Not every marriage ends amicably. Advocates regularly work with clients whose spouse won’t answer the phone, refuses to appear in court, has moved abroad without leaving an address — or vanished years ago. None of these situations closes the door to a divorce, but each calls for a different legal route. This article covers how […]
When parents separate, the hardest questions are rarely about property — they are about the children. Where will they live? How often will each parent see them? Who pays for what, and how much? Belarusian law gives parents a way to answer these questions themselves, in writing, without leaving everything to a judge: the Agreement […]
The situation usually looks like this. The marriage was registered in Belarus a few years back. Life has since moved on: one spouse now lives in Warsaw, the other in Vilnius; or one is in Berlin while the other stays in Minsk. There has been no shared household for some time, but the marriage still […]
The litigation is over. The judgment is final. The Belarusian court has issued the writ of execution. The foreign creditor’s in-house counsel scans the writ and forwards it to their Belarusian lawyer with a short note: please send it to the bailiff and let us know when payment arrives. Six months later, in-house asks for […]
Ending a marriage is rarely a simple decision, and in Belarus it is also a formal legal act with strict procedural rules. Whether you are a Belarusian citizen living in Minsk, an expatriate whose marriage was registered years ago, or a foreign national married to a Belarusian, the process runs through the same two channels: […]
Few family disputes generate as much emotion — or as much practical confusion — as alimony. In Belarus, child support obligations are among the most heavily regulated areas of family law, and for good reason: the state treats the financial protection of children as a public interest, not merely a private matter between parents. Yet […]
Marriage to a Belarusian citizen is one of the most straightforward legal grounds a foreign national has for legalising long-term residence in Belarus. It bypasses the more onerous employment and investment routes, and — provided the marriage is genuine and correctly registered — offers a fast track to a temporary residence permit, eventual permanent residence, […]
A summer holiday, a school exchange, a medical treatment abroad, a visit to relatives in another country, sooner or later most families face the question of taking a child across the Belarusian border. And almost every parent has heard some version of the same rule: “You cannot leave the country without the other parent’s consent.” […]
When a marriage ends, one parent often wants the child to carry the same surname they now use — usually a maiden name restored after the split, or the surname of a new spouse. It can feel like a small administrative step. Under Belarusian law it is neither automatic nor the custodial parent’s decision alone. […]
A pattern shows up in almost every alimony case that stalls: the father either has no formal job, or has one that shows a suspiciously modest salary while everything about his lifestyle suggests otherwise. Mothers usually reach a family lawyer once the standard percentage-based order has stopped producing money, or the bailiff’s file has been […]
Every year Belarusian civil registration offices formalise hundreds of marriages involving foreign nationals. Some couples come to Minsk from abroad for the ceremony itself, others are already living in the country on a work or study visa, and many are Belarusians whose future spouse holds a foreign passport. The rules apply to all of them […]
When people picture family law, they usually think of divorce, custody battles or maintenance claims. Underneath every one of those disputes, however, sits a quieter question the law has to settle first: who actually counts as a relative, and how exactly are two people connected? Belarusian law does not leave that to intuition. It draws […]
