When your foreign spouse leaves home and cuts off contact

Doing the following in order will give you the records you need for the lawsuit.

• File a missing-person report at the police station for your address and get a record of its receipt. Even if your spouse is not found, it becomes an official record showing their whereabouts are unknown.
• Send your spouse messages asking them to come back or get in touch, and save screenshots. They become a record that you tried to continue the marriage.
• Find copies of their residence card or passport and the documents submitted when you reported the marriage, and check their name in Roman letters, date of birth and passport number.
• Organize the belongings your spouse left behind, records of money transfers, and the date of last contact.

Avoid contacting your spouse's family or acquaintances in their home country in a way that could seem threatening. It could later give your spouse grounds to claim they left because of verbal abuse. Do not throw away or sell your spouse's belongings on your own either.

You cannot register a marriage with someone else while your current marriage has not been dissolved. If you are thinking of a new relationship, first finalize the divorce.

Some people end things by signing only an agreement with the marriage broker, along the lines of 'we will not make an issue of it in return for a refund', but that agreement does not dissolve the marriage. Treat issues with the broker and dissolving the marriage as separate matters.

A divorce by agreement (협의이혼) requires both spouses to appear at court together, so it cannot be used when your spouse has disappeared. If your spouse left home without a valid reason and cut off contact, you claim a judicial divorce (재판상 이혼) on the ground of malicious desertion or another serious reason making it difficult to continue the marriage (Civil Act (민법) Article 840, Items 2 and 6).

If there are clear signs that the marriage was reported from the start as a means of entering Korea without any intention to marry, nullity of the marriage (혼인무효) is also considered. If nullity is recognized, the marriage is treated as never having existed, and the record is different from that of a divorce.

Either way, the length of time you lived together after the wedding, who paid the living costs, and what your spouse said and did before leaving become the basis for the decision. Write these down by date before your memory fades.

In the complaint, you state that your spouse's address is unknown, and immigration records and the address are checked through the court. If it is then shown that your spouse still cannot be found, the case proceeds by service by public notice (공시송달) (Civil Procedure Act (민사소송법) Article 194).

The first service by public notice takes effect 2 weeks after it is posted, and service by public notice on a person to be served abroad takes effect after 2 months (Article 196 of the same Act). Even if your spouse does not appear, a judgment can be issued after the hearings.

Even in a case proceeding by service by public notice, the judge does not grant the divorce just by hearing the plaintiff's side. Organize and submit how the marriage came about, how long you lived together, and records of attempts to make contact after your spouse left, and if needed, prepare written statements from family members or neighbors.

The case proceeds in this order: filing the complaint, correcting the address and fact inquiries, service by public notice, hearings and judgment. Once the judgment is final, you must report the divorce to the city, district, town or township office within 1 month for it to be reflected in the family relationship register.

If you have a child, the court sets the person with parental authority and the custodial parent together with the divorce judgment. If you are worried that your spouse may leave the country with the child, also consider a pre-trial measure (사전처분) concerning the child's care when you file the lawsuit.

At Jisan Law, the managing partner consults with you personally, organizes your spouse's personal details from the remaining documents, and judges with you whether divorce or nullity is the right fit. We prepare the lawsuit documents, including the address correction, fact inquiries and the application for service by public notice. Consultations are available at our main office in Seoul and our branch offices in Incheon, Hongseong and Songpa.