Simple ways to find out if your wife has filed for divorce

The legislation of the Russian Federation allows a Russian citizen to move freely throughout the territory of Russia and live where he considers it most convenient. In turn, freedom of movement gives rise to some legal difficulties in matters of termination of marriage in such cases when:

1. The husband and wife have a residence permit in one city, they registered their marital relationship in another city, but actually live in a third locality.
2. The spouses are registered at a permanent place of residence in one of the Russian localities and they registered their marriage there, but they live under temporary registration in another locality.

In this regard, it is necessary to know in what cases the law allows spouses to dissolve their marriage in another city, and also to know how to file for divorce in a place other than their place of residence.

Features of divorce in another city

Through the registry office

Family law clearly establishes that married partners intending to divorce have the right to send a request to terminate the marriage with the documents attached to it to the following state civil registry offices:

• Those in the city where the marriage took place and the newlyweds were given a marriage certificate.
• Located at the place of registration of both marriage partners or one of them.

This means that the law prohibits filing a divorce application with the state civil registry office in the locality in which the spouses live under temporary registration, as well as in the locality where the spouses live without registration.

At the same time, the parties to the marriage who have decided to separate by mutual consent and do not have a minor child have the right to send the documents required for divorce to the civil registry office required by law in 3 ways indicated in the table.

The package of papers submitted for consideration includes:

1. Certificate of marriage.
2. Proof of payment of the fee.
3. Statement.
4. Passports from both parties to the marriage or their notarized copies.

Within a period that cannot exceed thirty days after receiving the set of required papers, the state civil registry office will invite the wife and husband to the divorce procedure, during which the spouses must confirm their will, reflected in the application. If the intentions have not changed, then the registry office records information about the divorce in the deed book and prints a certificate of termination of marriage for each spouse. This concludes the procedure.

As for a divorce carried out without the will of one of the spouses, it can only be initiated in person and only in the state civil registry office of the locality where the marriage took place, or in the registry office located in the city where at least one marriage partner is registered. The list of required papers includes:

1. Certificate of marriage.
2. Proof of payment of the fee.
3. Grounds for divorce (a court decision on the incapacity or unknown absence of a marriage partner or a court verdict by which he is deprived of liberty and placed in a colony for more than three years).
4. Statement.
5. Applicant's passport.

One month after the date of transfer of documents, the marriage union is dissolved in the presence of the applicant. After this, the applicant is given a copy of the divorce certificate.

Through the court

With regard to the place of termination of marriage through the court, the law allows the plaintiff quite a lot of freedom. You can submit an application:

1. 
   At the place of residence of the defendant.

2. At the place of his temporary registration.
3. In the city where the defendant actually resides, but is not registered.
4. In the absence of information about the whereabouts of the defendant, the law allows the filing of claim documents to the last known address of the defendant. If the defendant is hiding and the plaintiff has become aware of his whereabouts, the plaintiff has the right to submit a written or oral request to the court to send a summons to the address of the defendant’s location for the purpose of notifying him.
5. If the plaintiff is ill or has minors in his custody, you can initiate a divorce in your city, thus avoiding traveling to court hearings in the defendant’s city of residence.

In what cases is it permissible to dissolve a marriage in court? The legislation knows 3 such grounds:

• Evasion of a marriage partner from the divorce procedure conducted by the state civil registry office.
• The defendant's refusal to grant a divorce.
• Minor children whose parents are both spouses.

The judicial bodies authorized to consider divorce claims in Russia are district and magistrate courts. Their competencies are listed in the table below.

Currently, there are two ways to submit documents to the court along with an application requesting an end to the marriage:

1. In person through the reception office of the judicial authority.
2. In electronic form through the State Automated System “Justice”. The applicant must have a confirmed account on State Services or purchase an enhanced qualified electronic signature in order to send court documents. Also, in order not to travel to another city for court hearings, you can hire a representative or write in a statement that the plaintiff does not object to the proceedings without his personal presence.

Divorce typically takes from 1 to 5 months , and the exact amount of time spent depends on the circumstances of the divorce case. First of all, the judge must understand the position of each marriage partner and find out whether they intend to remain in the marital relationship. If the positions of the spouses are not identical, then the court is obliged to put them through conciliation procedures, the maximum period of which is 3 months. However, the wife and husband can refuse them by verbally declaring or writing a mutual petition.

In any case, the immediate trial of the claim cannot begin earlier than 1 month from the date of registration of the claim documents in the court office. In other words, spouses who agree to divorce and have resolved all differences between themselves must wait at least 1 month to obtain a divorce.

According to the rules of the Family Code, the termination of a marriage carried out by a court is considered valid from the moment the court decision receives legal force. However, in order to enter into a new marital relationship or prove, if necessary, to government officials that the marriage no longer exists, it is necessary to obtain a divorce certificate from the civil registry office.

A similar certificate can be issued:

• Only by state civil registry offices in the city where the marriage was officially concluded.
• Only by state civil registry offices in the city where at least one spouse or both spouses are registered.

As a rule, judges by default send extracts from court decisions on divorce proceedings to the registry office indicated on the marriage certificate. In order to change the addressee of sending documents and receive a divorce certificate at the place of registration, you should submit a petition during the process or, in the most extreme case, after the decision is announced.

To obtain a divorce certificate, you must prepare the following set of papers for the state civil registry office:

• Court transcript.
• Marriage certificate.
• Passport.
• Proof of payment of the fee.
• Statement.

The law allows 3 ways to transfer documents to the civil registry office:

1. The ex-husband personally brings them.
2. The former spouse writes a power of attorney to a third party and authorizes him to transfer documents. In most cases, former spouses who do not live at their place of permanent registration do the following: hire a representative or negotiate with close relatives and friends to go to the registry office in their place and hand over documents. After this, the former spouses issue them a power of attorney in simple written form and send it with the documents necessary for the divorce by mail.
3. Through State Services. The applicant must have a verified account on the portal or purchase a simple electronic signature.

A month after handing over the set of papers, the divorce certificate will be ready and can be picked up.

If you can't come

Let's look at this important legal nuance separately for the plaintiff and the defendant.

What should the plaintiff do if he cannot attend the trial himself? There are several solutions:

1. Send a written petition to the court with a request to postpone the hearing and indicate a valid reason for this (illness, business trip, military service, participation in hostilities).
2. Hire a lawyer and make a judicial power of attorney for him.
3. Write a petition in which you ask to conduct the trial without the presence of the plaintiff. The sample can be downloaded from here.

The plaintiff must take into account that his two-time absence from meetings, accompanied by the defendant’s refusal to proceed on the merits, entails leaving the claim without further consideration.

What should the defendant do if he cannot attend the trial himself? Below are several options to solve the problem:

• Write a petition in which you ask to conduct the trial without his personal presence. The sample is here.
• Before the start of the hearing, notify the court of valid reasons preventing you from attending court.
• Hire a lawyer and make a notarized power of attorney for him.

The defendant should take into account that if he was notified of the meeting, but did not ask the court to hold the meeting without him, and did not provide valid reasons for his absence, then this fact does not interfere with the administration of justice. With the consent of the plaintiff, a divorce in absentia may take place. A decision in absentia is no different from a regular decision and comes into force after the end of the period of time allocated by law for an appeal.

In what cases can you not file for divorce?

It is not allowed to send documents to state registry offices, which are located:

• In the city where the spouses are temporarily registered.
• In a city where spouses live without registration.

If, however, the marriage partners decide to violate this legal norm, the registry office will simply return the application to them and refuse to formalize the completion of the marriage.

In addition, husbands cannot demand termination of marital relations if the wife is pregnant or raising a small child who is not yet one year old. This period is counted from the date of birth of the minor indicated in his birth certificate.

How to challenge a decision

The fact that the court has made a decision does not mean its immediate entry into force and, accordingly, a quick divorce. The law gives a person who disagrees with the reasons for a decision the right to challenge it. 1 month is allocated for this, which is counted from the date of production of the judicial act in its final form. In order to properly appeal a decision, you should follow the step-by-step instructions below:

1. At the time the decision is announced, you must ask the judge for the exact date when it will be ready in final form.
2. Before this date, you must write an application for a decision and submit it to the court office or send it through the State Automated System “Justice”. The sample can be downloaded from here.
3. After receiving a copy of the decision, you should start writing an appeal. The addressee of the complaint will be the district court if the judicial act of the magistrate is appealed. When appealing a judicial act of a district court, the addressee of the complaint will be the regional court.
4. When filing a complaint yourself, you can use the proposed sample. It should indicate: The name of the court authorized to consider the complaint.
5. Information identifying the applicant (full name, registration address).
6. Information about the decision being appealed.
7. List of requirements presented by the applicant.
8. Grounds that, from the applicant’s point of view, allow the decision to be considered illegal.
9. List of applications.
10. Signature and date of writing the complaint.

If the appeal is accepted for proceedings, the parties to the process will be notified by the postal service of the time of the hearing. As a rule, no more than 2 months pass from the day the complaint is accepted until the day of the meeting at which the appeal ruling is adopted.

The rules for holding meetings in the court of appeal are practically no different from the rules for holding meetings in the first instance, with the exception of some exceptions, namely:

1. The subject of the claim and its size cannot be changed.
2. Counterclaims cannot be made.
3. It is unacceptable to replace an inappropriate defendant.
4. It is impossible to involve third parties in the proceedings who were not involved in the proceedings in the first instance.

The appeal ruling is given legal force after being announced in the courtroom. Thus, it actually records the accomplished fact of divorce, if the plaintiff’s arguments were not refuted by the evidence presented by the defendant in the complaint.

Basic principles of property division

If a husband and wife entered into a marriage contract before or after marriage, then its provisions will have undoubted priority over the Family Code in all cases of division of marital property, except for the cases indicated in the table.

If there is no marriage contract or it is declared invalid by the court, then the division of marital assets will be carried out according to the norms of family law. As the Family Code states, only those things that they acquired during their life together are subject to distribution between spouses. These things include:

1. 
   Bills of exchange, bonds and other securities.

2. Salaries, benefits, financial assistance and pensions.
3. Income from business activities.
4. Commercial or residential real estate.
5. Shares that one or both spouses own in legal entities or credit institutions.
6. Luxuries.
7. Any types of movable property. As a rule, these are cars, furniture and household appliances.
8. The right to participate in shared construction of housing, a share in a mutual fund or in a housing cooperative.
9. Royalties for results obtained from intellectual activity.
10. Jewelry.
11. Debts acquired during marriage.
12. Investment income.

Not subject to division:

• Assets owned by children.
• Premarital belongings of each spouse.
• Property that was received free of charge or by inheritance.
• Personal property, for example, cosmetics, hygiene items, clothing.
• The right of authorship in relation to an intellectual work, invention or industrial design.

The size of shares is determined in 2 ways:

1. Agreement on the division of marital property. In it, the wife and husband independently determine the size of their shares.
2. A judge who, as a rule, divides all property in equal proportions. If one spouse receives more property than he is entitled to, he transfers the difference in favor of the second spouse in the form of a compensation payment. However, if one of the marriage partners neglected the responsibility to support the family, squandered property or did not monitor its safety, then the court has the legal right to reduce the share of property transferred to this spouse. In addition, often the former spouse who takes minor children into custody receives more than half of the joint property from the court without paying compensation.

List of documents for filing a claim

In addition to the statement of claim, it includes:

1. 
   A copy of the applicant's passport.

2. Evidence of the existence of a marital relationship between the defendant and the plaintiff.
3. Child certificates, if there are children under eighteen years of age.
4. Marriage agreement (if any).
5. Proof of payment of the fee.
6. Alimony agreement (if any).
7. Agreement on division of property (if any).
8. Agreement on children (if any).
9. Inventory of joint property. It is necessary if a demand for division is made.
10. Documents regarding the valuation of marital assets.
11. Title documents for property (agreements, court decisions, privatization orders).
12. Data on the defendant’s earnings (when filing alimony claims).
13. Other evidence, for example, medical certificates, characteristics, psychologists' reports, residential inspection reports, criminal record certificates.

Arbitrage practice

The case was considered by the Frunzensky District Court of Ivanovo in May 2021.

The marriage between the defendant and the plaintiff was registered in the department of the state civil registry office located in the city of Teykovo, Ivanovo region, in 2014. The spouses actually lived in Ivanovo at the time the divorce proceedings began.

In addition to the demand for divorce, the wife also declared claims to part of the joint property. The reason for the end of the marriage, according to the wife, was the termination of cohabitation and the refusal to run a family household on the part of both marriage partners.

During the court hearing, the spouses agreed on the peaceful division of marital assets and signed an agreement on this. The husband acknowledged the validity of his wife's claims for divorce. The court, having checked this statement of the defendant, did not find any contradiction with the law and declared it lawful.

Thus, the wife's request to end the marriage was satisfied.

Regulatory framework

Does one spouse have the right to initiate divorce proceedings without the knowledge of the other?

Divorce in court means that only one of the spouses needs to file an application. In this case, the applicant may not notify the husband (wife) about the decision made, but the court is obliged to do this.

The only exception is 2 situations in which the husband cannot file for divorce:

• wife is pregnant;
• The couple has a child under one year of age in their care.

In such cases, only the woman can initiate the divorce. This right is enshrined in Article 17 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation.