This page gives you the answers to your questions about termination of cohabitation in cases involving intimate partner violence
My violent partner and I were not married. Now I want to leave him/her and I want to know whether I am entitled to a share of her/his assets upon termination of cohabitation?
As unmarried cohabitants, you do not have community of property as in a marriage. Therefore, you do not have a right to claim the division of property as part of the termination of cohabitation. Theoretically, you are leaving the cohabitation with the assets each of you brought into the relationship (or which you acquired during cohabitation) and that you must personally repay any debt you may have contracted.
If some of your assets are jointly owned – such as a house, boat, car or similar – you will have to agree on which of you will ‘buy out’ the other one, or whether the object must be sold. After this, any proceeds are to be shared between you.
In some situations, an ‘estate’ may have been created in a legal sense, and in such situations the probate court will be able to help you divide the estate. Further details about this are available on www.domstol.dk under the tab ‘Familie og skilsmisse‘ (divorce and family) and then the tab ‘Deling af fælles formue’ (dividing jointly owned assets). Both pages are in Danish only.
If you and your partner live in rented accommodation and have lived together for at least two years, one of you has the right to continue living there and take over the rental contract. If you cannot agree on who is to continue living there, the court can settle the issue of who has the greatest need for the rental accommodation.
I want to move away from my partner but I am afraid to leave my child behind. Am I allowed to take our shared child with me?
You are allowed to take you and your partner’s child with you if you move away from your partner to a crisis shelter, or move in with friends, family, etc. However, you must be aware of the fact that when you live together and have joint custody of your child, you must both agree to change the child’s address, pursuant to Section 3(1) of the Parental Custody Act on significant decisions concerning the child’s circumstances. This means that you are not allowed to change your child’s home address without the consent of your previous partner.
This does not change the fact that you have the right to take your child with you, however. If your partner uses force against the child, then you, as a parent, have an obligation to protect your child, possibly by leaving your home and taking the child with you.
Is it possible for my previous partner to demand to have our child turned over to him/her if I leave our home?
Even if you have joint custody of your child, it is not possible for the other parent with custody to demand that your child be turned over to his/her custody – in conjunction with a (lasting or temporary) termination of cohabitation – if you have taken the child with you, to a crisis shelter, for instance. If your previous partner wishes to have visitation rights with your shared child, he/she must contact the Agency of Family Law and initiate a visitation rights case. It is possible for him/her to apply for so-called contact-maintenance visitation, while the visitation application is being processed by the Agency of Family Law.
My partner and I have separated but we have a shared child/children. Where will the child/children’s residence now be?
A new scheme, denoted as ‘shared residence’, has been introduced from 1 April 2019. According to the scheme, the child will automatically have a so-called ‘shared residence’ between the parents for the first three months after the parents terminate cohabitation. The purpose is to calm things down for the child in an otherwise chaotic time.
This means that it will not be possible for parents to initiate a case about the child’s place of residence for the first three months. This does not apply to visitation rights cases, however, as these may be initiated during the first three months without exception.
Shared residence is a child custody arrangement in which both parents have a legal status as custodial parents of the child. The child will only have one address in the national register, however.
At the end of these three months, the parents may apply to the Agency of Family Law to determine which parent will be the child’s custodial parent.
If both parents move out of the previously shared home address as part of the termination of cohabitation, it will be necessary to reach a decision about the child’s address as soon as they decide to move out, however.
It will also be possible to give the child shared-residence status going forward, meaning that there will not be just one custodial parent. In this case, the child will continue to have only one address in the national register, but in terms of family law, both parents may be the child’s custodial parent going forward, provided that they agree on this. This requires the parents to have close, well-functioning cooperation and that they can agree on all decisions concerning the child. As the shared residence is always contingent on parental consensus, it is always possible for the parents to suspend shared residence and the custodial right will subsequently be awarded to the parent whose national register address is the same as the child’s.
If the other parent wants to be the custodial parent, the parent must contact the Agency of Family Law and initiate a case to this effect.