Conditional obligations of spouses: theoretical issues and judicial practice

Statement of the problem. The questions of realization of civil norms about unjust enrichment in family law are relevant in connection with the strengthening of the economic component in the property relations of spouses. In addition, spousal conditional claims have recently been the subject of an increasing number of proceedings in the courts of general jurisdiction. However, while the civil law aspects of conditional obligations have been extensively and deeply researched in science, the issues of implementation of civil norms on unjust enrichment in family law have been addressed sporadically and so far remain outside the field of scientific research.

Purpose and methods of research. The purpose of this article is to identify current problems of application of norms on unjust enrichment to property relations of spouses on the basis of the analysis of legislation, judicial practice and doctrine. The theme was carried out with the use of the following general scientific methods: a dialectical method of knowledge of the legal phenomena, the logical method was used at material presentation, the method of the system analysis has allowed to study interaction of norms of family and civil law, separate elements and signs of institute of unjust enrichment. In addition, special methods were used in the article: formal-legal, the method of generalisation of legal materials and technical-legal analysis.

Results. The analytical study of the institute of unjust enrichment allowed the author to identify groups of family relations in respect of the application to them of conditional rules. In order to eliminate uncertainty in the choice of the method of protection of property rights of spouses, the criteria on the basis of which the claim for the return of unjustified enrichment is distinguished from the other property claims of the spouses was proposed.