Recently, the love story about Qin, Yang Liu and Forest whose dispute making us angry but heartache, sparked heat discussion in Weibo. Qin and Yang Liu, the happy lovers known on the Internet, broke up recently because Yang Liu had an affair with Forest, the good friend of Qin for many years. Netizen scold Yang Liu and Forest, and sigh endlessly for love.

In the era when low life scum are everywhere, the honest people like us may find nowhere to hide, but you don’t have to be afraid~ After the article ‘No matter what love is for holding secret method’, we write this article on legal advice about break-up fee, giving up the couple’s joint property when divorcing and fidelity agreement for you.

Ⅰ.Is the break-up fee necessary?

The plot of break-up fee showed in TV series actually is common in life and the following part is about three kinds of scenario hypothesis~

1. Free love

：But what do you use to compensate my youth these years?

：I am sorry for you so I will compensate you 100,000 yuan.

The break-up fee agreement actually is the civil juristic act of citizens. According to the general principles of the civil law, an effective civil juristic act shall have the following three requirements: the actor having the corresponding capacity for civil conduct, the true meaning, and the act not violating the law or the public interest. Thus, it’s legal to ask for break-up fee if one party pays voluntarily, because the legislation won’t intervene too much in our freedom of having a love affair. But you’d better settle on the spot because the judge standard of each district court is different if you sue for break-up fee.

2.No giving, no broken

：Let me go.

：You want to leave me. This is interesting. All right, give me 100,000 yuan and I will agree with you.

The aforementioned plot often happens in practice, i.e. you are forced to sign the agreement about giving break-up fee, otherwise the other party won’t agree to break up. If the other party sue for performance over the agreement, the court won’t recognize the validity of the agreement as long as you can prove that the agreement was signed under duress.

3.Breaking up with the third party

：I can’t be sorry to my wife anymore. Let’s break up.

：Okay, but you need to sign the agreement and give me 10,000 yuan.

：Okay.

How to do if the third party sue the man for break-up fee over the agreement? In judicial practice, the man don’t need to perform the agreement even if he signed willingly previously because extramarital affairs are improper sexual relations that violate public order and good covenant and the court won’t publicly uphold extramarital affairs. It is the price for the third party that destroys other people’s family .

二、出轨能否净身出户？

Ⅱ. Whether the cheating party should give up the couple’s joint property when divorcing or not

Most people think the derailing party should give up the couple’s joint property or getting less money when divorcing because he or she has made a huge mistake during marriage.

Actually, the marriage law stipulates that, when the couple’s joint property is divided, the party may get smaller or no share of the property if he or she conceals, transfers, sells off, destroys the couple’s joint property, or forges debts in an attempt to convert the other party’s property at the time of divorce. A no-fault party shall have the right to make a request for damage compensation only under any of the following circumstances bringing about divorce: bigamy, cohabitation of a married person with any third party, domestic violence, and maltreatment and desertion of one family member by another. Hence emotional affair and hookup indeed don’t make too much effect on dividing joint property. The no-fault party shall prove that the other party had affairs and cohabited with the third party if he or she wants to make a request for damage compensation, which is quite difficult in the practice.

三、忠诚协议顶不顶用？

Ⅲ. Whether the fidelity agreement is valid or not

Is the fidelity agreement feasible which specifies the cheating party’s obligation to give up all the property when divorcing even if our legislation doesn’t stipulate that? Actually, we can see many similar agreements in practice, most of which say that ‘ I promise to divorce and give up the joint property if I have any affair with anyone else’. But there are local disputes about the validity of such agreements.

As a Cantonese, let me show you the typical case of Guangdong Province--(2016) Yue 20 Min Zai NO.15, in which Chen and Yang appoint that the faithful party will win the couple’s joint property and the raising right of their child if the other party has affairs. Chen later was unfaithful to Yang and Yang filed a lawsuit. The court of first instance recognized the validity of dividing property and determined that Yang could get the joint property and the rising right of the child according to the child’s opinion and legislation. Both the court of second instance, Zhongshang Intermediate People’s court, and the court of retrial, the Guangdong Province Supreme Court, support the judgement of the first instance court.

The Zhongshang Intermediate People’s court wrote in its decision, ‘The fidelity agreement is the restriction for those married people’s sexual freedom, which is the couple’s consent and conforms to the principle and spirit of marriage law, conforms to the stipulation about faithful obligation, as well as conforms to public order and good covenant. The agreement shall be protected as long as there is no fraud or coercion.’ Therefore, the High Court considers the fidelity agreement is valid if it is legal, in line with public order and good covenant, and signed voluntarily, which may become the standard in the cases of Guangdong Province. Of course, the aforementioned valid agreement only refers to disposing property right, excluding disposing personal rights such as raising right, visitation right, and the right of remarry.

Although we popularize law about break-up fee here, we hope you everyone can have sweet love and don’t need to be confused about breaking up~