How can you find out whether a person is officially divorced or not, requesting information about the marital status of your husband or wife

Last modified: January 2020

Performing a number of legally significant actions requires certainty regarding the marital status of the participants, which affects the conduct of transactions. How to find out if a person is married, not for the purpose of idle curiosity? A limited number of citizens have the right to receive official information regarding third parties. However, often the presence of a stamp in one’s own passport is a fiction, since the enterprising spouse took steps to dissolve the marriage union, which is possible without the consent and participation of the second spouse in certain situations.

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You, as an intelligent person, want to find out whether your boyfriend, girlfriend or relative is officially married. Did you know that according to statistics, 35% of men hide their marital status when meeting people?

Interesting fact. Many registry offices and archive buildings were destroyed in the post-war period and now it is extremely difficult to find out when and with whom our parents and other relatives were married.

Heirs, children, second spouse, ex-wife and other interested parties can make a request to the registry office. Sometimes the request is made through the court if a case is pending.

Sometimes situations arise when you need to find out whether a person has officially registered a relationship. Any marriage is registered in the registry office. After the registration procedure, spouses receive a certificate. They also make a mark and stamp in the passport, which is proof.

If you are on good terms, you can try directly asking to see your marriage certificate or passport stamp.

If these documents are missing, perhaps there is a divorce certificate? This is what is issued if the marriage has been dissolved. If it is also not available anywhere, do not despair, the divorce certificate can be re-issued at the registry office, it does not take very much time. By the way, you can also get a duplicate of the marriage certificate from the registry office.

Now let’s imagine that you cannot directly ask or check the documents. You can often see advice to contact the registry office and find out information there. This is very bad advice for several reasons.

Firstly, the marriage could be registered in any registry office in our country. You cannot contact each of them. Secondly, no one will simply provide you with such information. Information about a citizen’s marital status is strictly confidential. Registry office employees can only provide it to spouses or their legal representatives.

From a legal perspective, these are all the methods you can use. However, not everything is so sad. Our readers gave some advice from their life experience that may help you.

Try talking to the person's neighbors or friends. Maybe they can tell you exactly his marital status. If you meet them in a cafe or bar, they may blurt it out in conversation. Although if a person agreed to meet you in the presence of friends or relatives, this means that he is most likely divorced or has never been in an official relationship. Family people prefer secrecy and meet in secret apartments so that no one finds out about it.
Look at the ring finger of your right hand. There may be a ring or a mark from it, this will give you some information to think about. Most men take off the ring and put it in their pants pocket if they decide to cheat on their wife. But women, as a rule, immediately say that they are married and do not even take off the ring.
With the growing popularity of social networks, you can easily find the person you need. Look at the marital status listed there. You can also study the photos that are on his page, perhaps in one of them he will be with his family. In addition to the photos themselves, look at who writes comments and leaves likes. If most of the photos have a like from the same person, it may very well be the husband or wife.
What kind of car does he have? A family person can rarely afford a sports car or a two-seater. He will also almost never drive a convertible. In most cases, married men buy minivans or a car with 5-7 seats to conveniently transport children and things.
What places does he like to dine at? If this is a pizzeria or a noisy bar where everyone knows him, most likely such a man is a bachelor. Here's another tip for you, talk to the bartender or waiter and find out how often he comes to them. You can clarify in conversation whether there is another woman with him. At first the bartender will refuse to tell you, but if you give him some money for a tip, he will tell you.
How he spends his weekends and vacations. A man who has a wife and children will never meet you on his day off. He will devote this time to his family. But he will plan dates with another woman on weekdays.
What time does he make appointments, during the day or after work? If it’s after work, it means he’s not expected home and he’s not worried about his family. But if you see each other only during working hours, it means he is trying to hide something.
Does he invite you to his home? A married man almost never brings his mistress to his apartment, because his wife might guess about it when she sees someone else's long hair on the floor. In addition, the wife can come unexpectedly at any time. Therefore, if you are not allowed into the apartment under some pretext, this is a clear sign that the man has a wife or another woman.
What things does he have in his apartment? If, nevertheless, you managed to come to this person’s home, carefully look at the situation. Pay special attention to the photographs and who is depicted in them. Look in the bathroom to see if there are women's cosmetics or shampoo. Or maybe his children’s children’s things are scattered around the apartment. Also, see if there are any other clothes or shoes in the hallway.
How a person talks to you on the phone and how he answers calls in front of you. A family man most often answers in short phrases and never gives compliments over the phone, since his wife can hear him. He replies to most phrases - we’ll talk in person. At the same time, he tries not to give any addresses where you meet him. Also, family people often have two or more phones. This is done so that the wife does not read SMS from other women and is not able to view the call history. As a rule, they leave a second phone number at work to contact you.
Talk to him. Maybe in a conversation he will accidentally mention his wife's name or will constantly change the conversation to another topic when you are interested in his personal life.
You can try contacting a private detective. You just need to contact an agency that has the appropriate license. As a rule, it is enough for an agent to follow a person for several days to determine whether he has a family or not.
Look carefully at his things. When he pays, you can notice if he has cards in another name (for example, in the name of his wife). You can ask him to look at the phone, perhaps there will be a photo of his wife and children on the screensaver.
Look at his passport. For example, when you book tickets somewhere. There may be a mark indicating that the person is married.

Who can find out about a divorce?

If a third party wants to obtain information about the marital status of another citizen, he will not be able to do this, even if there is a family connection between these people. This question is quite relevant at a time when young people begin to make plans for the future with their partner and want to make sure that there are no legal obstacles to this.

Data on the marital status of any citizen can be provided exclusively to the person in respect of whom they are requested and in the presence of a marriage certificate. Unauthorized persons do not have access to this information. What to do if you really need information about the marital status of a loved one? There are several legal methods for this:

In relationships that are built on trust, people try not to deceive each other. If any doubts arise, you need to ask your significant other a frank question and there will be nothing more to worry about.
If, after a direct question, a person claims that his passport is lost, and he does not remember where the divorce certificate is, it would be reasonable to advise him to restore these important documents.
A personal conversation is not the only option for obtaining information about your loved one. There is always a circle of friends and acquaintances who have known a partner from an early age. During a meeting with them, you can ask to look at albums with photographs and correctly ask whether the guy was married and how long ago the divorce was registered.
Social media is a great source of this type of information. This is the most unobtrusive way to find out your marital status.
If there is reason to suspect a person of lying and hiding data, you can turn to a detective agency for help. A private investigation specialist will confirm or dispel doubts in a short period of time.

A possible way out of this situation is to cooperate with a lawyer. The lawyer has the right to send requests to government bodies, including the registry office. Representatives of these institutions are obliged to respond to a lawyer’s request within the period established by law.

How to check

Not only close people, jealous girls or future spouses can check whether someone is married. In most cases, this information is required to protect yourself.

The most common reason is buying a new apartment. It is at this moment that you are most afraid of getting into trouble. After all, if it turns out that the seller has a spouse or children, and he hid this fact, you will have serious troubles in the future.

By law, when selling any property, you must obtain the consent of both spouses to complete the transaction. Realtors usually promise to check such information. Just don't trust them. After all, they simply do not have any legal ways to do this.

Here's what we can advise you. Before purchasing, be sure to ask the seller to obtain a notary certification that he is not married. Of course, the notary will also write down this information from the words of the seller, but something else is important here. If the case goes to court and it turns out that the seller deliberately wanted to deceive you, then the certification from the notary will be evidence. And now the seller will be held accountable for fraud.

Another piece of advice is to insure your transaction against such situations. Be sure to consider this option so as not to end up without money and property. In our practice, there were several cases when buyers did not take care of these actions in advance. We have seen some of them faint after deals were invalidated.

Obtaining information for yourself

The legislation provides for cases of unilateral termination of marriage, so in practice it happens that one of the spouses does not take part in the divorce and does not know that the divorce was initiated by the second partner. Therefore, there are cases when it is advisable to independently prepare a request and clarify whether the marriage has been saved.

Was the divorce registered in the registry office?

Termination of marriage in the registry office without notifying the husband/wife is permitted:

recognition of a person as missing;
application of punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of more than 3 years.

In this case, you must submit a written application to the registry office where the family relationship was initially registered. You can send a request:

It takes from 10 to 30 days to process your request. The period will begin to count from the moment the state fee is paid and the receipt is submitted to the registry office. You will have to collect the answer in person.

Was the marriage terminated in court?

A unilateral divorce in court occurs when the defendant fails to respond to subpoenas and does not ask the court to adjourn the dispute for compelling reasons. If the summons is ignored three times, the judge will grant the divorce without the person present. You can obtain information about the termination of a union from the civil registry office.

Query by database

Never trust online services or databases that promise to find information about a person. As a rule, these are scammers. In Russia, this information is secret and it is prohibited to make it publicly available. Therefore, sites that promise to provide you with information about divorce simply take money from gullible citizens. They can give any answer, but it has nothing to do with the real state of affairs.

If you want to find out this information about your husband or wife, then you need to act differently:

First, check all the documents that you received by mail. If there was a divorce through the court, you should be sent a summons, even if you have not communicated with your spouse for a long time.
Contact the Magistrates' and District Courts with a written request to determine whether the divorce or court order occurred without your participation.
While you are waiting for an answer, call the court clerk and find out if court hearings are scheduled with your participation in the near future.
In addition, each court is now required to post all information about trials on its website. Look for them there; to do this, just enter your first and last name in the search bar. You will be shown all the meetings where you were a plaintiff or defendant.

If there is no information anywhere, it means the person did not divorce you through the court. But the registry office certainly could not do this, since they ask for the consent of both spouses for a divorce.

Path number 2: an advanced way to find out marital status using passport data

In what documents, as a rule, do spouses register together? In the documents for the apartment! Therefore, you can try to get the information you are looking for about whether a man is officially married, using the Unified State Register of Real Estate (USRN) extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate (USRN). The extract is issued electronically or in paper form, the first option is cheaper.

In order to order this certificate, you need to know the exact address of the object being inspected. In other words, according to the Unified State Register of Real Estate, you need to identify an apartment that you own. Data on the apartment being rented will not clarify family status.

When you have the document in your hands, study section 2, which states:

copyright holders for this property by name: look at the common surname and children;
type of ownership: we are interested in joint or shared;
restriction of rights and encumbrance: is there a mortgage.

Analyze this data and find out if your boyfriend has a spouse and children. Thus, using the USRN extract, you can check whether a man is officially married. It is quite possible that it may turn out that the owner is his ex-wife, and the man himself has no rights to the apartment in which he lives. Moreover, their common children, to whom your chosen one pays child support, are also registered in this apartment. Most likely, you are faced with a real swindler who does not need you, but your living space. Therefore, if you find out that in fact the man with whom you want to connect your life is officially married, you should be wary. And you need to think about the goals that a person has. How transparent and noble are they?

We’ll also tell you about the third way, which will help you get a clearer idea of the reliability of the person who spends time with you. And perhaps it takes him away in vain.

Was there a divorce in the registry office?

Article 19 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation states that a marriage can be dissolved in the registry office only if both spouses want it. In addition, they should not have minor children. If at least one of these conditions is not met, then you will have to go to court. Therefore, it is almost impossible for you to be scammed at the registry office and not even know about it. But still, this could happen in three situations:

You have been declared missing. For example, you left to live or work in another city or country and didn’t tell anyone about it. Your relatives wrote a statement to the police that you were missing, but for a year they did not find any information about you. After this, the court decides that you are missing. In this case, the registry office may dissolve the marriage, and you will not even know about it.
If the court finds one of the spouses incompetent. But this is not so easy to do; there must be a conclusion from a psychiatric examination.
One of the spouses was sent to prison for more than 3 years. This is the most common case; many wives use it so as not to wait for their husband. When a person leaves prison, he may not even realize that the marriage has been dissolved. After all, he does not have a stamp in his passport or a divorce certificate.

In each of these situations, you will have to make a written request to the registry office where you got married so that they give an official response. It is best to submit such a request in person in two copies, so that one of them is stamped with a stamp indicating acceptance of the documents. If it is not possible to come in person, send the documents by mail, by registered mail with notification. But it will take longer, since the letter will take from 1 to 30 days. A copy of the marriage registration certificate must be attached to the application. In the answer you will be told whether your marriage is dissolved or not; if it is dissolved, then you will be told where you can pick up the certificate.

Remember that for obtaining such a certificate you may be charged a state fee of 100 rubles. In addition, for issuing a certificate you will need to pay a fee of 200 rubles. To obtain a certificate or certificate you will need the following documents:

application form No. 19, which must be filled out in detail;
passport if you come in person or a notarized copy if you send by mail;
if your lawyer or representative deals with these issues, then you need a power of attorney on your behalf;
receipt of payment of the fee for obtaining information or documents.

Here is a sample of how to fill out an application, just provide your details.

After some time you will receive a response. There may be three options:

You may be sent a notice of form No. 35, which will say that your marriage has not been dissolved (or there is no information about this).
They will send you a certificate of divorce.
They will send you a divorce certificate.

Algorithm

If something goes wrong in a marriage, the most popular response is to file a lawsuit. And if the spouses live separately, then it is quite possible that one of them filed a claim for action. It often happens that each of them has other relationships, and they have been living separately from each other for a long time.

In this regard, there may be a suspicion that the second spouse has filed an application for action. Current legislation allows you to clarify information about the divorce process. This is necessary to protect your interests in court, as well as for peace of mind.

In fact, the law does not have the concept of a secret or emergency divorce. Hearings are public in nature and this is dictated by current legislation.

If there are minor children, then the hearings may not be held in closed session. But if there is mutual agreement, then the process can be closed, where neither one nor the other party is present. All records of existing trials can be found on the official website of the court.

Divorce can only be legalized by the court. The trial must take place only after the notice has been served. But it does not always reach the defendant.

If the spouse lives separately and in another city, then the claim is filed at her place. It is also worth contacting your spouse's lawyer. If there is information that a person has engaged a lawyer, then it is better to contact him and clarify the filing of a claim. He has no right to tell any information other than this.

You can also find out more information via the Internet. To do this, check your spouse’s social network pages, interview relatives or friends. Information is often displayed if you enter your spouse's name and divorce into an online search. Here you can find both true information and gossip regarding this topic.

If the spouse has not received the information, then either the application has not been submitted, or the authorities do not want to disseminate such information remotely. Therefore, it is worth sending out several requests to the surrounding area.

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Divorce proceedings are a labor-intensive process, which is accompanied by a fairly large number of features and nuances. Each spouse should know that he has the right to receive information regarding the proceedings in court.

A common situation: the spouses lost mutual feelings and decided to separate. One of them acts decisively and files for divorce without notifying the other.

How to find out if your wife has filed for divorce in court? Is it possible to dissolve a marriage without the consent of one of the spouses? You will find answers to these questions in a new article on our portal.

Was there a divorce in court?

If the location of one of the spouses is unknown, then the court may grant a divorce without notice. But as soon as you become aware of this, you can challenge this decision. In addition, remember that after the decision comes into force, the registry office needs at least three days to make an entry about this in the register of citizens’ states.

If you want to find out whether a person has been divorced through the court, then you need to send a written request to the chairman of the court and attach to it a copy of your passport and a copy of the marriage registration certificate. You can obtain a sample of this statement from the court office.

How to find out online: check whether a person is married or not

There are three ways to find out whether a person is married or divorced:

Using the telephone directory;
Profiles on social networks;
Communication programs such as: Skype, ICQ.

First way

Based on the first method, you need to find an electronic telephone directory and search for a person by last name, first name, patronymic;
Sometimes such databases record information about who else lives at a specific address and, most often, this is the spouse;
It will be easy to recognize by the same last names;
This method will work if a married couple has lived together for a long time and is not divorced.

Second way

The second method is implemented by searching for a person on social networks.
Find out who you are married to or divorced from. This information is usually indicated on social networks under the status “marital status”.
By typing your full name into the search, and if the profile is open, you can analyze photographs, walls, records and draw a conclusion based on this information.
If the profile is closed, then you can create a “left” page, fill it out to the minimum and add him as a friend, or find an acquaintance who is already friends with him and ask him to let you see the page of the person you are interested in.

Third way

Communication programs include marital status fields during registration. Some people fill them out.
Knowing the nickname and login of the person you are interested in, you can find and find out his details.

Attention. Don't trust sites that promise to give you all the information if you pay them. 95% of sites with such services are scammers; you will send money, but will not receive information in return.