Lawyer's participation in cases on establishing the fact of living in the same family of a man and a woman without marriage registration

The article is devoted to the issue of establishing the fact that a man and a woman live in the same family without marriage registration and the involvement of a lawyer in this category of cases.

In the article, the author analyzed the main provisions of family legislation, which regulate the procedure for establishing the fact of living in the same family of a man and a woman without marriage registration, as well as court practice on the specified topic.

The author emphasized that this institution of family law existed for a long time and received its regulatory definition in Roman private law, where it was defined as "concubinage". The family legislation of Ukraine enshrines the freedom to marry, that is, a man and a woman cannot be forced to marry, and their living together as one family without state registration in the civil status registration authorities does not contradict the current legislation. The de facto marital relationship is no different from the relationship of spouses whose marriage is registered, that is why they are called de facto or "de facto marital relationship".

Regarding the participation of a lawyer in cases of establishing the fact of living in the same family of a man and a woman without registration of marriage, the author indicates that the participation of a lawyer in such family cases involves the provision of legal assistance to the person he represents in the form of providing consultations and explanations about property and personal non-property rights of each de facto spouse. Usually, the lawyer must point out that a long period of residence in a de facto marital relationship predisposes to the consequences that occur in the event of a divorce.

The article states that a lawyer in such family cases must take into account a number of features of these cases, namely, that the court, when considering the case, establishes the persons between whom de facto marital relations are established, the duration of such relations (from the time of living together as spouses), conduct of de facto marriage to spouses of a joint household, in the event that the de facto spouse has joint children, their personal data, the fact that the applicant is dependent on a deceased person. At the same time, most often a lawyer is involved precisely as a representative of a person in cases about the division of joint property of persons who lived without registering a marriage, because interested persons may have difficulties in solving such cases in court, due to the lack of clear normative regulation of the procedure for determining the duration cohabitation of de facto spouses.