The Ministry of Justice has clarified the legal consequences of marriages of convenience
Kyiv • UNN
A fictitious marriage does not create the rights and obligations of spouses. Property acquired in such a marriage is considered joint partial ownership, and alimony is subject to return.
Marriages are concluded not only for the purpose of creating a family and conditions for raising children. Some people, when getting married, pursue a certain benefit. But in practice, it turns out that unions concluded "for show" have legal consequences. How the law works in matters of marriage and property was explained by the Ministry of Justice, reports UNN.
According to Article 40 of the Code, a marriage concluded by a woman and a man or one of them without the intention of creating a family and acquiring the rights and obligations of spouses is fictitious. That is, the absence of the purpose of creating a family can be in both or one of them in a situation where the other spouse believed in the sincerity of the intentions of his / her husband / wife
Details
Fictitious marriages are concluded, for example, to obtain citizenship, a residence permit, avoid obligations and restrictions, to register property in the name of a partner, to hide assets. In such cases, a fictitious marriage may serve as one of the ways to commit criminal offenses. For example, if the marriage was concluded for the purpose of fraud, evasion of conscription during mobilization.
If the fictitious nature of the marriage is proven in court, it is considered invalid from the date of its state registration (Article 44 of the Code).
At the same time, a marriage cannot be declared invalid if, at the time of the court hearing, the circumstances that testified to the absence of the person's consent to the marriage or their unwillingness to create a family have disappeared (Article 40 of the Code).
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The absence of the intention to create a family at the time of marriage can be compensated by its appearance after the registration of marriage. These are cases when, under all objective circumstances, it can be argued that the person has the intention to create a family
Legal consequences of invalidity of marriage
1. A marriage declared invalid by a court decision is not a basis for the emergence of rights and obligations of spouses in persons between whom it was registered, as well as rights and obligations established for spouses by other laws of Ukraine.
2. If persons acquired property during an invalid marriage, it is considered to belong to them as joint partial ownership. The size of the shares of each of them is determined in accordance with their participation in the acquisition of this property with their labor and funds.
3. If a person received alimony from the person with whom they were in an invalid marriage, the amount of alimony paid is considered to have been received without sufficient legal grounds and is subject to return in accordance with the Civil Code of Ukraine, but not more than for the last three years.
4. A person who has moved into the dwelling of another person in connection with the registration of an invalid marriage with him has not acquired the right to live in it and may be evicted.
5. A person who, in connection with the registration of an invalid marriage, has changed their surname is considered to be named by this surname without sufficient legal grounds.
6. The legal consequences established by parts two to five of this article apply to a person who knew about the obstacles to the registration of the marriage and concealed them from the other party and (or) from the state registration authority of civil status acts (Article 45 of the Code).
If a person did not know about the obstacles to the registration of the marriage, they retain the rights of a beneficiary
In this case, you can claim:
- for the division of property acquired in an invalid marriage as joint joint property of the spouses;
- for living in a dwelling in which they moved in connection with an invalid marriage;
- for alimony in accordance with Articles 75, 84, 86 and 88 of this Code;
- for the surname that she chose when registering the marriage (Article 46 of the Code).
According to Article 1224 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, persons whose marriage is invalid or recognized as such by a court decision do not have the right to inherit from each other by law.
Let us remind
Law enforcement officers in Dnipropetrovsk region exposed a group that organized fictitious marriages with women with disabilities to defer mobilization. For "services" the attackers took 10-15 thousand dollars.