Divorce
If this is your case, you are not alone. We know it’s not an easy time, and the last thing you feel like doing now is dealing with the entire process you have to face. We want to help you; provide you with steps to identify what you need to know before making a decision, the documentation that is important to prepare, the rights and responsibilities assigned to you… We´ll explain it in a simple way so that, with all the information, it is easier for you to decide how to begin.
Contact us
We want to help you; we are family lawyers, specialized in divorces. We aim to guide you through the steps to identify what you need to know before making a decision, the documentation that is important to prepare, and the rights and responsibilities assigned to you.
We´ll explain it in a simple way so that, with all the information, it is easier for you to decide how to begin.
From now on, you will need to start familiarizing yourself with certain concepts that, until now, you may not have taken the time to understand.
It is essential that you know the difference between separation and divorce, as divorce terminates the marital bond, while separation leaves it in a suspension.
Although you may have to grapple with family law concepts that can initially be overwhelming, it is beneficial to know them. Additionally, you will find it helpful to consult our divorce guide, a straightforward document to make everything more understandable.
To begin, we will analyze your situation. When facing a divorce or separation process, it is necessary to examine the employment, economic, and personal situation of each spouse to determine the measures that can be established regarding custody, child support, assignment of the use of the family home for minors (if applicable), as well as other patrimonial measures such as compensatory and compensation via alimony if applicable. For this, it is important to know the gross and net incomes of both spouses, along with assets, properties, prospects and many different aspects that apply to the specific cases.
Legal procedures in a divorce
The way to proceed will be different if the divorce is by mutual agreement or if it is a judicial process. Here are some of the characteristics:
Mutual agreement divorce
Measures related to the custody of minors, visitation schedule, child support, and assignment of the use of the family home, among others, are agreed by signing a Regulatory Agreement. This agreement will be submitted to the court for approval. Both spouses must approve it in the presence of the court, and subsequently, a judgment is issued.
If there are no minor children involved, the divorce can be carried out before a Notary, only if there’s a mutual agreement.
Judicial procedure
It can involve two proceedings: the provisional measures process and the divorce process. The first is an oral trial, with a processing period of approximately two to three months, requested in situations of necessity and urgency where the judge must issue an imminent resolution. Judicial divorce involves submitting all existing documentation to the judge so that they can interpret the measures to be established after analyzing the employment, family, and personal situation of the spouses.
Documentation required for divorce
The next step will be to gather all the necessary documentation to initiate the procedures for your separation in court. You will need to submit:
- Marriage certificate
- Birth certificate(s) of the children
- Certificate of residence (to establish judicial jurisdiction)
- Regulatory Agreement signed by both parties (if it is a mutual agreement)
- All relevant economic information for the parties’ interests (if there’s no mutual agreement): income tax returns, pay stubs, etc.
The matrimonial economic system has an impact on a process if the decision is made to liquidate the community of property by mutual agreement. On the other hand, in a judicial contentious process, the matrimonial economic system will be reviewed to understand the family’s economic situation. There are many specificities to analyze once the procedures are initiated.
It is important to consider that the timelines for a mutual agreement process and a contentious one are very different. In the first case, the timeline is much shorter, whereas a judicial divorce has an average duration of six months to a year, or even more, depending on each case.
The divorce decree ends the marital bond, ceasing the rights and obligations existing by reason of marriage. The measures dictated by the divorce judgment govern from that moment forward.
If this is your moment, you are not alone. We understand that it is not an easy time, and the last thing you want to do now is to deal with the entire process you have to face.
Make the right decisions for your future
The decisions you make during a divorce can shape your future for years to come. We will carefully assess your situation and design the legal strategy that best protects your interests, whether through an amicable agreement or court proceedings.
Divorcing in Spain as a foreign national
Where the marriage has a connection with more than one country, two questions have to be answered before anything else: which court has jurisdiction, and which law it will apply. They are separate questions and the answers are frequently different, so that a Spanish court may end up applying foreign law to your divorce.
Jurisdiction within the European Union is governed by Regulation (EU) 2019/1111, Brussels II ter, applicable since 1 August 2022. The applicable law is governed by Regulation (EU) 1259/2010, Rome III, which allows the spouses to choose, within limits, the law that will apply. Since Brexit, neither instrument governs a Spanish-British divorce, which is determined instead by Spanish domestic rules and the applicable Hague Conventions.
Documents issued abroad generally require the Hague Apostille and a sworn translation into Spanish. Our page on international divorce examines these rules in detail.
What a divorce decides, and what it does not
A divorce dissolves the marriage. It does not automatically resolve everything that flows from it, and this is a frequent source of misunderstanding.
Where there are children, the decision will determine custody, contact arrangements and parental measures. Where there is a shared estate, the matrimonial property regime must be liquidated, which is a separate procedure from the divorce itself: see matrimonial property regimes. And where the separation causes a genuine economic imbalance for one spouse, a compensatory allowance may be claimed.
If circumstances change afterwards, the arrangements can be revisited through a modification of measures, and if the other party fails to comply, through enforcement proceedings.