Divorcing in Hungary

Not sure how divorce is viewed here in Hungary, I know more divorced people then married ones.
I know you can go into your local city hall office of the marriage bureau because you have to file any divorce degree with them to make it official in Hungary.
They should be able to answer any questions about what is needed to make a divorce legal.

These days, unless there's some financial advantage or some other admin reason like citizenship or inheritance or maybe for kids, there's no real reason to get married in the first place.

BTW, I would suggest that women retain their own names.  Then there's no admin work to do on a name change back.  It's also about retaining their own identity.  I certainly encouraged Mrs Fluffy to keep her own name.

But just to say, it can cause confusion when kids have a different name to the mother and could cause problems at the airport.   

I've seen kids being interviewed at airports to ascertain if the accompanying person is the mother (for example).   It's only a small inconvenience since kids old enough can answer - assuming the same language is understood.  It's to stop child trafficking so it's got to be worthwhile.

fluffy2560 wrote:

BTW, I would suggest that women retain their own names.  Then there's no admin work to do on a name change back.

Well... That depends. We were married in Switzerland. My wife is a dual citiizen. Different rules in different countries. There (in CH) my wife decided to combine her names with a hyphen, and kept that when we moved to HU. I did not. So to change her name on her HU and CH passports fall under different regulations. For example, as I understand CH law (and I may be wrong), where we were married, we must live apart for 1 year before applying for divorce. How HU and CH law would "work that out" if not true, I have no idea.

Ergo .. Divorce may be complicated for expats. Depends on your individual needs. Suggest contacting an attorney in your home country, and if your spouse's nationality is different, to contact an attorney in your spouse's county. And if you both live in a third country, contact an attorney in that country as well.

That is, be wary of anyone saying something to the effect that any administration work will be "no problem". For them, it may be no problem. For you, it might be a paperwork nightmare.... Just saying..

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

BTW, I would suggest that women retain their own names.  Then there's no admin work to do on a name change back.

Well... That depends. We were married in Switzerland. My wife is a dual citiizen. Different rules in different countries. There (in CH) my wife decided to combine her names with a hyphen, and kept that when we moved to HU. I did not. So to change her name on her HU and CH passports fall under different regulations. For example, as I understand CH law (and I may be wrong), where we were married, we must live apart for 1 year before applying for divorce. How HU and CH law would "work that out" if not true, I have no idea.

Ergo .. Divorce may be complicated for expats. Depends on your individual needs. Suggest contacting an attorney in your home country, and if your spouse's nationality is different, to contact an attorney in your spouse's county. And if you both live in a third country, contact an attorney in that country as well.

That is, be wary of anyone saying something to the effect that any administration work will be "no problem". For them, it may be no problem. For you, it might be a paperwork nightmare.... Just saying..

Yes, sure, good point.   

I was just thinking of us - we were both married before*.

Mrs Fluffy didn't seem to run around too much changing her name back to her original name and she's kept it ever since (over 25 years).  Presumably she just showed her paperwork that she was divorced but she didn't rush off and do it immediately, took her a few years and my arrival into the Mrs Fluffy universe to bother to do it. 

In my own country, there's nothing to stop you calling yourself anything you want.  No court, no papers, nothing (at least in England).   You just have to say that - for example - I'm not John or Jane Smith anymore, I'm now called Clint Eastwood or Lena de Cappuccino.  You can - if you want - make a declaration like an oath in front of a lawyer but it's not a requirement.  It might be hard to get some places to accept your name conversion.   

BTW, there are different spellings in our kids' passport.  HU version has accents over the characters in the kids' names but the British version doesn't.   I don't care if they don't!


* not to judge too much but both of us previously married to psychopaths of varying flavours.  Haha.