Convenient Financial Guarantee For Holiday: My husband and I are locked in a custody battle at the family court and I have applied for relocation there, too, which he is fighting. I want to take the kids to see my family in the States (my native country), but my husband says he is afraid that I will not return them from the U.S.A. (this is where I want to relocate). He says he will only agree to lift the existing exit order on the children if I provide financial guarantees. He knows that I have no savings lying around (all we own is the home in both our names), and my family cannot help. Is there any solution?

If you are registered as the co-owner of rights in the marital home, you can offer these are a financial guarantee. Such a guarantee could be in the form of a irrevocable power of attorney allowing for the transfer of your rights in the property should you fail to return the children, in accordance with a court decision. The prevention of exit orders on the children could be lifted upon its deposit in the court safe, and reinstated upon their return, following the return of the guarantee. This way you would not have to provide cash, or pay bank fees. If the other side is in agreement, a joint application can be made to court, on the basis of this mechanism, for the lifting of the exit orders to allow the visit, If the other side is not in agreement, an application can still be made, and the parent wishing to travel can suggest the mechanism as a form of guarantee, should the court condition the visit upon guarantees. On a general note, where the parent needing to find a guarantee has no rights in real estate him/herself, but his/her family own rights in property in Israel, it may be possible for these to be used as a guarantee in such a situation. The mechanism of using property rights in Israel to guarantee the return of minors from a short visit abroad was agreed upon by parents, and approved in principle by Kfar Saba court in December 2005, in connection with a client at this practice, a father, who had filed for custody and relocation of his children and wished to take them on a visit to his family abroad. The mechanism was put into effect during the Summer of 2006, instead of the usual bank guarantee.