28.02.2016 – Boryspil City Court of Kyiv region satisfied Ganna Garo’s appeal filed in the client’s interests on establishing the fact of living as one family for at least five years before the inheritance opening and on dividing the community property acquired during the period of living together, and excluding it from the succession mass.
According to ch. 1. Art. 74 of the Family Code of Ukraine, “whenever a woman and a man live together as an unmarried couple, the property they acquired by them during during the period of living together belongs to them as a joint matrimonial property unless a written agreement between them provides otherwise”. According to Art. 1264 of the Civil Code of Ukraine the fourth prioritylegal heirs shall be the persons who lived as one family with the testator for at least five years before the inheritance opening.
During the trial, all signs of an actual family, namely a man and a woman living together, keeping joint household, sharing a common budget and having common legal duties and obligations were proved. Proper and valid evidence established that a man and a woman, living as one family, together brought up a child, bought estate and property, carried out repairs, had mutual friends, spent free time spent together and travelled, and were going to marry in church.