In the past publication, we considered the practical recommendations of the lawyers of the “Repeshko and Partners” Bar Association regarding preparation for the process of divorce under martial law.
Finally, the divorce documents have been collected, the court to which they will be submitted has been decided, and what’s next? We continue to consult with lawyers.
“Then there are several options for getting the documents to court,” they say. Each court has its official according tot, which contains all the necessary information about it. Specifying the name of the court, we get its address, opening hours, details for paying the court fee, and this is the main point. A receipt for the payment of the court fee is required before the legal application for divorce. Each court in the country has its own personal details for paying the court fee! It is on the official website of the court that these details are relevant, and in addition, you can pay the court fee online without leaving your home, print the receipt and add it to the statement of claim.
If for some reason you are not a sufficiently advanced user and do not know how or do not want to pay the court fee yourself, you can save or print the details for which you need to make a payment and present them to the cashier directly at the cash desk of any bank. When making a payment, it is absolutely necessary to indicate the last name, first name and patronymic of the payer, as well as the RNOCPP.
The size of the court fee changes every year, unfortunately it only increases and as of 2024 is UAH 1,211.20. In the past year, 2023, this amount was UAH 1,073.60. In any case, when making a payment, the banking system also charges a commission for its services.
All documents must be submitted to the court in two copies – one directly to him, and the second – to be sent to the other spouse from whom you are divorcing. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the original of the marriage certificate is attached to the petition for dissolution of marriage and remains forever in the case file in the court. A purely practical recommendation – make several photocopies of the marriage certificate and save them, in the future it can significantly simplify your life (especially in the conditions of martial law), if only because in the event that you need an extract from the act record of marriage registration (it is impossible to predict when and who will need it), by submitting a photocopy of the marriage certificate to the civil status registration authority, it will immediately be clear in which registry office to look for the deed record, in which year, and the correct spelling of the surnames.
Then the documents can be sent by any postal service to the address of the court or taken and delivered in person during working hours to the office of the court. It is worth sending documents by postal service either by courier delivery, or by registered or valuable letter. It is in this option that there will be no surprises in the form of lost correspondence and the need to start preparing documents from the beginning, losing a significant period of time.
There is another official option for submitting documents – through site Electronic court. This option is used either for an electronic digital signature directly, or through a digital signature in the Diya application. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Electronic Court may not work abroad, may function partially or only through a VPN. This is purely related to ensuring the safety of the platform and excluding unwanted outside interference and hacker attacks. You need to understand the algorithm of the Electronic Court after logging in, I would like to note that not all lawyers, who by law must be registered in this system, are able to confidently work with it at the moment.
Another option for submitting documents is to entrust this process to a lawyer. Yes, it costs certain amounts (the lawyer’s fee is determined by agreement with the client, but there are approximate rates recommended by the Bar Council of the region), but in this case you will not have trouble. This option is most suitable for a spouse who is abroad, for example, a mother with a child, but wants to divorce, as they say – here and now. In this case, a contract is concluded with the lawyer or with the imposition of a digital electronic signature through the Diya application, or the lawyer forwards the text of the contract to the client, which he prints, signs, scans and sends back to the lawyer.
A lawyer will also be needed in the case when, being abroad, the spouse who wishes to divorce does not have a marriage certificate with him (he lost it, did not take it, left it with his other half). Of course, it is possible to get it from Poland or Germany by coming in person, but this is not always possible even under the conditions of stay in the country in which temporary shelter was obtained. In turn, the lawyer, on the basis of the relevant contract, can obtain a duplicate of any document from the civil registry office – whether it is a marriage certificate, birth certificate, death certificate, name change certificate, etc., the main thing is to correctly issue the documents.
Further, if the divorce case is being handled by a lawyer, everything is clear – he will deliver the court’s decision on divorce, which has entered into force, in a timely manner, and the matter will be closed. But if a person deals with the issue of divorce independently, it is necessary to take into account some peculiarities of a purely procedural nature.
First – this is the time of the court’s consideration of the case. This factor depends on many specific circumstances, such as: the workload of the court as a whole, the personal workload of the judge, the conscientiousness of his assistant and secretary, the deadline for providing answers by the authorized bodies, the attendance at the court for the meeting of the second spouse, and in some regions also blackouts with turning off the lights.
The ideal option for proceeding with a divorce case in court is as follows. After receiving a claim for dissolution of marriage, the judge opens the registry of the territorial community to which it is connected (the example is relevant for the district court in a big city and the registration of spouses there at the same address), sees the parties’ registration addresses, makes a decision to open proceedings in the case, taking into account postal service appoints a hearing in about a month and sends the documents.
A month later, the spouses appear in court, or one of them, and the other submits a statement through the court office in the name of the judge that he does not object to the divorce and asks to consider the case without his participation. Such applications can be submitted by each of the spouses, and if everyone does not object to the dissolution of the marriage, the court issues a decision that takes effect after 30 days if it has not been appealed by any of the parties. So, we have a deadline of 2-3 months. If the court needs to send requests to local territorial communities to find out the parties’ registration addresses in order to open proceedings, then you can safely add another month to this deadline.
According to Art. 210 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, the court must start consideration of the merits of the case no later than sixty days after the opening of the proceedings in the case, and in the case of an extension of the term of preparatory proceedings – no later than the next day after the end of such a period. The court considers the case on its merits within thirty days from the day of the commencement of the consideration of the case on its merits. In this way, the law provides for a term for consideration of a civil case, but in practice, sometimes even with the strongest desire to withstand these terms is not realistic, although the courts try.
The right to appeal the court decision is a personal right of the party provided by law, and even if the party filed a statement that it does not object to the satisfaction of the claim, in the future it has full right to appeal the decision, and here is how the appeal will be treated by the court of second instance in this situation is another matter.
Regarding the address of registration of the parties. Their verification by the court is necessary in order to determine the jurisdiction of the case, that is, whether a claim has been filed with that court or not. If, for some reason, it turns out that the petition for divorce was not submitted to the court to which it should belong, the court itself determines the appropriate court and forwards the documents to it. At the same time, it is not necessary to pay the court fee again for the details of the new court.
Secondly, relation to the divorce of the second spouse or lack of information about his current whereabouts.
In our practice, there are rare cases when the information about where the other spouse currently lives or is is unknown. The husband and wife did not see each other in the eyes and do not even have a phone number that could be called. How to act in this case? If the plaintiff has a minor child or other important circumstances listed by us earlier, the lawsuit is filed at the plaintiff’s place of residence. And if not? There are several ways out of the situation.
Article 28 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine provides for the following options:
“9. Claims against the defendant, whose place of registration of residence or stay is unknown, are presented at the location of the defendant’s property or at the last known registered place of his residence or stay or his permanent occupation (work).
- Lawsuits against a defendant who does not have a place of residence or stay in Ukraine may be filed at the location of his property or at the last known registered place of his residence or stay in Ukraine.”
In practice, this means the following:
- If the last place of registration of the second spouse is known, the claim for divorce is submitted to the court at the place of his last registration.
- If the official place of work of the second spouse is known, the claim for divorce is submitted to the court at his place of work.
- If it is known that the second spouse owns immovable property, a lawsuit for divorce is submitted to the court at the location of the immovable property. Jurisdiction in this case will be substantiated by an information certificate from the State Register of Property Rights to immovable property, which can be obtained at application Action. The cost of this service is currently UAH 40. The search by RNOKPP of a person will be more accurate. The only remark is that the register has incomplete information on real estate, the registration of which took place before 2012.
- If none of the options listed above is suitable, then there is another option – to draw up a written act with the participation of a local council member or an elder and neighbor witnesses that the last place where the second spouse lived, which is generally known, is the place of residence of the plaintiff where they both lived for a specific period of time .
The court, which will receive a claim for divorce, will carefully check the grounds for which the claim came to them. If all relevant evidence is available and all documents are correctly executed, the court will open proceedings on the case. In the event that the provided information does not satisfy the court, the procedure for opening proceedings on the case will be delayed in time, and, accordingly, the time for the court to make a decision.
In order to save one’s own time in the conditions of a complex reality, it is better to immediately submit a separate statement together with the claim for divorce that the plaintiff requests to consider the case in his absence, supports the claims for divorce and asks for their satisfaction. This will avoid the undesirable consequences foreseen in connection with the non-appearance of the plaintiff for the consideration of the case.
Article 223 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine states that, in the case of repeated non-appearance of the plaintiff at the court session without valid reasons or failure to notify him of the reasons for the non-appearance, the court leaves the claim without consideration, except for the case in which he received an application to consider the case in his absence, and his non-appearance does not prevent the resolution of the dispute.
So, be legally savvy and try not to get divorced!
