Divorcing for Legal Advantage

hijklmnop said:

I'm surprised that Link would consider doing something like this. Seems manipulative, sneaky, greedy and dishonest, which is surprising coming from someone who is usually so fixated on others following the letter of the law to a T.

My parents are wonderful Christians but used to be very legalistic (they've become much freer in recent years which is great, they are much happier now too). Yet, they would NEVER have considered something like this. They respected not just the letter but the spirit of the laws.

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Do what exactly? My OP was originally unclear. I would not divorce my wife. I was talking about the idea of having two weddings to clear up a legal issue that allowed a citizen of my wife's country married to a foreigner have a clear right to own land. It's not a sin to have two wedding ceremonies or certificates. The big risk would be the government doesn't consider it legitimate, and the person who owns it would lose rights to it. I'd considered getting married twice that just to have an English language certificate right after we first got married, but we've been fine with a foreign one.

This is a hypothetical discussion by the way, not a decision I'm actually making.

mkgal1 said:

I'm *not* surprised (actually). That's typical of legalism (discovering loop holes without breaking rules). From what I'm gathering.....Link's not considering divorce (in the hypothetical)----just marrying his wife a second time (with a pre-nup this time). IMO.....it's much easier to live by the spirit of the law----that applies well to all scenarios (without trying to figure out ways over.....above....around....and through existing laws).

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It's not loopholes around the law of God, which is a much more serious concern. Lot's of people in my wife's country have to figure out ways to navigate around the law, and fuzzy areas of law, to get by. Missionaries have to do it to stay in the country sometimes, getting visas as employees at businesses or academic roles. People involved in business in the US and other countries have to figure out how to deal with laws. It's kind of like buying a McDouble and Mac sauce to get around the two or three dollar price markup for a BigMac.

Let's say I got two marriage certificates with my wife with no divorce. We did a 'prenup' before the second one. She bought land, and for some reason a government official were looking at her right to own land or there were a court case. The risk would be she would lose the rights to the land. That's not dishonest. It's making a risky investment in a situation of legal uncertainty.

I don't foresee us buying freehold property in her country. But some expatriates married to locals there who live out of the city where there isn't a lot of 'airspace' for sale, who want to buy property, do face this issue.

apostolic34,

No, it's not dishonest. And there is nothing dishonest if you disclose everything. Some of the actual legislation seems to imply foreigner's spouses can own land, since there is a provision for a foreigner to sell off his/her land inheritance after a spouse dies. The cabinet member decree only covered a pre-nup, though, and left other situations open for interpretation. So it doesn't seem to me that it's illegal for a citizen married to a foreigner to own land, but it does seem to be a fuzzy area of law. They don't have a system of law that relies heavily on precedent from what I understand. I'm not a lawyer, so I could have a wrong understanding of property laws there.

BigDaddy4 said:

Disclose everything as in you are already legally married in another country??

Good luck with that one. Call a spade a spade. It's dishonest.

Really disappointed in this, considering your views on marriage and divorce that you've been posting lately. Do you think God would recognize this 2nd wedding? Is it for your gain or His glory?

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I'm wasn't talking about getting a divorce in that post. I'm talking about getting married in one country, and then in another. I don't know of any law against it if you are marrying the same person twice.

As for God recognizing the second wedding, I'd think He'd still recognize the marriage all the way through. I've known people to have ceremonies where they 'renew their vows'. Do you think that's sinful?

mjmcmillan said:

This thing strikes me as being dishonest as a three-dollar bill.

Look, the Book of Acts tells us there IS a time when God's law trumps man's law. When the Sanhedrin demanded that the disciples stop teaching in the name of Jesus, they made the statement that whether it is right to obey the laws of men rather than the laws of God would have to be decided by each person-- but as for them, they couldn't stop preaching of what they had seen and heard.

This is not that. This is using questionable means in order to acquire land. Land which will pass from your hands into another's upon your death--- so, like everything else on this planet, you don't get to keep it. Pulling some shenanigans to get the land may seem attractive, but in the end it will hurt you.

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I don't think there is a law against a citizen married to a foreigner paying the money to buy land. It's just ownership is fuzzy and the person might lose the land if there were some kind of legal battle. Like I said I'm not an attorney. It seems to me one of the old laws seem to imply a spouse can own land. One of the cabinet ministers, if I remember right, issued a decree clarifying that ownership was allowed in the case of a pre-nup. What I was saying is that if an already married couple got a pre-nup and had another wedding overseas, they could argue that counted as a prenup (which is risky and they might lose their land.) I don't know all the court-cases on the issue.

Would I like to be able to buy property there? Yes, I would. If something happened to me, I'd like my wife to be able to own a house somewhere. I guess I could get her an apartment, but that's a lot more money and it's only available in the city. There are also some investments that are good for freehold land that don't work well with airspace. She couldn't own anything in the village. I would also like to start a university someday, hopefully a Christian university. From what I've heard, their version of a 'nonprofit' is rather messy and was kind of in flux, legally, when I was there last. Owning land outright is another way to go. If it's set up as a corporation with partial foreign ownership, I'm not sure if land ownership is feasible.

When I brought up the topic, I was curious if some people thought that it would be okay to divorce and remarry for either tax advantages or to own land. Honestly, I'm surprised more posters weren't for it, but it's good to see where people's boundaries are in their beliefs. I wouldn't divorce over either, and I think I was a little unclear about the land ownership issue in the OP and cleaned up my message.

I don't think it is wrong to have two wedding ceremonies though, and if the law over there would accept that with a pre-nup in between to own land, I don't see that as unethical. Realistically, buying land on the assumption that government officials would accept that is a foolish risk, IMO, if nothing else. It could be 'unethical' in the sense of being poor stewardship. It would probably make more sense to find some contacts who know one of the cabinet ministers and get the expat community to lobby for a decree to clarify the government's position on the issue, though.

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You don't know that much about me or what all my plans are.

I'm opposed to getting a divorce to own land, save on taxes, etc. But I don't think it's wrong to have a second wedding or second set of marriage certificates. My marriage certificate is in a language few people in this country can even read, and it's on this big piece of paper that doesn't fit in all file drawers. I thought about getting one when I brought her to the US just in case I needed to show it for something in the US, but ended up just keeping the old one. We had two wedding parties for relatives on both sides, but we didn't do a wedding ceremony in the US. I'd thought about it. I don't think it would have been wrong to do so.

ValleyGal said:

That has to do with law of the land. Now, for the Christian, do you really think that marriage in one country invalidates the marriage in God's eyes? No. God knows no boundaries. When you are married before God, you are married. To marry "again" in the country of one spouse's origin is redundant and for selfish gain. Again, it is dishonest.

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How is that dishonest, especially if you disclose everything? That doesn't make sense.

Do you think it's dishonest if couples renew their vows after 25 years and go through a whole ceremony? I've heard of people doing such things? I know a couple of couples who had wedding ceremonies after one member of the pair cheated, too.

Come to think of it, we did have two wedding ceremonies. One of them was something to do with my wife's people-groups elaborate cultural system. We were already legally married. I had no idea you could sit 'Indian style' until it hurt.