De Facto Marital Relations Legal Significance and Consequences in Cases of Insolvency (Bankruptcy) of Individuals

The article discusses legal problems connected with the property relations arising between persons who are de facto married in the period of bankruptcy of one of them. The regulation of de facto marriage relations is based on the private-law principles; therefore, property can pass from one participant of the de facto marriage to the other under any civil agreement, including with the purpose to protect the property from creditors. This work represents a complex research of questions of legal property relations of de facto married couples through the practice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and the arbitration practice on cases of citizens' bankruptcy. When analyzing the legal regulation of bankruptcy assets formation in case of one of the de facto spouses' bankruptcy, the following tasks were set to be investigated: cases of common conscientious ownership of property acquired by spouses prior to marriage; the most common transactions of de facto spouses with the aim of creating an artificial debt of one of them or subsequent withdrawal of his/her assets; the problem of ensuring a balance of private and public interests when de facto spouses dispose of their property on the eve of bankruptcy; deficiencies in the legal regulation of property relations of de facto spouses. The methodological basis of the study consists of general scientific and specific methods of studying phenomena and processes, including the dialectical method of cognition, a systematic approach that made it possible to analyze the main problems existing in the area of legal regulation of social relations, an empirical method of studying legislation and law enforcement practice that formed the basis for the collection of information on the issues considered in the work, a comparative legal method, which allowed making a comparison of legal norms, a logical method, as well as dogmatic, logical, and formal legal methods used to systematize data and describe the results obtained during the study for the purpose of their further use. The authors proved that de facto marriages as a family life organization model have signs of fictitiousness as participants of such marriages do not pursue the aim of family creation; such persons are united by other private interests. The law "On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)" enshrines direct legal affiliation, which does not exclude the need for courts, when hearing cases on recognition of transactions invalid, to consider the actual affiliation of de facto married persons. The authors draw a conclusion that, in each case of filing a claim to an arbitration manager regarding the invalidation of a transaction between cohabitants, the court should examine not only the legal status of such persons and the mode of property, but also reasonable economic targets of their transactions.

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