Home / Divorces / How to find out if a divorce application has been filed
The most civilized way to dissolve a marriage, avoiding intrigue and manipulation, is a joint application by the wife and husband to a government agency, consideration of the divorce case in the presence of two spouses and announcement of the result to both of them simultaneously. But in life things happen differently. For example, one of the spouses does not even know that the second spouse has filed for divorce. Or the threatening phrase “getting a divorce!” sounds in the family so often that it is no longer taken seriously, or forces you to live in constant suspicion, forces you to play it safe all the time.
One way or another, the spouse may have a question: how can one reliably find out that the wife or husband has filed for divorce? And is it possible to get a divorce without the second spouse knowing about it?
In which court to find out?
The first question that arises for a person worried about a difficult life situation is: “Where could the spouse apply for divorce?” What comes to mind is the nearest court or registry office where the marriage was registered. There is a certain logic in this. But the registry office cannot dissolve a marriage without the participation and consent of each spouse. This can happen in court.
Therefore, firstly, it is necessary to identify all possible courts in which a claim for divorce could be filed.
To do this, in the vast majority of cases, you will only need information about your registration address and the address of your spouse.
To search for information about divorce:
- We look for a magistrate’s court at our place of registration and apply there.
- If there are minor children registered with a spouse, we also look for the magistrate’s court at his (her) registration address and also check whether a claim for divorce has been filed.
The situation can become even more complicated if disputes about the division of property and children are possible, then it is necessary to monitor court cases in district courts.
How to find out whether a husband or wife has filed for divorce at the registry office?
Submission of documents for divorce through the registry office is carried out only and exclusively in the presence of both spouses or when one of the spouses sends a notarized application, but subject to the appearance of the second spouse at the registry office for personal submission of documents.
You can unilaterally dissolve a marriage in the registry office if:
- the husband or wife was sentenced to a prison term of 3 years or more;
- one of the spouses is declared missing or incompetent.
If you do not belong to the listed categories, then you can rest assured - without your participation, your spouse will not be able to submit documents for divorce to the registry office .
Find out more about the procedure for divorce through the registry office.
Magistrate's Court
Let's look at a few of the most common situations:
- Have no children. The spouses are registered at different addresses. To track the divorce application, we are looking for a magistrate at our place of registration.
- Have no children. The spouses are registered in the same living space. We are looking for the court district of the magistrate, whose territorial jurisdiction includes your general registration address.
- There are children, all registered with you. We are looking for a magistrate's court at our place of registration.
- There are children, but they are not registered with you. We are looking for two magistrates' courts. At your place of registration and at the registration address of your spouse.
After the court districts in which the claim could be filed have been determined:
- We recommend that you call there and find out if your spouse has received an application for divorce.
- If information is not provided by phone or it is not possible to reach the precinct, visit it in person and check with the court office to see if there is a divorce case in which you are the defendant.
- There is also a third option, find information about the case online on the court's website.
Please note that the husband does not have the right to initiate proceedings for divorce without the wife’s consent during her pregnancy and before the child reaches one year of age. But in practice, such a decision can be made if information about pregnancy and the birth of a child is not presented to the court. A woman may simply not find out about the divorce process in time. To cancel an illegal decision, you will need to appeal it to a higher court and, in most cases, restore the deadline for filing such a complaint, which cannot always be done without the help of a lawyer. Therefore, in any situation, it is important to know how to stay informed about court cases.
Find out online about divorce in the Magistrates' Court
For example, residents of Moscow can obtain information about court cases on the portal of the Unified Information Space of Magistrates of the City of Moscow: https://mos-sud.ru/.
- To search for your spouse’s claim for divorce, select the section: “Case Information.” A form to fill out will appear.
- Indicate your last name in the “respondent” column and click on the “Search” button.
- You will see a list of cases in all Moscow magistrates' courts where your name appears. If your spouse has actually filed for divorce, you will find a case listed with your names as plaintiff and defendant. On the left you will see information about the court district where the case is being heard.
- By clicking on the column “Add. info", you can find out about the progress of the case: when the claim was received, dates of court hearings, judicial acts adopted in the case. Sometimes you can even read the text of the decision in the case.
If the required civil case is not on the list, this is not a 100% guarantee that the divorce claim was not actually filed in court. An employee of the court office may not have entered the information into the database yet, or may have made a typo in the name, and therefore the online service does not find it. This happens quite often.
The most effective way to find out about a divorce is to find out the addresses of the courts where the lawsuit could be filed and go there in person.
To do this, you will need to refer to the territorial jurisdiction module (highlighted in the first screenshot). In accordance with the rule for determining jurisdiction, which was described above, we enter, firstly, our address, and get the contact details of the court district, and secondly, if the children are registered with a spouse, his registration address, and also find out the number telephone number and address of the magistrate. This portal is valid only for searching court cases in Moscow.
Options for the development of events after the notification
So, the defendant found out that the wife/husband filed for divorce. What is the next sequence of steps? We have considered in great detail and will continue to consider options for the development of events, which can be found in the articles in this section. Therefore, here we will only briefly recall the main ones:
| Situation | Explanation |
| Deadline for reconciliation | If one of the parties does not agree to divorce, then Art. 111 of the IC gives the court the right to give the spouses a period for reconciliation, if this does not harm the parties, their children or does not contradict the moral principles of society. As a rule, this is 1 – 3 months, but the period can be extended to six months. |
| Failure of a party to appear in court | For the first and second failure to appear, the court will require the party to provide valid reasons and reschedule the hearing. In the event of a third failure to appear, the court may automatically satisfy the plaintiff’s demands (Article 223 of the Code of Civil Procedure). |
| Divorce | If the court decides to grant the claim, the defendant has 30 days to appeal. After this, the decision comes into force. The court decision will be a document confirming the fact of divorce. |
It should be noted that failure to appear in court is absence from a hearing without a valid reason and/or without notification of the delegation of authority to represent one’s interests to a third party.
District Court
If it is assumed that the spouse may still demand to divide the property, determine the place of residence of the children or the order of communication with them, one should also check the receipt of applications in the district courts.
The address at which the court should be sought is determined in the same way, but there may be exceptions.
For example, a spouse could file a claim for division of property. In some situations, he has the right to apply to the location of this property. Therefore, if there is real estate, you should also check court cases at the address where this real estate is located.
Find out about divorce in district court via the Internet
To search for information about the district court and court case online, Moscow residents can use the official portal of the courts of general jurisdiction of the city of Moscow: https://www.mos-gorsud.ru/mgs/search
Two modules will be useful:
1. Search by court cases.
By going to this section, you can check by last name the availability of court cases in all district courts of Moscow.
2. Territorial jurisdiction.
This section will help determine in which courts a claim can be filed. We enter the street and house number, and we get the district court that operates in the given territory. You can also find out: the address, telephone numbers, and judges of a particular court. If information about the filing of a claim is reflected, we recommend that you come to an appointment with the judge (during reception hours) and familiarize yourself with the case materials and the date of the court hearing. To avoid any surprises in the future, there is time to prepare your position on the case and seek qualified legal assistance.
Reception hours for judges in Moscow:
Monday from 14:00 to 18:00
Thursday from 9:00 to 13:00
Spouse against divorce
If a couple agrees to divorce through the court, then the court dissolves the marriage without clarifying the reasons for the divorce (this is stipulated in Article 23 of the Family Code). If the plaintiff does not inform the court of the reasons for the breakdown of the marital relationship, the court may temporarily stop the lawsuit. But do not refuse, but only offer reconciliation, and give three months for this (Article 22 of the UK). If the spouses have resolved the conflict, the proceedings are stopped.
In this case, any of the spouses can again file a claim, then the court returns to the consideration of the case and makes a decision. If one of the couple is against it, the plaintiff must describe in detail the reasons that forced him to go for divorce, tell why the marriage broke up, and what exactly prevents it from being restored. The court, having studied the materials, decides whether the couple’s life together is possible in the future.
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Will the court notify about the divorce?
The duty of the court is to properly notify the participants in the process about the progress of the case, send to the defendant: a copy of the claim with attachments, a ruling on acceptance of the claim and preparation of the case, summonses with dates of hearings and other judicial acts. If the defendant does not live according to registration, he may simply not know about the receipt of court correspondence. The retention period for court letters by mail is 7 days, after which they are returned back to the court. It is believed that the court properly notified the defendant, but since no one received the correspondence, it was returned back to court. Sometimes plaintiffs deliberately indicate the defendant's address incorrectly, and courts do not always verify the accuracy of the information provided. Therefore, the defendant remains unaware of the hearing. And when one learns about a decision, it can often be reversed only through a higher court, which will require much more effort than participating in court hearings in the court of first instance.
How are spouses notified of divorce in court?
The parties are summoned to court using a subpoena. Article 128 of the Code of Civil Procedure establishes that a summons may be made:
- By email, if it is officially confirmed by a party to the case.
- By registered mail with mandatory notification.
- By courier (also with written notification).
- At the trial (for example, at the next hearing) against signature.
Clause 5 of Art. 128 of the Code of Civil Procedure determines that the summons must be delivered in such a way that the parties have time to prepare for the meeting. In this case, it is not allowed to serve a summons less than 5 days before the trial .
Review in absentia
In the absence of the defendant, judges may offer a default judgment to the plaintiff. It is slightly different from the usual, the defendant is given an additional 7 days from the date of receipt of the decision to cancel it. That is, it is much easier for a person who is unfamiliar with the divorce to cancel it by directly contacting the court that issued it. When agreeing to such a decision, the plaintiff must assess all possible risks of its cancellation. If the plaintiff refuses the default judgment, the judge sets a new court date and again notifies the parties.
Can my marriage be dissolved without my participation?
Thus, many marriages are dissolved without the participation of one of the parties, sometimes only because they were not aware of the court case. But it is worth understanding that if the decision on divorce has already taken place, the unknown defendant has every right to cancel it, but in the end the marriage will still be dissolved, the only question is time. Russian legislation does not allow one of the spouses to be forced into marriage, against his will.
Courts often invite the plaintiff to provide the spouse’s phone number, email address, and send a telegram at his own expense about the date of the court hearing to his address in order to notify him of the court hearing by any means. If information about the consideration of the case in court by the defendant is received, the risk of overturning such a court decision is reduced tenfold.
An experienced divorce lawyer will help you not only find out about the divorce in advance, but also warn you against possible risks during the division of property and the emergence of disputes about the upbringing and maintenance of children. Preventive legal assistance, as well as medical assistance, will help overcome the process more easily and with minimal losses.
The summons does not arrive: what is the reason?
Regardless of the jurisdiction of the court, any divorce proceeding cannot proceed without notice to the defendant. Therefore, after the plaintiff files a claim, a subpoena is sent to the defendant at his place of residence or registration, which indicates all the information about the upcoming hearing.
However, often courts approach this issue formally and do not issue a summons. This happens in cases where the plaintiff indicates the address at the place of registration, and not the actual one, and the notice simply does not reach the hands of the defendant.
If the summons does not arrive before the defendant, then, as a rule, this is due to the fact that:
- the plaintiff indicated an incorrect address or false information about the location of the second party;
- the court did not satisfy the wife’s claim;
- the application was not written or submitted at all.
There are often cases when a divorce is formalized by the court without the knowledge of the other party. In such situations, the spouse can file a counter-application to the court to annul the decision, since there is every reason for this - he/she was not notified by the court about the start of the process, and therefore could not defend himself in court.
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If the defendant has not received notice of the divorce proceedings, then he does not have the right to give his consent to the divorce.
There are exceptions when the defendant intentionally fails to appear at the court hearing. After the third postponement of the hearing, the court has the right to divorce the parties without the appearance of the second party.
