FINLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Pekka Tuunainen, Pekka Tuunainen Attorneys Ltd
Trusts are not recognised in Finland. However, if one is beneficiary in trust or assets have been transferred into trust to avoid division of marital property, the trust assets can be taken into con - sideration. 2.4 Spousal Maintenance Spousal maintenance is recognised in legisla - tion. In practice it is used in very few cases. During marriage it is mostly unknown although possible by law. The main approach is that spousal maintenance duties are fulfilled during the course of marriage as spouses wish, and after the breakdown of marriage, spousal main - tenance responsibilities are over and it is up to each spouse take care of their own needs, and if needed, the social welfare system will support. Spousal maintenance is used mainly in divorce cases when the other party is from a foreign, low- income country and has no social network or job in Finland and has limited financial resources. In these cases maintenance can be ordered until division of property is finalised and if that does not suffice, maintenance can continue normally for a maximum of a year or two. The amount of maintenance is normally relative - ly low and not determined by the standards of living during the marriage although it can have some relevance. 2.5 Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements are rec - ognised and must be followed by courts and distributors. Spouses may enter a marital prop - erty agreement either before they marry or at any time during the marriage. This is quite a popular agreement because, as described above, the Finnish marital property regime covers all assets, even all assets before the time of marriage.
Such an agreement must be made with the formalities required by law (signatures and wit - nesses), but it is made solely privately. It is not possible to have a notarised prenuptial agree - ment. To make an agreement valid, it must be registered with the local magistrate. As said, agreements are strictly followed as a main rule. The law allows for the adjustment of a marital property agreement. Use of this legis - lation is very limited in practice. Only in cases when an agreement can lead to an obviously unjustifiable or unreasonable result, adjustment of agreement can be used. To some extent spouses’ financial needs can result in adjust - ment of agreement, which minimises the use of spousal maintenance. Courts adjust marital property agreements com - monly in cases of long marriage and a spouse with no notable assets who has made a signifi - cant effort in the household or worked without decent pay in a family company and the other spouse has accumulated wealth during mar - riage. Even in such cases, division of property is not judged as equal division. The result of adjustment is normally a fraction of assets or a fixed amount. 2.6 Cohabitation There is special legislation in relation to unmar - ried cohabitants. The main rule is that parties will have their own assets after separation and there is no possibility of division of assets. However, a cohabitant can have a monetary claim of excessive inputs into the other cohab - itant’s asset. There is quite a heavy burden of proof from the claimant, but orders to pay exist in practice. Successful cases are normally quite obvious where the other cohabitant has paid all family costs and even paid partly for assets
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