FINLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Pekka Tuunainen, Pekka Tuunainen Attorneys Ltd
1. Divorce 1.1 Grounds, Timeline, Service and Process There are no grounds needed for divorce. Divorce is simply granted upon application of one of the spouses or upon application made by both spouses. This also applies to same-sex spouses. A written application must be submitted to a district court in the municipal ‑ ity of either spouse. If only one of the spouses applies for divorce, the district court ex officio serves the application (also to foreign nations) on the other spouse and reserves for the other spouse the possibility to issue a written statement on the application. In practice, this possibil ‑ ity to issue a statement is a formality, as there is no legal means to object to divorce. Therefore, divorce is not handled in oral court proceeding and is solely a written process. Although religious marriages are common practice for churches and other religious entities if they are licensed for marriage, only courts can legally dissolve marriages. There are two ways to obtain a divorce, depending on whether or not the spouses have lived separately and for how long. • Most commonly, divorce is granted after a recon ‑ sideration period of six months. (a) If the spouses file a joint application, the recon ‑ sideration period begins when the application is filed at the district court. If the application is filed by one of the spouses, the reconsideration period begins when it is served by the court on the other spouse. (b) Once the reconsideration period has ended, the spouses can jointly file an application for a final divorce judgment, or one of the spouses can do so. Once again, no grounds are needed at this point. The application must be filed within one year from the start of the reconsid ‑ eration period. After this one-year term, divorce proceedings must start, if a second application has not been placed within that time. • The spouses may have a divorce without a recon ‑ sideration period if they have lived separately for at
least the past two years without interruptions. The separation must be proved, which is commonly achieved through entries from the population reg ‑ ister or by the fact that the spouses have lived in different countries for at least two years. Divorce matters are usually handled at the court quite quickly, within weeks rather than months. When divorce is applied for, it is possible to claim an order for the end of common life in the same house ‑ hold at the same time. In such a matter, the court will determine which of the spouses may continue to live in the common home and use it, regardless of which of the spouses owns the home. The other spouse will be ordered to move out of the common household. If this matter is argued, an oral hearing will follow and it is decided separately from the divorce itself. Such a matter should be handled in an expedited process, which the courts do follow well. In practice, this claim is rarely used – most commonly in cases where there are significant differences in the spouses’ wealth and ability to accumulate income. The spouse with lower income-generating ability usually has the right to stay in the common home. When divorce is applied for, the court may also order a spouse to pay maintenance to the other spouse, based on the application. Spousal maintenance is a rare institution in Finland (see 2.4 Spousal Mainte- nance ). 1.2 Choice of Jurisdiction in Divorce Proceedings The jurisdiction of Finnish courts in divorce matters is based on the residency of either spouse. If both spouses are habitually resident in Finland, there are no other requirements. Nationality has relevance only if both of the spouses are Finnish citizens. In such cases, Finnish courts always have jurisdiction, even when the spouses have never lived in Finland, nor even visited the country. In all other cases, nationality has no relevance. There are some limitations on the residency concept when only one of the spouses is resident in Finland.
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