (ECLI:NL:RBROT:2025:6935), the parties moved with the child from the Netherlands to France. Later, the woman returned to the Netherlands with the child (without the man’s consent). The man remained in France.
The woman had no intention of staying in the Netherlands, she was living temporarily with her parents and she had no job in the Netherlands. It was not the intention that the child would continue to attend school in the Netherlands. In view of this, the court ruled that at the time the petition was filed, the child still had his habitual residence in France. The Dutch court therefore did not have jurisdiction to make a decision about the child, but the French court.
Do you have any questions about the jurisdiction of the Dutch courts? Please contact us.
