Transactions between spouses during the marriage and after termination of the marriage
During the marriage, the spouses can settle their property relationship with a separate marriage contract, in which case after an eventual divorce the provisions of the marriage agreement shall apply. The marriage agreement is certifying before the Bulgarian Notary and is registering in the Land registry.
The other option is the spouses when acquiring a separate property during the marriage to choose a regime of separation over the acquired property. For that purpose they are signing a declaration that the property belongs only to one of them. The declaration should be registered in the local municipality.
In the above both cases after an eventual divorce the property belongs to those spouse to whom it is agreed in advance.
If nothing is agreed between the spouses before or during the marriage, the legal regime of a mutual ownership should apply (matrimonial property ownership). This means that during the marriage the spouses have ideal parts with equal shares over the property acquired during their marriage.
After the divorce is announced the matrimonial property ownership is automatically transferred to ordinary ownership where the ex-spouses became ordinary shareholders with equal parts (50:50 shares).
The legislation gives to opportunity to one of them with an explicit court procedure to prove a larger part of the property or exclusive rights. As it is difficult for proving our advice is the exclusive rights to arranged in advance if the spouse are not in agreement to be in regime of matrimonial property ownership.
After termination of the marriage, when the spouses are in mutual ownership regime, it is possible one of them to transfer to other its 50 % over the property though notary deed ( most common is though donation or through a sale purchase), so that one of them could become a sole owner.
If the mutual property is used only by one of the spouses during the marriage but when the spouses are in factual separation OR after the divorce is announced – the other spouse ( ex-spouse) could pretend a rent following the month after the other receives an invitation for disagreement with the single use. As the text of the invitation has specifics in such of cases we recommend the invitation to be prepared by a lawyer. There is a limitation period of 3 years to pretend the rent before the respective court if it is not voluntarily paid.
Prepared by ‘Valova and Angelova” law firm