Q: I am divorcing my wife. She will have custody of our 3 children. My monthly salary is AED 20,000. I have a bank loan that I repay every month, and the repayment amount is AED 9,000. When the UAE courts calculate 'child maintenance' and 'alimony', will they calculate based on the AED 20,000 that I earn or on the AED 11,000 that is remaining after I pay my monthly loan instalment? Please advise. Thank you

Q: Hi, My friend's wife has filed a case for divorce. They've been married for a year and a half. They have a 9-month old son. The wife works and earns AED 5600. My friend earns AED 15000, but he got some bank loans which he pays off with AED 7000. How is wife and child maintenance going to be calculated?

Q: Alimony Money after Divorce Hi, I am going through a divorce with my first wife. The court has advised up to discuss the alimony money. She continues to increase her demand and is demanding much more than she originally requested to the court as she filed for the divorce. I would like to understand how much will be the alimony money if the court makes the decision, and how much should be the kids' expenses. Info: My current salary is 23K. I have 4 children with my first wife from whom I am getting a divorce. I have one kid with my second wife. I have my mother under my sponsorship as my father passed away recently. I have a bank loan where I need to pay AED 9,000 every month. My first wife is demanding approximately AED 11,000 (as expenses) plus accommodation, school fees and custody charges, which comes around 20K every month. In this situation, I am left wit 3Kh only to pay loans, my living, support the second wife, kid and mother. Thanks!

Q: I had divorced my wife at her request last month. I don't know what the next step would be; like for visa cancelation because she is under my sponsorship. She can change any time her office. After the divorce, my wife will leave me. We have kids; a 7-year old boy and a 13-year old girl. She opened a custody case also but I couldn't get any paper from the court. Can I ask her to leave my house? Or can I leave and take my children to another house? Please advise!

س: السلام عليكم، ما نفقة الزوجة المطلقة؟ وماذا يترتب في حال وجود طفلة عمرها 5 سنوات والزواج كان في بلد عربي والراتب 5000 درهم؟

Q: Dear Sir, My wife and I are both residents of the UAE and are both Muslims, married in India under Sharia Law, and registered in the UAE. While my visa is sponsored by my company in Dubai, she is staying with her parents in Abu Dhabi. We are not staying together since Sept 20 as she was not a good wife to me. We don’t have any children. In Jan 2022, she filed a maintenance case against me in Abu Dhabi court. There was a video conf. call with personal status court. Yesterday, I got another message again from the court to attend the video conference call. The next date they gave us was on 17 May 2022. Hence I request you to please advise me why they asked for my salary certificate. Will they ask me to pay monthly maintenance to her? If yes, then how much would it be monthly? Does the maintenance come under Sharia law even though we are not divorced yet? Please note that she has blocked me over WhatsApp, kept on abusing me from time to time since she is with her father and many more bad things from her relatives' side. Thanks.

Q: Dear Sir/Madam, What are the charges to open an execution file in Sharjah for a divorce case and how much time will it take to execute the court order? My husband told the court that he does not have money to pay for me and my daughter's expenses because he is earning a minimum amount in which he can only survive. In that case, what can I do? He closed all his bank accounts and sent money to his parents in India. He also told me that he will show in court that he does not have a job or money, so the court or police cannot do anything to him. Can you please guide me on what I can do in this case? I do not have any proof of his salary or bank account because he was not informing me about anything related to his financial matters. In fact, he was forcing me to ask my parents to send money to us. Because of no proof, the court agreed with him and rejected my appeal. I do not have a job and I am struggling for basic expenses. Can I request the court to inquire about his gratuity and end of service? Or can the court ask him to submit proof of the money that he received from his company, as he was working for 30 years in the same company?

Q: My divorce was finalized in 2018. Following was the ruling, for my younger son, my ex-wife will get 2000 Dirhams per month and for my youngest son, she will get 1500 per month. Furthermore, she will get AED 65,000 per annum for house rental. She went ahead and claimed the above in execution in May 2019, the sum total outstanding in May 2019 was 131,000. My younger son's custody shifted to me in 2020. Now she only has the youngest one with her. I kept 5000 dirhams per month as mutually agreed in court and since 2019 till today I’ve paid 275,000 in court and transferred 45,000 to her bank account via my friend's account. She has again gone to court yesterday and asked to increase the court monthly installment, which the judge has agreed to. However, now I have 2 kids aged 20 years and 16 years and she only has 1 kid aged 7 years. Earlier, I was well earning and in the family business when the old ruling was passed but now, I separated from family and business and I now have a job where I earn 7000. What do I do?

There are rights and obligations for both parties of the marriage contract arise as a result of divorce, which often disputed by the spouses. Here we will explain the due alimony and its types for the wife (divorced - widow) and children after divorce in accordance with the UAE Personal Status Law, Federal Law No. 28 of 2005 and its explanatory memorandum.

An interview-format article covering the topic of custody and guardianship in the UAE. This is from the legal podcast of lawyer Ludmila Yamalova, the founder of Lawgical with LYLAW.

Joint Custody in UAE Law Article 10 of the Federal Decree Law No. 41 of 2022 on Civil Personal Status for Non-Muslims shines a spotlight on the significance of Shared custody following divorce. This article recognizes joint and equal custody as a right for both the father and mother post-separation or divorce.

UAE Personal Status Law (also known as Personal Affairs Law) governs marriage, divorce, inheritance and other personal affairs in the United Arab Emirates. The law equally applies to citizens of the UAE and non-citizens unless one of them asks for the application of his home country law.