Expertise · 08
Family and Succession
Family and succession matters are rarely purely legal: property, business interests, children and often more than one country are bound up in them. We work discreetly and with an eye on the long-term consequences, not only on the outcome of the immediate dispute.
We act in divorce proceedings — by mutual consent and contested — and prepare the settlements that deal with the family home, property, parental responsibility, contact arrangements and maintenance, and act in proceedings to contest parentage. We advise spouses on their property relations — community or separation of property, contribution and assets acquired during the marriage, including company shares and real estate — and act in proceedings to partition matrimonial property and to terminate the community. We draft marital agreements before and during marriage where one or both spouses hold company shares, real estate or significant income they wish to protect.
We also handle family disputes with an international element — between spouses of different nationalities, or between foreign nationals living in Bulgaria. The first questions are which court has jurisdiction and which law applies. The answer turns on EU regulations, international conventions and the Bulgarian Private International Law Code, and often determines the outcome.
In succession matters we draft wills and act for heirs in Bulgaria and abroad: estates with assets in more than one country, the European Certificate of Succession, partition of inherited property, claims for the reserved share and challenges to wills. Wherever possible we seek agreement among the heirs; where that fails, we represent the client in court.
What we advise on
- Divorce by mutual consent and contested divorce
- Marital agreements
- Parental responsibility and contact arrangements
- Child and spousal maintenance
- Contesting parentage
- Matrimonial property and partition
- Family disputes with an international element
- Wills
- Cross-border succession
- Disputes between heirs and partition
- Reserved share and challenges to wills
- Recognition of foreign judgments
Selected experience
- Representation in parental responsibility proceedings between nationals of other EU Member States, involving a dispute over the child’s habitual residence and the international jurisdiction of the Bulgarian court.
- Child return proceedings under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
- Proceedings for an order prohibiting a child from leaving the country.
- Proceedings to permit the relocation of children from Bulgaria to another European country.
- Divorce between Bulgarian nationals, one of whom resides outside the European Union.
- Contested parentage involving questions of assisted reproduction.
- Claims for the transformation of separate property and for a larger share of matrimonial property based on one spouse’s contribution to the acquisition of real estate.