Family relations without registration – the legal status of the property

Friday March 24th, 2017

Quite often there are cases when people without registering their relationships in the registry office lead a full-fledged family life, raise children together, acquire property together. No questions arise when family relationships are developing favorably.

What to do with the property in the event that the relationship ended, people broke up? Who owns such property, how to divide it?

According to Art. 74 of the IC of Ukraine, property acquired during the cohabitation of a man and a woman who lived in the same family, but did not register a marriage with each other (and at the same time were not in another), is considered their joint property, which provides equal rights for men and women possession, use and disposal of property, the need for mutual consent to its disposal.

As can be seen from the above, a civil (civil) marriage is practically equated by law to a registered one. However, in practice, the division of property of persons living in a civil marriage raises a number of controversial issues not regulated by the legislator, which gives rise to ambiguous case law.

Before dividing such property, it is necessary to establish in court that the man and the woman at the time of acquisition of the property lived together, one family without registration of marriage and to recognize the disputed property as joint joint property.

Therefore, if a man or woman, living without marriage registration, acquires property with joint funds, such property will legally belong only to the person to whom the property will actually be registered. When notarizing real estate, the consent of the other party to such a marital relationship will not be required, as the marriage is not registered with the registry office. And only after applying to the court and providing evidence that the property was acquired during the joint residence, the disputed property can be recognized by the court as joint joint property.

According to the legal position of the Supreme Court of Ukraine in the case № 6-148tss12 of 12.12.2012, in order to recognize the property as joint joint property, it is necessary to provide evidence that the man and woman ran a joint household and had a joint budget, together incurred costs in the interests of seven `her.

To confirm the fact of living with one family without registering a court marriage, you can submit: a birth certificate of children, where the husband is registered as the father of a child born during cohabitation; extracts from the house, business book, personal account, copies of the passport, which will show when and to whom the man (woman) settled for permanent residence and as whom; questionnaires, other documents that are issued during employment (service), when applying for a pension, during admission to military service, going abroad on a business trip, where a man or woman calls himself a spouse; various applications to local governments, organizations that provide utilities, for benefits, subsidies, in which a man and a woman are listed as a single family; receipts, personal accounts in the name of one and the other on the payment of utilities; evidence of joint acquisition of property, both immovable and movable; certificates from ZhEK, DU, street and house committees, condominiums, that the man and the woman live as a couple for a long time in the same room; business and personal correspondence, which shows that the man and woman rested together and called themselves as “wife” and “husband”; certificate from the registry office that the man and woman are not and have not been in another marriage during the disputed period.

If the property was acquired before January 1, 2004, during the period of validity of the Marriage and Family Code, which did not provide for the possibility of recognizing the fact of cohabitation as a basis for recognizing the acquired property as joint joint property, it must be proved that the property was acquired as a result of joint labor of a man and a woman as a family, which corresponds to the legal position of the Supreme Court of Ukraine dated 25.12.2013. in the case № 6-135tss13.

If you have any questions, you can contact me, Oksana Turkas’ lawyer in Lviv, for free legal advice in family matters.

Registration for a consultation

Contact a professional
consultation