When a marriage ends, spouses and their children often face a perfect storm of stressful events: new living arrangements, parenting schedules, and of course, decisions about property and money. Get a professional lawyer’s advise may be easier if you’re informed about the process before it begins. The following article provides a few tips to help guide you through this difficult time.

1: Contested or Uncontested?

In Malaysia, a marriage can be dissolved by way of mutual consent via a joint petition or by way of single petition either by husband or wife themselves. Divorce by mutual consent means that the both husband and wife do not wish to contest the matter and the party can agree on terms of custody, care and control of the child, maintenance, and division of the assets.

Conversely, if one of the party refused to divorce or cannot come to a consensus on terms of the aforesaid , the matter will become contested and party will have to litigate.

2. Mutual Consent – Things needs to look out?

Couple may file for divorce via a joint petition and both husband and wife will be named as joint petitioners. The pre-requisite for filing a joint petition is that the marriage must have lapsed two (2) years.

The husband and wife shall negotiate the following:-

• Custody, care and control of the child;
• access/visitation rights;
• maintenance of the child;
• maintenance of the husband/wife;
• division of assets.

Get yourself represented by a lawyer to know about the risk of your decision and ensure all the term negotiated are water tight and can hold up in court if the other side had breached the agreement.

3. Parties had consented. Am I still need to attend court session?

Yes, indeed. Both husband and wife must be present himself/herself before the Judge on hearing date. A Decree Nisi (interim judgment) will be issued once parties have recorded their presence in court. If the party do not intend to be reconcile , the Decree Nisi will be made absolute after 3 months from the date of Decree Nisi.

The judgement will be submitted by the court to the Registrar-General of Marriages to update the personal marriage record. This may only be updated in the National Registration Department Head Office, Putrajaya.