Strangers, no strings attached

Katarzyna Wiśniewska from the Katowice-based Wiśniewska i Partnerzy law firm specialises in family matters. As she says, many people when getting married don’t even know what their rights are. She stipulates that the basis for financial regulations is the matrimonial property regime.

The spouses may decide to have joint or, on the contrary, separate property. Joint property, which is as a rule divided equally, includes everything that the spouses acquired during the marriage, regardless of who worked and who looked after the house and raised the children. If the spouses decide to separate their property, in the event of separation, they do not have the right to their spouse’s property.

– Sometimes the spouses decide to establish property separation in order to protect one from the obligation to pay off the obligations incurred by the other, e.g. for the development of their business. In this case, however, the spouse has no rights to what the other person earned and accumulated during the marriage. Still a lot of people do not know about it – says the attorney-at-law Wiśniewska.

Regardless of the property regime, what the spouses had before the marriage, and even donations or inheritance obtained during marriage, will not be taken into account in the division of property. – Even if we are building a house together, but the plot is owned by a spouse who acquired it before the marriage or who inherited it during the marriage, in the event of divorce and division of property, the other spouse won’t have any rights to it unless the property is incorporated into common property. This may take place by means of an appropriate agreement between the spouses.

Regardless of the property regime, until the divorce is pronounced, each spouse is responsible for meeting the needs of the family – both of the children and the spouse. Despite the lack of divorce, the person taking care of the children may demand funds from the other spouse to support the family. – This is money that helps keep the children on the same level. These aren’t maintenance payments, which are determined in the divorce decree for the future. A spouse who has not been found solely guilty of breaking down the marriage may also claim maintenance for themselves.

In Polish law, however, there are no “partnerships”. The regulations do not provide for any special solutions regarding the division of property between persons who were in an informal relationship. In legal terms, they are treated as strangers. What can they do? – Partners may enter into civil law agreements regulating the principles of covering the costs of shared investments, repayment of liabilities or mutual loans. – If you renovate a flat that belongs only to your partner, you should conclude a relevant contract. It is not an act of mistrust, but responsibility for living together. Civil law solutions aren’t only about money. Partners may also regulate each other’s non-pecuniary rights by means of agreements and declarations. In the absence of a relevant document, partners do not even have the right to obtain information about their partner’s health in the hospital, says the attorney-at-law Wiśniewska.

The article was published in "Wolna Sobota” of "Gazeta Wyborcza” from 29 August 2020