Though Married Oversea, Larry and Abby Successfully Represent a Foreign Client Get Divorced in China

Our client is a foreign national and the couple were registered as married outside of China and both currently work in China. Due to the breakdown of their relationship, the parties wished to divorce and as they have settled in China, it was unclear whether the divorce could be finalized in China. During the on-site meeting with the client, Lawyer Larry Zhou and Lawyer Abby Wang informed the client that since neither of the parties were Chinese nationals or registered as married in China, the only way to obtain a divorce in China in this case was to file a lawsuit in China.

Before filing the lawsuit in the Chinese court, our lawyers communicated with the client many times to collect and prepare the evidence, in particular to achieve the following important things:

1. to prove that both the plaintiff and the defendant have resided in China continuously for at least one year;

2. to prove that the plaintiff and the defendant have signed a divorce agreement which is not only in accordance with Chinese laws, but also contains contents such as division and compensation of joint property, division of debts, child support, visitation right, child support, etc;

3. contact the judges in advance to confirm the court of jurisdiction for family cases involving foreign marriages, and confirm with the court that if the plaintiff and the lawyer can be present, there is no need to notarize and certify the power of attorney;

4. important documents such as marriage certificate and birth certificate have be notarized and certified.

After submitting the divorce lawsuit to the court, our lawyers went to the court with the plaintiff to sign the documents. After the court formally accepted the case, our lawyers actively contacted the mediator and tell the judge that the plaintiff and the defendant voluntarily divorced, had also reached an agreement on important matters, and signed the divorce agreement. After several rounds of communication with the judge, the judge arranged an online hearing for the case as soon as possible to ask the opinions of both parties on the mediation matters. Three days later, the court issued a mediation judgment, that is, the plaintiff and the defendant had formally divorced.

Because the litigation progressed much faster than planned and the process went very smoothly, both parties are very satisfied with the legal services provided by our lawyers and gave them full recognition!