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| Dominican Lawyers |
It is common to hear practicing as lawyers in our office that some people have only de facto separated from their former partner, but continue to be married to them even though they already live with other people and even have children with their new partners, unaware of the many inconveniences that said situation can cause them in the legal field, which has an important impact on the economic aspect that we will develop in the body of this article.
As an advance, we must say that the situation described above can lead to situations of injustice in which the ex-partner can legally and validly claim 50% of the assets of an ex-partner with whom he does not live, but with whom he is married.
1.- DE FACT SEPARATION IS DIFFERENT FROM DIVORCE
It is good to differentiate between de facto separation and divorce, since in the first the spouses do not live together, but continue with the same rights and obligations that they assumed when they married, there is simply a physical separation, not a legal one, however, in Divorce legally breaks or ends the marriage with all its consequences, which implies that the ex-spouses no longer have any rights or obligations to each other.
2.- EFFECTS OF DIVORCE BETWEEN SPOUSES
When the end of the marriage occurs through a procedure that involves the issuance of a divorce decree and the subsequent steps that must be taken, the former spouses are no longer obligated to each other nor do they have co-ownership rights that later have to be divided.
This is how it is being read, if a person continues to be married to another in the Dominican Republic, even if they no longer live with them, the assets they acquire in the course of that marriage, which has not been legally terminated, must be divided with his former partner, with whom he is still married.
The same happens with obligations or debts, in the sense that in principle, the debt acquired by the person with whom the ex-partner is married, will also be the latter's responsibility. It is something that at first glance is unfair, however, it can be perfectly prevented with a divorce when the relationship no longer exists, in order to break any legal bond that may be harmful.
3.- OBLIGATIONS AND COMMON RIGHTS IF THEY HAVE NOT BEEN DIVORCEED
In this order of ideas, if they are not legally divorced with the requirements that a divorce decree issued by a court of the Dominican Republic must contain, the spouses continue with the following obligations and rights:
A) In principle, they are debtors of 50% of the debts contracted by their spouse.
B) They owe each other fidelity and the other requirements that the law imposes on them.
C) They are co-owners of the property acquired under the regime of community property.
D) Assets acquired under the community property regime must be distributed in common after the divorce.
In short, the law treats them as if they were still spouses and, in principle, they have to fulfill all their obligations or debts and share all their rights.
It is necessary to indicate that this legal situation greatly harms the partner with whom the person who has not been divorced lives, since it places her in a sphere of legal and economic disadvantage that is obviously unfair, and that has its origin in the only because the divorce was not carried out, as we will see later.
4.- WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE ASSETS IF THEY ARE NOT SPLIT AFTER THE DIVORCE
The law establishes a period of two years, after the divorce has been effectively carried out, to divide both movable and immovable property. He makes the observation that after that period of two years what each ex-spouse keeps in his possession will be his property because it is presumed that it belongs to him and that his ex-partner let that time elapse and did not complained through legal channels.
However, the aforementioned has an exception and that is when it comes to real estate registered before the Real Estate Jurisdiction. In this case, the real estate of the spouses that were registered in the Title Registry will always be their property, since in terms of registered real estate there is no prescription and the time that passes after the divorce does not matter, those real estate can be divided. at any time due to the fact that they were registered in the name of the spouses at that time and until the partition of the place is carried out, they continue to be their joint property.
5.- WHAT RIGHT DOES MY NEW PARTNER HAVE OVER MY ASSETS IF I AM STILL MARRIED TO ANOTHER PERSON?
The new partner of the person who is still married to another cannot allege or claim any of the rights that marriage grants to the spouse but is limited to legally having a partnership and in the event of initiating any legal action, they must demonstrate what contributed financially to the relationship.
Unfortunately, this relationship is treated as if it were a kind of commercial situation, unlike the spouse who only with quality is enough to claim his share of the goods produced during the marriage.
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