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 application made by both spouses. This applies also to same-sex spouses. A written application must be submitted to a district court in the municipality 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 possibility 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 it is solely a written process. Although religious marriages are common prac - tice for churches and other religious entities, if they are licensed for marriage, only courts can legally dissolve marriage. There are two ways to get a divorce, depending on whether or not the spouses have lived sepa - rated and for how long. • Most commonly, divorce is granted after a reconsideration period of six months. (a) If the spouses file a joint application, the reconsideration 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 jointly, or one of the
spouses, can file an application for final divorce judgment. Once again, there is no grounds needed at this point. The appli - cation must be filed within one year from the start of the reconsideration period. After this one-year term, divorce proceed - ings must start, if a second application has not been placed within that time. • The spouses may have a divorce without a reconsideration period, if they have lived separated for at least the past two years without interruptions. The separation must be proved. Commonly, this is proved by entries from the population register or the fact that spouses have lived in different countries for at least two years. Divorce matters are handled at the court usually quite fast, within weeks rather than months. When divorce is applied for, it is possible to claim at the same time an order for the end of common life in the same household. 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, oral hearing will follow and it is decided separately from the divorce itself. Such a mat - ter should be handled in an expedited process, which the courts do follow well. In practice, this claim is used quite seldom; most commonly in cases where there are significant differences in the spouses’ wealth and ability to accumulate income. The spouse with a lower income-gen - erating ability usually has the right to stay in the common home. When divorce is applied for, the court may, based on the application, also order a spouse to pay maintenance to the other spouse. As will be
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