Family law

Family law provides rules dealing with the living together of persons united by affection or by kinship (including legal consequences).

Succession Law

Regulates the right after death: transfer of estate to the heir or legatee after the death of a person by virtue of law or will.

Peters associate lawyers advise in the following areas of Family Law:

Advice on Family and Inheritance Law (national and international)

• File actions and appeals to court
• Advice on Brazilian and Swiss law
• Preventive and extrajudicial advice

Marriage and Stable Union

A family lawyer will be able to guide in the planning of the assets of a couple’s life, regarding the choice of the property regime to be adopted after the marriage or stable union, avoiding future concerns and ensuring the legal security of the couple’s individual and common assets.

Prenuptial agreements and stable union contracts

The prenuptial agreement is the document that enables the couple or partners to determine the property regime, other than the partial communion, that will govern the marriage or the stable union.

Separation

At separation, both men and women no longer need to maintain the duties of marriage, but only after the divorce can they remarry. This is why many couples who have only been separated from the law need to convert their separation into a divorce.

Divorce

Consensual divorce (friendly divorce)

Consensual divorce in Court: there is an agreement providing rules regulating the end of the marriage, the sharing of property, the custody of children and possible maintenance.

Consensual Divorce (friendly)

In the Notary Public (extrajudicial) when the couple agrees and has no minor or incapacitated children. The presence of a lawyer is required (the spouses may have different lawyers or a single lawyer for both).

Litigious Divorce

It occurs when the couple cannot agree on one or more terms of the dissolution of the marriage and there is a need for a judge to resolve the conflict.

Maintenance action

Maintenance payments are used to provide a means of subsistence for a minor child or a who is deprived of resources and to meet survival needs. The maintenance obligation derives from the parental care and custody, the kinship bond and the dissolution of the marriage and/or the stable union.

Shared custody

Considered a standard division since 2014, is the situation in which the mother and father of a child do not live together, but share legal and affective responsibilities with their child, thus seeking a harmonious and healthy coexistence. There are exceptions when one of the two is not able to exercise parental care and custody or has no interest in child custody.

Paternity Investigation

If the child has only been registered with the mother’s name on its birth certificate the Birth Registration Office must inform the Public Prosecutor’s Office, who will try to contact the child’s mother and the alleged father in order to try to have the paternity recognized in a friendly way. If the father is not found or refuses to recognize the paternity, a lawsuit will be filed. DNA examination will be requested. The absence of the alleged father to attend the DNA test without justification will be considered a presumption of paternity.

Adoption

The minimum age to qualify for adoption is 18 years, regardless of marital status, as long as the difference of 16 years between who wishes to adopt and the child to be fostered is respected. It will be necessary to make a petition – prepared by a public defender or private lawyer – to start the registration process for adoption. Only after approval, your name will be able to appear in the local and national registers of applicants for adoption.

• Who can adopt?
• National adoption, Brazilians or foreigners residing in Brazil.
• International adoption, Brazilians or foreigners residing abroad.

Guardianship

The guardianship of a child is only granted to someone when the family power no longer exists, either because of the death of both parents, or because they have been removed or suspended from the parental care and custody.

Guardianship can also be granted to someone by law or through a will, and it can be to administer property and to direct or care for a minor person, as well as represent him and confirm that he is always assisted and receiving support, defense, protection, etc.

Acts relating to the transfer of property by inheritance

Succession Planning

Legal instrument, preventive and supposedly efficient, to avoid conflicts between heirs, aiming at the effective and efficient transfer of a person’s patrimony after his death.

Succession

Succession upon death occurs with the passing of a person who leaves his property. These assets are passed on to his heirs at the time of his death.

Testamentary Succession

It occurs when a person leaves his property destined for his heirs, by way of a valid will.

Inventory and sharing of assets

The heirs shall initiate the inventory and sharing of the assets within 60 days of the death. Inventory can be understood as the listing of assets, rights, debts and identification of heirs. At the end of the inventory, there will be a partition, where each heir will receive his share of the inheritance.