Inheritance of property under married name in Eastern Europe

[Brad and Vika 129]

Hello all - thanks in advance for your help and opinions.

Vika and I are talking about having both a civil and church marriage in Ukraine next year. She has heard that it will be a huge problem to inherit property from her grandparents and parents if her name and address of record are changed. She is currently named in three wills, and has been told repeatedly by relatives and others that a civil marriage will cause all sorts of problems. What if anything can be done about this, or is it much ado about nothing?

[payxibka 10,045]

Hello all - thanks in advance for your help and opinions.

Vika and I are talking about having both a civil and church marriage in Ukraine next year. She has heard that it will be a huge problem to inherit property from her grandparents and parents if her name and address of record are changed. She is currently named in three wills, and has been told repeatedly by relatives and others that a civil marriage will cause all sorts of problems. What if anything can be done about this, or is it much ado about nothing?

You are well aware of the great beauracracy called Ukraine. My understanding is name changes are problematic. My wife has yet to officially change her name (and thus her propiska) for some of the same concerns that Vika has. As an example, for Sveta to close her shop's tax documents it was to take a minimum of 45 days and 5 different agencies had to be involved. We started the process in July and was to be finished in early October.... Nontheless, it was nearly the end of February (several POA's later), and not without getting my MIL, who I affectionately refer to as the "bulldog", involved in the very end.

So while I do not have specific knowledge to what you refer to, I am not the least bit surprised.

Edited April 27, 2009 by payxibka

[Brad and Vika 129]

Finally, a response to this on my home forum! I appreciate it. I posted the same on RU, and I think we are going to keep a running discussion going on the subject in our home for awhile....