Together with the divorce, the court can decide certain ancillary claims, including who has the right to use the home (apartment, house and so on) in which the spouses lived together.
The question of the right to use the home arises when:
- the spouses jointly rented a home and lived in it together; or
- one spouse has employer-provided housing in which both spouses lived; or
- the spouses jointly own the home in which they live; or
- one spouse owns the home in which both spouses live.
In these situations only the courts can decide, under the Civil Code, which spouse will have the right to use the home after the marriage ends.
In the first two cases, because the home is not owned by the spouses, no claim for division of joint property needs to be pending, and the judge will allocate the home based on the evidence in the file.
In the third case, which is common in practice, for the judge to allocate the use of a home owned by both spouses (for example an apartment bought during the marriage), the Civil Code requires a claim for division to be pending before the court. Use will therefore be allocated only temporarily, until the division is complete.
In the last case, also very common, where one spouse alone owns the home in which the other spouse also lives, the court can be asked to evict the non-owner spouse. Here no division claim needs to be pending.
In these situations Alina Szilaghi represents clients and presents evidence in court to show serious reasons for allocating the use of the home, in line with the Civil Code.
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