Chap. 335.—An ACT to amend and reenact Section 5111, as amended, of the
Code of Virginia relating to the powers of courts and in regard to the estate
and maintenance of parties and custody, etc., of children in divorce st 208]

Approved March 31, 1948

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That section fifty-one hundred eleven, as amended, of the Code
of Virginia, be amended and reenacted as follows:

Section 5111. Court, on dissolving marriage, may decree as to
estate and maintenance of parties, and custody, et cetera, of children;
provision for revision of decree; extinguishment of property rights.—
Upon decreeing the dissolution of a marriage, and also upon decreeing
a divorce, whether from the bond of matrimony or from bed and board,
and upon decreeing that neither party is entitled to a divorce the court
may make such further decree as it shall deem expedient concerning
the estate and the maintenance of the parties, or either of them, and
the care, custody and maintenance of their minor children, and may
determine with which of the parents the children or any of them, shall
remain; and the court may, from time to time afterwards, on petition
of either of the parents, or on its own motion or upon petition of any
probation officer or superintendent of public welfare which petition shall
set forth the reasons for the relief sought, revise and alter such decree
concerning the care, custody and maintenance of the children and make
a new decree concerning the same, as the circumstances of the parents
and the benefit of the children may require; and upon petition of either
party may increase, decrease, or cause to cease, any alimony that may
thereafter accrue whether the same has been heretofore or hereafter
awarded, as the circumstances may make proper; provided, however, if
a stipulation or contract signed by the party to whom such relief might
otherwise be awarded is filed with the pleadings or depositions, then
no decree or order directing the payment of alimony, suit money, or
counsel fee shall be entered except in accordance with that stipulation
or contract unless such party raise objection thereto prior to entry of the
decree. If any person to whom alimony has been awarded shall thereafter
marry, such alimony shall cease as of the date of such marriage. Upon
the entry of a decree of divorce from the bond of matrimony, all contin-
gent rights of either consort in the real and personal property of the other
then existing, or thereafter acquired including the right of survivorship
in real or personal property title to which is vested in the parties as
joint tenants or as tenants by the entirety, with survivorship as at
common law, shall be extinguished, and such estate by the entirety shall
thereupon be converted into a tenancy in common.

When the proceedings are reopened the party or parties sought to be
charged with the support of any child involved in the suit shall be given
such notice by service or order of publication as required in similar cases.

The court, when it finds the respondent has failed to perform the
order of the court concerning the support of the child or under then
existing circumstances is under the duty to render support or additional
support to the child, may proceed to deal with the respondent as provided
in section fifty-one hundred eleven-a of the Code or it may revise and
alter its decree as to the child and grant leave to the petitioner to proceed
in the appropriate juvenile and domestic relations court in conformity
with any applicable law.

When the petitioner has been granted leave to proceed in a juvenile
and domestic relations court all proceedings thereafter shall conform to
the provisions of chapter eighty of the Code.