Marriage

• The issues related to marriage in Latvia are mainly regulated by the Civil Law and Civil Procedure Law.
• Particularly, in relation to marriage disputes it should be taken into account that in accordance with Latvian law, a person who refers to any facts has an obligation to prove them.

1. Engagement:

• Engagement in Latvia is a mutual promise to conclude a marriage …;
• … however, engagement is not an obligatory precondition for conclusion of the marriage nor the fact of engagement provides the rights to claim for conclusion of the marriage by court proceedings or in any other way;
• If engagament is cancelled or if any betrothed withdraws from it, each betrothed shall return all the property which has been presented by the other betrothed, his/her parents or another person in relation to the planned marriage;
• In addition, the betrothed who has performed the tasks for conclusion of the planned marriage may require from the betrothed who refuses to get married, i.e., cancels the engagement to return all these expenses, as well as losses incurred due to cancellation of the engagement.

2. Announcing:

• Announcing of the planned marriage takes place before the wedding  – the persons wishing to conclude a marriage make it known to the public. This procedure takes place by submitting an application to the registry office;
• A person in Latvia may be married with only one person of the opposite gender at one and the same time. If a person have already (been) married with another person before the planned marriage, the latter marriage must be dissolved (the documents confirming the fact of dissolution of the previous marriage must be submitted) before submission of an application to a registry office;
• Announcing takes place by placing an advertisement in the registry office for 1 month, where an application containing a wish to get married has been submitted. During this time, the persons whose rights would be infringed by this marriage may raise objections against its conclusion by referring to legal obstacles.

3. Conclusion of marriage:

• You may choose a person to whom to get married in Latvia. No one may force you to get married;
• You may get married with any person ar irrespective of his/her origin or religion;
• A marriage in Latvia is allowed only between women and men. Besides, both persons must have reached the age of 18 years and be legally capable. In an exceptional case, a person who has reached the age of 16 years may get married by a parental or guardians’ consent if the other person with whom the marriage is concluded is a major;
• A marriage may be concluded in registry offices, as well as in the church to which at least one of the spouses belongs;
• A marriage between straight line relatives, brothers and sisters and stepbrothers and stepsisters are not allowed in Latvia.

4. Non-existance of marriage:

• The marriage which is (1) neither concluded in the registry office nor in the church, (2) fictive marriage, i.e., without an intention to establish a family, (3) concluded before the spouses or one of them have reached the age of marriage (see Chapter 3 “Conclusion of marriage”), (4) is forbidden due to relationship of spouses, (5) during conclusion of which one of the spouses is already married, i.e., such a marriage which is not valid since the moment of its conclusion shall be declared a non-existent marriage in Latvia,;
• Furthermore, a spouse may dispute a marriage if he/she has got married due to punishable threat, for example, threats of violence.

5. Dissolution of marriage:

• A marriage in Latvia may be dissolved only by court on the basis of a joint application of one spouse or both spouses;
• A marriage may be dissolved if it has fallen apart. A marriage shall be considered as fallen apart if conjugal life of spouses does not exist any more, nor it is expected that the spouses could renew it. It shall be considered that a marriage has fallen apart if spouses have been living separately for at least 3 years. It shall be assumed that spouses live separately if they do not have a joint household and one of the spouses definitely does not want to renew it by denying possibility of conjugal life. A joint household may not exist also in the case if spouses live separately in a common flat. If it is possible to prove all the aforementioned conditions, the court shall dissolve a marriage;
• If spouses live separately for less than 3 years a marriage may be dissolved only in such a case if:
  1) continuing of the marriage is not possible for the spouse who requires dissolution of the marriage due to the reasons which depend on the other spouse and due to which conjugal life with him/her would be unbearable cruelty to the spouse who claims for divorce;
  2) both spouses claim for divorce or one spouse agrees with the claim of the other spouse for divorce;
  3) one of the spouses has started conjugal life with another person and a child has been born during this conjugal life or birth of a child is expected.
• If the court considers that due to existance of the conditions mentioned in paragraphs 1), 2) or 3) it is possible to save the marriage, it may cancel the proceedings for the period up to 6 months in order to conciliate the spouses;
• If one spouse claims for divorce (1) due to the reasons not mentioned in the previous paragraph, and (2) the other spouse does not agree to divorce, the court shall not dissolve the marriage before the period of 3 years and cancel the proceedings in order to conciliate the spouses;
• A marriage shall not be dissolved also in the case if spouses have not agreed on (1) guardianship of the child born during their marriage, i.e., it should be agreed with which of the parents a child will live, as well as in what way and how often the other parent will participate in bringing up the child, (2) a child’s alimentation, i.e, it should be agreed on the allowance which will be paid by a parent to the other parent with whom the child will live in order to cover the expenses necessary for the child, and (3) division of joint property[1], or if the respective claims have not been settled before divorce, nor pursued along with the claim for divorce.

6. Consequences of non-existance of marriage and divorce:

• If a marriage is declared non-existent and only one of the former spouses has known that the marriage is to be declared non-existent upon getting married, the other spouse who has not known that shall be entitled to require from him/her:
  1) a compensation for moral injury;
  2) financial resources appropriate to his/her property status if it is necessary to ensure the previous level of welfare or allowance.
• Upon dissolution of marriage or after divorce the former spouse may require financial resources from the other spouse appropriate to his/her property status if: (1) the latter has facilitated the marriage falling apart by his/her activities and (2) financial resources are necessary to ensure the previous level of welfare or allowance;
• The obligation to ensure the previous level of welfare or allowance for the former spouse shall expire when a period has passed after divorce or declaring the marriage non-existent which is equal to the respective period of the length of dissolved marriage or conjugal life which is declared non-existent. In the cases when a child of the former spouses has not attained majority during this time and is under guardianship of that former spouse who is entitled to claim for the financial resources this obligation shall continue to be valid until a child attains majority;
• The obligation to ensure the previous level of welfare or allowance for the former spouse shall also expire if:
  1) the former spouse has got married again;
  2) income of the former spouse respectively provides the previous level of welfare or allowance;
  3) the former spouse avoids to acquire financial resources for allowance by his/her work;
  4) another conditions exist which indicate that the necessity to receive financial resources from the former spouse is not valid any more.

Persons in Latvia may live together without getting married but they do not have the same rights as for married couples.