Family lawyers in Cyprus
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Our family lawyers have handled Cyprus divorce, property and children's cases since 1983, and we appear in every Family Court on the island. The practice is led by Stalo Konstantinou, a certified mediator.
If you are facing any family-related legal issues or disputes in Cyprus, we can provide you with expert advice on all matters of Cypriot family law, including:
- Family disputes
- Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements: drafting, and advice on what they can achieve in Cyprus
- Legal aid in adoption and guardianship matters
- Assistance with cross-border family law issues
- Spousal support, alimony negotiations, and litigation
- Divorce applications
- Distribution of family wealth and assets
- Children's custody and communication
- Childcare and maintenance
Every family case turns on two questions: which court hears it, and what that court can give you. Our lawyers answer both below, then work through divorce, the property claim, parental responsibility and maintenance.
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Who we act for, and where we appear
Our office is in Limassol and we take the case to whichever court has it. Nicosia as readily as Limassol, Larnaca or Paphos: the Family Courts cover the island between them, and we file wherever your case belongs.
The Cyprus Family Courts can hear your divorce if you or your spouse has lived in Cyprus for a continuous period of more than three months. One of you is enough. Where there is matrimonial property in Cyprus, no residence period applies at all. For couples with links to another EU country, the Brussels IIb Regulation decides which country's courts take the case, and getting that question right early saves a wasted filing.
The first consultation is free. Bring the marriage certificate, whatever you have on the property in question, and the dates: when you married, when you separated, when either of you moved to Cyprus. Those dates decide more than most people expect.
Cypriot family law
Family law in Cyprus covers what happens between spouses and their children once the relationship ends. The divorce, the property claim, parental responsibility and maintenance are separate cases, each with its own file and its own hearing, and they can run at the same time.
The Family Courts have exclusive authority over divorce, parental responsibility, maintenance and property claims between spouses. Their jurisdiction covers civil marriages and religious marriages of any denomination, Greek Orthodox or otherwise. If you married abroad or married in a civil ceremony in Cyprus, this is still your court.
There are 3 Family Courts: one for Nicosia and Kyrenia, one for Limassol and Paphos, and one for Larnaca and Famagusta. Benches sit in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos, and a single judge hears each case. The pairings are jurisdictions rather than addresses.
The separate Family Court for Religious Groups, which used to hear cases for the Latin, Armenian and Maronite communities, was abolished in November 2023. Those cases now go to the ordinary Family Courts.
Divorce in Cyprus
We file divorce petitions and we defend them. Where both spouses want the divorce and nothing is in dispute, our fee is €800 plus VAT, and government fees of about €200 cover the filing, the stamps and service on the other spouse. A contested petition is priced on its facts, because the work sits in the evidence rather than in the paperwork.
The grounds, the bishop notification that an Orthodox marriage needs, the timescales and what happens when a spouse contests are all set out on our page on divorce in Cyprus.
Division of property during divorce
Cyprus does not have community of property. Marriage leaves each spouse the owner of what stands in their own name. What the law gives the other spouse is a money claim: where one spouse's property grew during the marriage and the other contributed to that growth, the second spouse can sue for the share of the increase that came from their contribution.
Contribution is more than money. The statute counts care of the family home and of the family, so a spouse who raised the children and ran the household has a claim on the increase in the other spouse's property.
Anything a spouse received by gift, inheritance, legacy or any other gratuitous transfer stays outside the calculation, whoever it came from, and so does anything bought with the proceeds of it.
There is a deadline. A claim is barred three years after the marriage is dissolved or annulled, and people come to us too late on it more often than on anything else in family work.
The court starts from a presumed one third and moves off it on the evidence. How that is calculated, proved and defended is set out in full on our page on the division of matrimonial property.
Children's custody and communication
Cyprus law speaks of parental responsibility rather than custody. It covers the child's name, care of the child in person, administration of the child's property, and legal representation. The court can leave it with both parents or give it to one, and it settles where the child lives and how the other parent keeps contact.
Where the parents cannot agree, each side files written positions and the court decides. It weighs those positions together with a report from the Social Welfare Services of the Deputy Ministry of Social Welfare.
A social welfare officer visits each parent's home and reports on the living conditions of the parents and the children. The child's own view is part of it. The law asks the court to seek and weigh that view according to the child's maturity and understanding, with no fixed minimum age.
What the court can order, how an agreed arrangement becomes a court order, and how a decision is appealed are on our page on child custody in Cyprus.
Childcare and maintenance
The Parents and Children Relations Laws 1990 to 2008 govern maintenance, contact between a parent and a child, and the removal of parental responsibility. Both parents owe the child maintenance, each in proportion to their means.
The parent the child lives with can claim from the other by petition to the Family Court for the district where the child lives. The court fixes the amount from the needs of the child and the income of each parent.
Maintenance can continue past 18 for incapacity, disability, National Guard service, or study at a school or university. It takes a court order. Nothing about it is automatic when the child turns 18.
A parent left without support does not have to wait for the final judgment. Where the delay would harm the child we apply for interim maintenance alongside the main claim.
A maintenance order is enforceable. The court can have the amount deducted at source from the paying parent's salary or taken from their bank account each month, and imprisonment is available as a last resort where there is nothing to seize. Our page on child maintenance sets out how each of those works.
Family mediation
Stalo Konstantinou is a certified mediator, so a family dispute can be run outside the courtroom when both sides are willing to sit down.
Mediation earns its place on the questions a judge finds hardest to fix: how the school holidays are split, or what a maintenance figure should be when one parent is self-employed and the income moves month to month. An agreement reached in mediation can be turned into a court order, so it binds in the same way a judgment does.
It is faster than a contested hearing and costs a fraction of one. It fails where one side is hiding assets or where there has been violence, and in those cases we file instead. Ask Stalo whether your case fits.
Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements
A prenuptial agreement does not bind a Cyprus Family Court. Pre-nuptial agreements remain outside Cyprus law, and a court deciding a property claim decides it on contribution and on the increase in value, not on what the couple signed before the wedding.
What an agreement does is create evidence, and evidence is what these claims turn on years later. We record what each spouse brought into the marriage and what it was worth on the day, and we document gifts and inheritances so that they fall inside the statutory exclusion.
Then we keep that paperwork in a form a court will accept when it is produced eight years on and the other side disputes every figure. That work is worth doing before a marriage or during one. Our page on divorce in Cyprus explains how the property claim itself is decided.
Families with links to another country
Much of our family work involves a couple who married in one country, live in another, and own property in a third. The first question at the meeting is which country's court can hear the case, and the second is where the property claim goes, because the answer is not always the same court.
Divorcing in Cyprus when neither spouse lives here is covered on our page on divorce in Cyprus. Bringing a property claim from abroad is on our page on the division of matrimonial property. Where one spouse holds status through the marriage, the immigration question runs alongside the family case, and our page on permanent residence by marriage covers that side.
Tell us what has happened and what you want to protect, and we will tell you what a court can do about it. Contact us to arrange the first meeting, which is free of charge.
Frequently asked questions
What services do family lawyers provide?
We act in divorce petitions and defences, claims over matrimonial property, parental responsibility and contact, and child maintenance, in every Family Court in Cyprus.
Around those we advise unmarried couples on property and money, prepare prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, and handle the family side of a cross-border move, where the first question is which country's court hears the case.
Stalo Konstantinou is a certified mediator, so the same team can settle a dispute at the table rather than in the courtroom when both sides agree to try.
What does a family lawyer cost in Cyprus?
An uncontested divorce is €800 plus VAT, with government fees of about €200 on top, covering the filing, the stamps and service on your spouse.
Everything else in family work is quoted after the first consultation, which is free. A contested case is priced on what the evidence needs rather than on a fixed scale, so we would rather see the file before naming a figure.
How long do I have to claim a share of my spouse's property after divorce?
Three years from the dissolution or annulment of the marriage. Section 15 of Law 232/1991 bars the claim after that.
A counterclaim counts as a separate action, filed on the date of the action it answers, so a spouse who is sued in time can bring their own claim inside the same proceedings. Come to us before the three years run out, not after.
Is a prenuptial agreement enforceable in Cyprus?
No. Pre-nuptial agreements remain outside Cyprus law, and a Family Court deciding a property claim is not bound by one.
An agreement is still worth having as evidence. It records what each spouse owned at the start and what came in later by gift or inheritance, which is the material a court needs when it works out how much of the increase came from whose contribution.
Do you handle divorces where one spouse lives abroad?
Yes. The Cyprus Family Courts can hear the case if you or your spouse has lived here for a continuous period of more than three months. One of you is enough, and where there is matrimonial property in Cyprus no residence period applies.
For couples with links to another EU country, the Brussels IIb Regulation decides which country's courts take the divorce. We settle that first, because filing in the wrong country costs months.
When may alimony be obtained?
You have a right to alimony if 1) your age or health stops you doing enough work to earn a living, or 2) you are caring for underage child(ren) or adult child(ren) with a physical or mental disability, or, 3) you cannot find a job or need training to do so, in which case alimony runs for three years from the issue of the divorce, or, 4) for reasons of fairness or other circumstances showing need.
The court can stop or adjust the alimony payments if circumstances require it. Interim alimony payments may be ordered if necessary (payments during the divorce process and hearing). A short marriage is a reason to refuse alimony. So is severely blameworthy behaviour by the claimant, or destitution the claimant brought on themselves deliberately.
Alimony is paid monthly and in advance. If the payer has a 13th and 14th salary, there can be 13th and 14th payments.
What is legal separation in Cyprus?
There is no legal separation in Cyprus and no separation order to apply for. Separation is a factual state, not a court status.
It still carries legal weight. After two years apart, separation is a ground for divorce in its own right, and a spouse can claim maintenance under section 4 of Law 232/1991 from the moment the couple stops living together.
On top of that the court can make an interim order under section 17B of the Family Courts Law covering parental responsibility, maintenance, the family home and the use of household property. A property claim under section 14 opens up on separation, with no need to wait for the divorce.
Can the divorce be appealed, and what is the effect of an appeal?
Yes. Since July 2023 appeals from a Cyprus Family Court go to the Court of Appeal, which replaced the old Second Instance Family Court. You can appeal the whole decree or part of it, and ask the court to set aside or vary the orders made.
The deadline is 42 days, six weeks, from the date the judgment is issued. A decree is final once that deadline passes with no appeal filed. Interim orders carry a shorter deadline of 14 days.