Is a marriage certificate taken away during a divorce?

A certificate confirming the fact of marriage is, in most cases, important only for ex-wives who want to change their surname after divorce. However, due to inexperience and ignorance, they submit its original along with the statement of claim to the court, which deals with the divorce proceedings and, after completion of the proceedings, sends the case to the archive, from where it is almost impossible to obtain it. The fact is that court officials do not care whether you still have a marriage certificate in your hands after divorces or not, since they act according to instructions prohibiting the release of documents from the archive.

In addition, some citizens are careless about official papers and carelessly allow them to be damaged or destroyed, and then do not know what to do if a document about a previously concluded marriage is suddenly required when contacting government agencies.

All this indicates the following: to prevent such situations from arising, you need to know the answers to the following questions:

1. Do marriage certificates remain after divorces or not and in what cases does this happen?
2. Which government agency and how can I obtain copies of a marriage certificate after a couple divorces?
3. Employees of which government agency can, after a divorce, take away marriage certificates from members of a family union and for what reasons?
4. How can spouses confirm the validity of their previous marriage and the fact that they have dissolved the family relationship?

Are marriage certificates taken from spouses during a divorce and for what reasons?

Upon divorce, the marriage certificate is confiscated from the former spouses by the civil registry office staff to transfer this civil status act to the archive. This provision is established by the law “On Archival Affairs in the Russian Federation”. However, what exactly will be taken from you: the original or a duplicate, depends on the discretion of the registry office employees. The court may also take away the original document from you for inclusion in the case file sent to the archive. To prevent this from happening, you should never attach original official papers to your statement of claim. You only need to bring originals to court hearings.

Where does the original marriage certificate remain after a divorce?

After the termination of the marriage ties, the previously issued document on the formation of the family loses its legal force and becomes invalid upon dissolution. Whether a marriage certificate is surrendered during a divorce is determined by the actions of the divorcing spouses and legislative acts regulating the procedure for interaction when submitting documentation to the relevant authorities with subsequent archiving.

When carrying out the procedure at the registry office

Divorce in a simplified manner through the registry office is provided for spouses who have expressed bilateral consent and do not have property claims and minor children. According to a simplified scheme, without visiting the courts, divorce is based on the person who has expressed his desire, if, by decision of the justice authority, one of the family members:

• limited in legal capacity;
• listed as missing in action;
• convicted of a crime for a term of at least three years with a sentence of imprisonment.

Where does the marriage certificate go after a divorce in the registry office is stated in paragraph 4 of Article 33 (if dissolved on the basis of a joint application) and paragraph 3 of Article 34 (if the union is terminated unilaterally) of Law No. 143-FZ of November 15. 1997, regulating acts of civil status. The original document presented is returned with the appropriate mark to the applicant, and in the case of registration of a marriage union by the body carrying out the divorce, provision of a duplicate is not required if it is lost.

Whether a marriage certificate is taken away during a divorce if the original is presented instead of the copy permitted by regulations depends on the actions of the body’s specialists and the approval of the applicants. Possible options:

1. The employee takes a copy, certifies it with his own hand for transfer to the archive, and the original document with a mark of invalidity is returned to the applicants. The affixed stamp deprives the document of legal force.
2. The specialist, trying to play it safe, takes away the marriage certificate, citing the need for archiving and the possibility of obtaining duplicate information at any time at the request of the applicant. Divorcing spouses have the right to disagree with the actions of the representative or request a certified copy.

The absence of the original document for the termination of the marriage union obliges the submission of a duplicate in a situation where the dissolution process is carried out by a body other than the one that recorded the registration of the family union.

Is a marriage certificate taken away during a divorce in court?

Dissolution of marriage bonds in court requires, when filing a claim, the attachment of a number of documentary evidence, where a copy of the marriage certificate is placed first.

The divorce procedure is carried out in court if:

• there is no mutual consent to terminate the union;
• there are children who have not reached the age of majority;
• Issues of division of property values ​​are not resolved.

When getting a divorce, do I need to attach the original marriage certificate to the statement of claim? Regulatory Article 35 of Law No. 143-FZ does not contain these requirements, considering a copy to be a sufficient argument for the court, and if there is doubt about the authenticity, judges may require the original for review during the trial.

• Statement of claim for divorce

The plaintiff, when providing the original in a set of documents, has the right to request a return and replacement with a copy certified by the court to remain in the file and transfer to the archive. If the court carried out a seizure, and subsequently an invalid form was required, then it is necessary to request a certificate of marriage registration from the body that carried out the procedure. A duplicate is issued only until the official termination of the union with a note about re-issuance.

What is given in return

In a situation with spouses who have already divorced and received a certificate of termination of the marriage union between them, the registry office can act in relation to the marriage certificate in two different ways:

1. On the original certificate confirming the fact of the marriage between the spouses, the authorized civil registry office employee puts a stamp marked “Invalid”. This is an official confirmation that a document has lost its legal force. Next, he makes a copy of this paper in order to remove it and add it to the archival data. In this case, the original certificate may remain with the former spouses.
2. Civil registry office employees take away from the wife and husband a certificate certifying the fact of registration of family relations, citing the fact that at any time former participants in family relations can receive a certificate containing the same information as the original document. They should not be allowed to do this. It is necessary to request a copy certified by an authorized employee to be made instead of the original, which is confiscated by the registry office. If a government agency refuses to comply with your demands, seek protection from the court, because the registry office has no right to irrevocably take away your certificate. You must have at least a copy of this document in your possession.

In the event that the original certificate certifying the fact of the marriage union was seized by the judicial authority and sent to the court archive, there is only one opportunity to obtain a copy of it. To do this, you will need to submit an application to the registry office, which was responsible for registering the marriage relationship, with a request to provide a certificate of previous marriage.

If the government agency where you got married is located in another city, then in order to get a duplicate, you will need to go to this locality to get it.

In addition, the following life situation may arise: a judicial authority is considering a divorce case, and the defendant and plaintiff do not have marriage certificates. In this case, the interested person, who, as a rule, is the plaintiff, requests a duplicate through the registry office. Since this is not the first time the spouse has received the certificate, government officials mark it as “Repeated.”

This is done so that it is impossible to use the original, since the conclusion of the registry office, which formalizes the issuance of a duplicate, deprives the legal force of the first document.

Divorce in court

If divorcing spouses have disputes over the division of property or have minor children, then the divorce should be filed through the court. A claim for divorce is filed in court by one of the spouses, acting as the plaintiff. In this case, the other becomes the defendant. The claim must be supported by certain documentation, the list of which includes a marriage certificate.

If the applicant wants to keep the original document, then a notarized copy of the marriage certificate should be attached to the claim. If the original document is handed over to the court, it will later be sent to the archives and it will not be possible to retrieve it.

To confirm a previously registered marriage relationship, the ex-spouse will have to contact the registry office where the family was registered. After paying the state fee and writing a petition, the applicant will be issued a certificate confirming the marriage.

If the marriage certificate is lost, you should request a duplicate of the document from the registry office where the marriage was registered. It should be attached to the claim for divorce and indicate the fact that a duplicate has been received. On the certificate form there will be o. The document can be issued to the applicant only if the divorce procedure has not yet been formalized. If the claim for divorce is satisfied, the applicant is given an extract on the basis of which he can request a divorce certificate from the registry office.

In exceptional cases, divorce proceedings may take place without a marriage certificate. But there must be good reasons for this. The court will independently make a request to the registry office to obtain information about registering the marriage.

How to confirm that there was a marriage

Upon divorce at the registry office

It is known that marriage ties can be dissolved in the registry office and in court. These two procedures have significant differences, but in both cases the marriage certificate remains in the archives after the divorce. Not all couples can dissolve a marriage in the registry office; the mandatory items must be:

1. Mutual consent to divorce.
2. No joint minor children.

If the above conditions are met, then the divorce procedure is 30 days, after a written application with a full package of documents and payment of the state fee. A court decision will be issued to sever the official relationship between these persons, and the marriage certificate will be confiscated. The marriage certificate is kept for 75 years; after this time, it must be destroyed.

Rules for dividing a joint apartment during a divorce

How to confirm that a marriage is dissolved

According to the twenty-fifth article of the Family Code, spouses were able to officially divorce when the registry office made an appropriate entry in the book registering acts of civil status, or when the court decision in the divorce case came into force.

The document that is transferred to both former spouses and confirms the breakdown of family relations between them is a certificate of termination of marriage issued by the registry office.

If it becomes unusable or destroyed, you can obtain a second certificate from the registry office by submitting the appropriate application and paying a fee of 350 rubles to the state treasury.

The legislative framework