Since 1973, Costa Rica has created a Family Code, which has been maintained without substantial changes like today’s. This is a significant reform in Family Law, which came into effect this October 2024, including important changes that seek to streamline processes such as marriages, divorces, and adoptions of adults.
These are the most relevant elements that you should know:
- Divorce by mutual consent: until now, if both members of the couple agreed to break their relationship, they had to go before a notary public and then take the case to court. Now, it will be enough to sign the divorce deed, fill it into the Civil Registry (Office of Vital Records), and the marriage will be deregistered.
- Marriage: Couples can continue to marry before the Catholic Church or before a notary public. The other possibility is to go straight to the Civil Registry and ask to be married there, as happens in the United States and other countries.
- Recognition of children of married women: The law presumes that the children of a married woman are necessarily her husband’s. If another man wants to recognize the child, it is possible, but until now a judicial process is necessary. With the new law, it will be enough for the biological father to request the procedure at the Civil Registry, and the man (current father) whose paternity was recorded to accept the change.
- Adoption of adults: Recognition will be made directly at the Civil Registry unless the person has a disability or cannot express his or her will.
- Alimony process: Seeks to shorten periods, modernize, and simplify judicial procedures. One of the most relevant changes is the replacement of written processes with oral processes, as well as the reduction of 32 different procedures to just 4.
- Prison for non-payment of alimony (which was previously uniform): any failure to pay alimony entailed a sentence of up to six months in prison. With the new Code, a graduated model is established for this sanction:
a. The first order of prison will be for up to two months.
b. The second order will be up to four months.
c. From the third order, the judge may impose a term of up to six months.
- People over 12 years of age can file a family process and choose a person to represent them.
- Marriages can no longer be celebrated through a POA (power of attorney). The divorces, yes.
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