Thirty years of "divorce" separation invalid, now sued for division of billions in assets
Recently, a divorce dispute involving a large amount of property was handled by the legal team of Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm, and the case was finally settled through compromise and mediation by the other party.
In August 1978, Mr. Zhang and Ms. Zhao registered their marriage. In May 1990, due to the breakdown of their relationship, Mr. Zhang wrote a Declaration stating that he would take his personal belongings and move out, meaning that the two would no longer live together from that point on, and Ms. Zhao agreed and signed it. In July 1993, Mr. Zhang and Ms. Zhao signed a Divorce Agreement specifying child custody and property division, and even stated that “upon both parties’ signatures, both parties shall be deemed to have severed the marital relationship, with no interference in any matters whatsoever, and should any matters arise, each party shall bear responsibility separately.” Mr. Zhang, who knew nothing about the law, believed that such a Divorce Agreement constituted the completion of divorce procedures and meant that he was already divorced. Thereafter, the two lived separately and had no further contact. Isolated and helpless,
Mr. Zhang
body
penniless
，
and wandering outside, he decided
[1] Entrepreneurship and Development
.
After years of hard work, Mr. Zhang's career flourished, his business grew larger and larger, and he amassed a fortune worth hundreds of millions. In 2010, the successful Mr. Zhang met Ms. Sun, and the two fell in love and spent ten years together. In 2020, Ms. Sun gave birth to a son for Mr. Zhang, and Mr. Zhang, who had not experienced the joy of family for a long time, quickly spread the news. But when Ms. Zhao learned of this, the “divorce” bomb that had been hidden for thirty years finally exploded.
Ms. Zhao filed a lawsuit against Mr. Zhang, accusing him of failing to return home for many years after marriage, cohabiting with Ms. Sun and having children, which seriously violated the duty of marital fidelity, and even threatened to accuse Mr. Zhang of criminal bigamy. Ms. Zhao demanded a divorce, as well as the transfer of two properties under Mr. Zhang’s name worth a total of 50 million yuan, plus a one-time compensation of 100 million yuan, totaling 150 million yuan. Mr. Zhang now felt tremendous pressure and a deep sense of injustice. How could it be that they had already “divorced” 30 years ago, yet now he still had to divide the massive fortune he had worked so hard to accumulate?
Due to the fact that the case not only involves a large amount of property, but also involves significant criminal and civil handover cases, Mr. Zhang dare not easily entrust the case to any law firm. He visited various places, compared prices, and finally found a team of lawyers from Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm specializing in difficult and complex cases with a lucky mentality. After some negotiations with lawyers from Zhiming Law Firm, he was deeply convinced by their innovative strategies and methods for handling major and complex cases. Therefore, he immediately decided to entrust the case to the team of lawyers from Zhiming Law Firm.
After accepting the case, Lawyer Zhiming led Lawyer Cao Guanghui and his assistants to carefully sort out the case and found that Mr. Zhang not only had no marital life with Ms. Zhao during the past 30 years, but also had no life interaction. Mr. Zhang went from being penniless when he moved out to being a successful person today, relying solely on his own efforts. The company also developed and started after leaving the household. But the most tricky issue in the case is still the 'marriage certificate'. On the surface, Mr. Zhang and Ms. Zhao were still legally married in name at the time of the lawsuit, so Ms. Zhao's request for divorce and property division seemed very reasonable. The case was in a difficult situation for a while, and it seemed like an unsolvable death case.
But in the eyes of lawyer Zhiming, this was quickly simplified, and he cleverly broke through this dilemma by using strategic thinking and creative methods in literary and artistic rights litigation. He hit the nail on the head and pointed out that the key to this case is that "the two of them have been living separately as if they were divorced, without interfering with each other", and in their brief marriage, Ms. Zhao still made significant mistakes before marriage. It was only because Mr. Zhang lacked legal knowledge that he did not follow the legal procedures for divorce, rather than what Ms. Zhao called "betraying the family"Lawyer Zhiming skillfully employs the technique of integrating reason, reason, and law to force the other party to retreat, compromise, and lower their huge demandsA settlement was reached with our side, and the case was ultimately concluded with a mediation document.
On a certain day in March 2021, we received the mediation agreement for this case. We not only significantly reduced the amount of property to be divided, but also greatly extended the payment period. Lawyer Cao immediately informed Mr. Zhang of this great news. Mr. Zhang couldn't hide his joy and sent a thank-you message with great excitement (please see the picture below for details), once again verifying the magic of literary and artistic rights litigation!
