Termination of marriage upon its dissolution

When does the moment of divorce come?

In Art. 25 establishes two types of moments from which a marriage will be terminated. This division is due to the fact that the relationship can be terminated in the registry office (in a limited number of cases) or in court:

If the process takes place entirely in the registry office, the date of termination is considered to be the date when an entry is made in the civil registration book indicating that the divorce took place;
If the divorce procedure took place in court, then the date from which the marriage will be dissolved is considered the day the divorce decision taken by the court comes into force.

The last paragraph applies only to those marriages that were or will be terminated after May 1, 1996 (clause 3 of Article 169 of the RF IC). If the divorce occurred before this date, then the moment of termination will be considered the date of the entry of this fact in the entry book in the registry office.

If a divorce occurs in court, then it is still necessary to register it with the registry office. The law obliges the court to report information to the registry office within a period of three days after the decision takes effect. To obtain a certificate from the registry office that the parties are no longer related by marriage, the former husband and wife (or only one of them) must write an application to this body, and a document from the court must be attached to it (usually the fact of the decision is confirmed by an extract out of him).

Causes

Any union between spouses is valid and legal until a formal decision is made to dissolve it.

If the divorce has taken place, but the husband or wife wants to have the marriage declared invalid, they will first have to get the divorce decision canceled and the registration in the registry office annulled.

Please note: marriage implies a voluntary union of two people of legal age who have agreed to start a family voluntarily, without threats or coercion, and are fully aware of their actions.

In Russia there is also the principle of a single marriage: a husband cannot have several official wives and vice versa.

Consequently, the stamp in the passport may be invalidated for the following reasons:

The alliance was concluded against the wishes of one of the parties.
Husband and wife are close relatives in direct lines: brothers and sisters, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren. This applies to all half-relatives, as well as adopted children, since legally they have all the rights of relatives.
The spouses have not reached the required age.
The husband or wife is already married to other persons or this contract was concluded fictitiously.
The court declared one of the couple incompetent at the time of legalization of the relationship.
One of the parties was not informed to the other that he had AIDS or a sexually transmitted disease. The victim may even bring his significant other to justice.

Please note: the requirement to annul a marriage does not have a statute of limitations, with the exception of declaring one of the family members incompetent, which is given a year from the date of registration.

Registration of a court decision in the registry office

In Art. 25 it is noted that a new marriage cannot be concluded if the registry office does not issue a certificate of termination of the old one. Even if there is a valid court decision, it must be registered at the registry office and obtain a certificate there. The procedure for carrying out this procedure is established in Chapter. IV RF IC.

To register a divorce, having in hand a document confirming the court decision, it is necessary (Article 35 of the RF IC):

Contact the registry office with an application (from one or both parties). This may be the department in which the marriage was once celebrated or located at the place of residence of one of the applicants;
You must attach a document from the court (an extract from its decision) stating that the divorce was recognized as completed;
You also need to provide a document confirming the fact of transfer of the state fee (each applicant pays it for his copy of the certificate);
You must take your passport with you.

It should be borne in mind that the decision, when it comes to divorce, takes legal force only a month after its adoption. You need to contact the registry office at this very moment (one month after receiving the decision). It often happens that people apply for a certificate after a certain time has passed. In this case, you will first have to request an extract from the court, and then apply to the registry office with it. If an entry has already been made based on an application filed by one of the parties, then there is no need to re-submit the document from the court.

Procedure

If there is at least one of the above circumstances, then in order to cancel the registration of the marriage, you should apply to the court at the place of residence of the defendant with a claim to declare the concluded union invalid.

All documents confirming the illegality of the marriage must be attached to the statement of claim.

Having considered the evidence, the court will make a decision, which within three days is sent to the relevant registry office, where the entry in the Civil Registration Book is cancelled.

USEFUL INFORMATION: My ex-wife is not spending child support on the child, what should I do?

Completion of this procedure means that the marriage did not lead to any legal consequences. That is, it will be considered that the marriage between these people did not exist at all.

Judicial practice related to the moment of dissolution of marital relations

Usually, there are no difficulties in determining the date from which the divorce is considered completed. Information about the moment of termination may be needed, first of all, when dividing property that occurs after a divorce. Thus, in 2013, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow ordered the defendant (ex-husband) to compensate the plaintiff for her share in the apartment, which was purchased several months before the divorce, and sold by the defendant several months after the court decision on ending their relationship. When selling the apartment, the plaintiff’s opinion was not taken into account by the defendant.

Difficulties are caused by the countdown of the statute of limitations, after which it will be impossible to file a claim for division of property. This period is in this case three years. There is no clearly established rule in the law to count it from the moment of divorce or from any other date. The Civil Code of the Russian Federation has Art. 200, paragraph 1 of which states that the statute of limitations is counted from the moment a person learns that his rights have been violated. However, determining this point in relation to divorced people is not so easy. Judges tend to favor an exact date - the date of termination of the relationship, determined in accordance with the law. It is on this that they rely when making their decisions in cases concerning the division of property (for example, in 2002, the court rejected a claim for the redistribution of joint property acquired during a marriage, which was dissolved in 1998, pointing out that the plaintiff knew that her rights were being violated from the moment the court decided to divorce, but did not file a claim within the prescribed period.

Thus, in order to protect your rights to a share in property acquired jointly during marriage, you should go to court no later than three years after the relationship is terminated, and the date of termination should be determined in accordance with Art. 25 IC RF.

Author of the article

Kuznetsov Fedor Nikolaevich

More than 15 years of experience in the legal field; Specialization - resolution of family disputes, inheritance, property transactions, disputes over consumer rights, criminal cases, arbitration processes.

Fictitious marriage

This option is widespread among many people who want to receive any benefits, concessions, the opportunity to obtain citizenship or avoid conscription into the army. To do this, the couple legitimizes the relationship, receives a certificate and the opportunity to quickly achieve what they want.

By entering into a fictitious marriage, people lose the opportunity to create a full-fledged family, while deceiving the state. Its signs are the absence of any relationship between husband and wife: they do not live together, do not communicate, and do not run a joint household.

Please note: most problems in a fictitious marriage arise from the spouses themselves: for example, if the husband has not repaid the loan, the bank may demand this from the wife. (By the way, you can read about how loans are divided during a divorce here.)

Nullity of marriage

In contrast to the conditions for concluding a family union, there are much more circumstances on the basis of which a marriage can be annulled. Partially they are associated with violation of the conditions of marriage, partially they have a completely different nature.

Lack of age or lack of consent of one of the spouses, that is, violation of the conditions of marriage, are grounds for declaring the marriage invalid.

Otherwise, why would they be introduced? How they could register a union with such violations is a separate question.

The Judicial Code names the following circumstances as additional grounds for recognizing the invalidity of a marriage (obstructive grounds):

the person has another registered marriage;
close relatives decided to start a family;
the adoptive parent decided to enter into a marriage relationship with the adopted child;
the bride or groom suffers from a mental disorder and is declared legally incompetent;
fictitiousness of the union.

A separate ground on which the interested spouse may demand that the marriage be declared invalid is fraud. Consisting in the fact that the future spouse hid from the other the presence of a sexual disease, HIV infection.

As can be seen from the above list, specific circumstances preventing the creation of a family union are established for the purpose of:

protection of property interests and morality (second marriage, union with an adoptive parent, close relative),
human health protection (marital age),
protection of individual rights (lack of consent).

Procedure

All documents confirming the illegality of the marriage must be attached to the statement of claim.

Having considered the evidence, the court will make a decision, which within three days is sent to the relevant registry office, where the entry in the Civil Registration Book is cancelled.

Completion of this procedure means that the marriage did not lead to any legal consequences. That is, it will be considered that the marriage between these people did not exist at all.

Cancellation of a divorce through the registry office

Family legislation in every possible way protects the units of society from premature disintegration. On the day of application, the registry office employees will not divorce even the most scandalous couple. After submitting the application, the spouses have a whole month to think about their decision. Under no circumstances can this period be reduced. During the entire period, the couple can withdraw the application, and the marriage will be saved. However, unfortunately, it will not be possible to return the paid state fee for applying to the registry office.