Divorce in Poland - birth certificate issue?

Hello/Część.

I'm wondering if any of you kind people can help me here with a divorce issue I have in Poland.

In short, I started a divorce in the U.K which was finalised a few months ago with a decree absolute. When my Polish Lawyer (who I have for child contact arrangements as my Daughter lives in Poland) contacted my ex Wife and informed her of this, he received communication from my Ex-wifes Lawyer to tell him that my Ex Wife had started a divorce in Poland, albeit started after I had started the process in the U.K and never got off the ground. My Ex-wifes Lawyer states the U.K divorce is not valid, clearly it is as its recognised under the Hague Divorce Convention and the Judge in the U.K who granted the divorce knew I got married in Poland.

However we are at stalemate at the moment because my Lawyer can't start the child contact arrangements until he cancels out my Ex-wifes divorce.

My Polish Lawyer is stating that because I do not have a British Marriage certificate(I got married in Poland), the process in Poland will take a lot longer. This is despite me telling him that the U.K haven't done so since 2014 and would only give British marriage certificates for marriages abroad before 2014 in exceptional circumstances.

I don't believe my Lawyer is correct. Has anyone else experienced this and how did they get around it?

Is your Polish lawyer based in Poland? You need a UK based Polish lawyer, you know, a Polish lawyer employed in a British family law practice who understands both systems and can confer with British colleagues for advice if necessary. Polish lawyers based in Poland tend to be very confused about foreign legal systems.


Like I said, they're inexperienced with cross-border family law. They're afraid of making a mistake so they apply Polish requirements. In Poland if you get married abroad you're supposed to register your marriage (even if it's in another EU country!) in order for it to be recognised in Poland, so he's expecting the same system from the UK. Clearly he doesn't really know what he's at so you need to change lawyers.

As you have married in Poland, i believe the divorce should be done in Poland, i know many family that got married in Poland and moved to Germany for example, the court in Germany advice to get the divorce in the country where the marriage took place, even though you have registered the marriage certificate there in UK (in order for it to be valid) as per staying in UK, the divorce has to be done in Polish Court, all you need is a Polish lawyer in the same city where the marriage took place (of course that does speaks English).

Divorce practically lasted for around 6-9 months, your lawyer can also call the court or write to them to check where is the process at time.

Sorry, you have to go through this mess but i think soon to be ex is right.

No action is needed to register a foreign marriage in the UK. If it's a legal marriage in the country where it took place, then It's automatically valid in the UK.


But that's Germany, English law is different :) The OP has a valid divorce already obtained in the UK. It's legal. The OP's problem is getting the Polish court to understand that it's legal!

Thank you both for all your help with this. I'm currently trying to speak with a Polish Lawyer based in the U.K, I'm hoping they will clarify if it all for me. Im pretty confident, I'm right on this. Just need to go through the motions.