BAKER, C.J.
Mother and Father divorced, and Father moved to Illinois. Mother registered the child support order in Illinois, and she and Father subsequently consented to transfer jurisdiction of the child support issue to Illinois. The Illinois trial court modified Father’s child support obligation. Years later, he asked that the Clark County, Indiana trial court reassume jurisdiction. The trial court did so. It found that the Illinois proceedings were a nullity because jurisdiction was never properly transferred and retroactively modified Father’s support obligation to its original amount. The magistrate hearing the case also held a thirty-six-minute ex parte conference with Father’s attorney and the prosecutor, explicitly barring Mother, who was pro se, from attending. We find the trial court’s legal conclusions erroneous and the ex parte proceedings extremely troubling. Therefore, we reverse and remand with instructions that this matter be assigned to a different judicial officer.
. . . .
Indiana Code section 31-18-2-5(a) provides as follows:
An Indiana tribunal that issues a support order consistent with Indiana law has continuing, exclusive jurisdiction over a child support order:
(1) if Indiana remains the residence of the:
(A) obligor;
(B) individual obligee; or
(C) child for whose benefit the support order is issued; or
(2) until each individual party has filed written consent with the Indiana tribunal for a tribunal of another state to modify the order and assume continuing, exclusive jurisdiction.
(Emphasis added). Our Supreme Court has explained that subsection (a)(1) (the nonresidency requirement) and subsection (a)(2) (the consent requirement) are separate and alternative methods by which an Indiana court may maintain its continuing, exclusive jurisdiction over a child support order; and thus do not require both the absence of the parties and consent before a court loses jurisdiction.
Basileh v. Alghusain, 912 N.E.2d 814, 821 (Ind. 2009) (emphases original). As an initial matter, therefore, we observe that the Clark County trial court erred by basing its ruling, in part, on the fact that Mother and child have always resided in Clark County. If, as Mother contends, the parties complied with the consent requirement in subsection (a)(2), then her place of residency is irrelevant.
Here, it is undisputed that Mother properly registered the child support order in Illinois in 2000 via the UIFSA Transmittal. In November 2001, Mother filed a motion in Illinois to modify Father’s child support obligation. The trial court granted the motion in August 2002, and Mother concedes that jurisdiction had not yet vested in Illinois at that time. [Footnote omitted.]
To correct the collective oversight, on October 8, 2002, the parties filed an Agreed Order in the Clark Superior Court. The Agreed Order provided that the cause was transferred from Indiana to Illinois “for enforcement and modification of child support for the parties’ minor child, and the State of Illinois shall have continuing, exclusive jurisdiction with respect to same.” . . . The document was signed by both parties, and the trial court signed and entered the order on November 13, 2002. Notwithstanding the trial court’s focus on the document’s title—“Agreed Order to Transfer Venue”—it is clear and unambiguous that the document represents the parties’ consent to transfer continuing and exclusive jurisdiction of the matter to Illinois. [Footnote omitted.] Therefore, pursuant to Indiana Code section 31-18-2-5(a)(2), Indiana no longer had jurisdiction over the child support portion of this matter as of November 2002.
Father contends that the fact that the DuPage County trial court issued an order modifying his child support obligation in 2001, before it had properly assumed jurisdiction, somehow nullifies its later attempt to correct the oversight. In other words, he argues that the sequence of the Illinois proceedings was fatal to any attempt to transfer jurisdiction to that state. We disagree. The DuPage County trial court made a mistake, realized it made a mistake, corrected the mistake with the help of both parties, and issued a new modification order after jurisdiction was properly assumed. Although the first modification order was voidable, the February 2003 modification was proper and the sequence of events does not alter that conclusion.
. . . .
. . . Inasmuch as we have found that the Illinois court properly assumed jurisdiction of the parties’ child support dispute and had subject matter jurisdiction when it modified Father’s obligation, the trial court herein was without authority to effect a retroactive modification nullifying the DuPage County trial court’s order.
That said, if jurisdiction is properly reestablished in Indiana, then, of course, the trial court would have the authority to issue a prospective modification of Father’s obligation if it finds a change in circumstances pursuant to Indiana Code section 31-16-8-1. To that end, on March 22, 2004, Father filed a motion in Clark County requesting that the trial court herein reassume jurisdiction. Illinois, however, has continuing and exclusive jurisdiction over this matter until the parties comply with UIFSA requirements.
Specifically, the DuPage County trial court order modifying Father’s obligation must be registered in Indiana pursuant to Indiana Code section 31-18-6-2. After the order is registered, the Indiana trial court must provide notice and hold a hearing. If, following notice and a hearing, the trial court finds that the nonresidency or consent requirements have been fulfilled, it may assume continuing, exclusive jurisdiction of the matter. I.C. § 31-18-6-11. Only at that time may the trial court issue a prospective modification of Father’s child support obligation if it finds that a modification is warranted under the relevant statutory guidelines.
Finally, to the extent that the trial court appears to have relied in part on an alleged lack of notice to the State of the Illinois proceedings for its conclusion that the Illinois court did not have jurisdiction, we first note that Mother was not receiving public assistance at the time the Illinois proceedings began or at the time the DuPage County trial court modified Father’s obligation. Indeed, she did not apply for public assistance until 2005, several months after Father stopped paying child support. Thus, Mother was not obligated to provide Indiana with notice of a change of jurisdiction to Illinois. Moreover, any obligation Mother had to provide notice to Indiana is wholly irrelevant as to whether Illinois had jurisdiction to modify Father’s child support obligation. And finally, the State did have notice, inasmuch as the UIFSA Transmittal, which states that it is for enforcement and modification, bears the stamp of the Clark County Prosecutor’s Office, Child Support Division. Thus, the trial court erred by reaching this conclusion.
. . . .
The pre-hearing conference took place in the judge’s chambers. Attending the conference were Magistrate Dawkins, Father’s attorney, and the deputy prosecutor. Mother, who was pro se, asked to attend but was explicitly prohibited from doing so. The prosecutor was not representing Mother; indeed, the State was taking a position that was explicitly adverse to Mother’s interests. It would be difficult to imagine a clearer example of prohibited ex parte communications, but the story does not end there. The conference lasted for thirty-six minutes—just eleven minutes shorter than the hearing itself. Evidence was discussed and documents changed hands that were never formally made part of the record—until Mother tracked down the documents herself and requested, after the fact, that they be included.
The State does not dispute the fact that the prosecutor was not representing Mother’s interests in the proceeding. Instead, it argues that even if Mother’s due process rights were violated, the violation was harmless “because this appeal has cured any deficiencies that occurred in the trial court at the hearing.” . . . Notwithstanding this astonishing argument, we simply note that we agree with Mother that “[b]eing deprived of the procedural due process rights of a meaningful opportunity to be heard is the ‘prejudice’ that a party must show for purposes of the harmless error doctrine.” . . . That said, inasmuch as we have already found in Mother’s favor on the merits of her appeal, we decline to reverse on this basis.
We hereby order that upon remand, this case be reassigned to a different judicial officer. Moreover, if, as seems likely to happen, jurisdiction of the child support issue is transferred from DuPage County back to Clark County, we order that a judicial officer other than Magistrate Dawkins continue to handle the case.
RILEY, J., and BAILEY, J., concur.