Buying from a Married Seller in Ukraine: When the Deal Is Unwound for Lack of Spousal Consent

Contract Structuring | JVS Law

You are buying an apartment, a car or equipment. The seller is married — or was married when the asset was acquired. A year later the spouse sues: no consent was given, and the contract should be declared invalid.

Everything turns on one question: is the absence of consent, by itself, enough to take the asset away from you?

The Supreme Court has answered it three times in ten years, and each time differently. Below is where the line now stands, why an apartment and a car are two different stories, and what has to be in your file for the claim to fail.

Step one (2015–2018): bad faith of both was required. The Supreme Court of Ukraine, in rulings of 07.10.2015 in case No. 6-1622цс15, 27.01.2016 in case No. 6-1912цс15 and 30.03.2016 in case No. 6-533цс16, held that a contract could be set aside only where the court found that both the disposing spouse and the counterparty had acted in bad faith. Otherwise the transaction stood and the other spouse was left, at most, with a claim for compensation.

That is the logic behind the ruling of 08.05.2018 in case No. 304/1423/15-ц, on which the earlier version of this article was built: an ex-wife challenged the sale of a car by her former husband, bad faith was not proved, and the claim was dismissed.

Step two (November 2018): a full reversal. Six months later the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, in its ruling of 21.11.2018 in case No. 372/504/17, departed from that position. The case concerned an apartment mortgaged by a former husband without his wife’s consent.

“Consent of co-owners to a transaction disposing of common property that is subject to notarisation and/or state registration must be expressed in writing and notarially certified… The absence of consent of one of the co-owners — former spouses — to the disposal of immovable property is a ground for declaring invalid the transaction concluded by the other co-owner.”

Of the earlier line the Grand Chamber said plainly that those conclusions “contradict the principle of equality both of the spouses’ property rights and of the rights of co-owners”.

Step three (June 2021): the pendulum swings back, but not to where it started. The Grand Chamber’s ruling of 29.06.2021 in case No. 916/2813/18 states the test that applies today:

“The presumption that one spouse disposes of common property with the consent of the other is established precisely for the benefit of a bona fide acquirer of rights to such property. Therefore the conclusion by one spouse of a contract disposing of common property without the consent of the other may be a ground for declaring that contract invalid only where the court establishes that the third party (the counterparty to the contract) acted in bad faith, in particular that it knew or, in the circumstances of the case, could not have failed to know that the property belongs to the spouses in joint co-ownership and that the spouse concluding the contract did not obtain the other’s consent.”

Both positions — 2018 and 2021 — are alive, because they address different things. What separates them is the form requirement.

Transactions requiring notarisation and/or state registration — real estate, mortgage. Here Article 65(3) of the Family Code works together with Article 578 of the Civil Code and Article 6(2) of the Law on Mortgage: property in common ownership may be mortgaged only with the notarised consent of all co-owners. Failure to observe the form required by Article 203(4) renders the transaction invalid under Article 215(1). Here the missing consent is a defect in its own right, and good faith recedes because form has been breached.

All other contracts beyond the petty domestic — a car, equipment, a share, goods. Here the presumption in Article 65(2) of the Family Code applies: the contracting spouse is deemed to act with the other’s consent. It can be rebutted only through your bad faith.

So the headline “a sale without spousal consent does not mean it is invalid” is correct for a car and dangerous for an apartment.

One more point that is routinely ignored: divorce changes nothing. Under Article 68 of the Family Code, dissolution of the marriage does not terminate joint co-ownership, and property in that regime is disposed of after divorce only by mutual consent. It becomes personal or fractional only once it has been divided. “We divorced long ago” is not an argument and not a document.

Law No. 4824-IX of 25 March 2026 restated the second paragraph of Article 65(3) of the Family Code. The change looks cosmetic and is not.

Before: consent “must be notarially witnessed“. Now: consent “must be notarially certified“.

In Ukrainian notarial practice these are different acts: witnessing the authenticity of a signature on a document, as against certifying the transaction itself, with verification of capacity, intent and content. The Code now expressly requires the second — catching up with the language the Grand Chamber had already used in 2018.

The practical consequence for 2026 deals: a consent drawn up as a signature with a note witnessing its authenticity no longer meets the statutory requirement. Check what the notary actually did, not merely that a notarial seal is present.

The commonest buyer’s mistake is to look at the register, see a single name and relax.

Under Article 60 of the Family Code and Article 368 of the Civil Code there is a presumption of joint ownership: every asset acquired during the marriage, other than items of personal use, is deemed to be jointly owned by the spouses. Registration in one spouse’s name does not rebut it.

The Grand Chamber put this without qualification in case No. 372/504/17: absent a court judgment recognising the asset as personal private property, there is no basis for treating it as belonging exclusively to one spouse. The burden of rebutting the presumption lies on the party asserting the contrary.

Which yields the only reliable conclusion for an acquirer: the date of acquisition matters more than the name in the register. If the asset appeared during the marriage, it is joint until proved otherwise.

Since 2021 it is your good faith that is assessed, so your task is to make sure “knew or could not have failed to know” cannot be said of you. That is a question of evidence gathered before signing.

1. Establish the date of acquisition and compare it with the period of the marriage. Title documents and register extracts tell you the owner, not the property regime.
2. For real estate and mortgages — notarised consent of the other spouse, no alternatives. Not a declaration of being unmarried, not a signature with a witnessing note. Since 25 March 2026 the law requires certification.
3. If the seller says the asset is personal, ask for the document proving it: a deed of gift, a certificate of inheritance, a marriage contract, a judgment dividing the property. An oral statement is not a document, and the seller’s statement to the notary shifts the risk only in part.
4. Divorce does not close the question. Ask for either the former spouse’s consent or the document dividing the property. Article 68 of the Family Code is explicit.
5. For movables beyond the petty domestic, written consent is still worth having. It is not required as a matter of form, but it kills any future argument about your knowledge.
6. Keep the process, not just the result. Correspondence, requests, copies of what you were given. Good faith is proved by having asked, not by not having been told.

The mirror situation — if you are the spouse whose property was disposed of. A claim for invalidity works only on the test above; where it fails, what remains is a claim for compensation for property disposed of otherwise than in the family’s interests. But proving that the money went past the family is on you.

The same “check before signing, not after” approach: our guide to checking a Ukrainian counterparty.

Sources

• Family Code of Ukraine — Articles 60, 65 and 68, as amended by Law No. 4824-IX of 25 March 2026.
• Civil Code of Ukraine — Articles 203, 215, 368, 369 and 578.
• Ruling of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court of 21.11.2018 in case No. 372/504/17 — departing from the conclusions of the Supreme Court of Ukraine in cases No. 6-1622цс15, No. 6-1912цс15 and No. 6-533цс16.
• Ruling of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court of 29.06.2021 in case No. 916/2813/18 — the good-faith test that applies today; quoted from the Supreme Court’s own presentation “Good faith in the practice of the Supreme Court: Quo vadis?” of 1 December 2023.

Updated in August 2026 from the current texts of the Family and Civil Codes of Ukraine on the official Legislation of Ukraine portal and from rulings of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court. The case law on this question has reversed three times, so verify that the conclusions cited still stand before closing a deal. This page states the general rule: the outcome in a given case depends on the type of asset, the date it was acquired and the documents you gathered before signing.

Related: how to check a Ukrainian counterparty.