English-Speaking Family Lawyers in Costa Rica — Former Judge on Our Team

Divorce when one spouse is a foreigner

A marriage involving a foreign national can usually be dissolved in Costa Rica, and the practical question is almost never whether it can be — it is where it should be. Filing here and filing abroad produce different outcomes on property, on support and on how quickly anything is final, and the choice is often available only once. Where the marriage was celebrated in another country, the certificate generally has to arrive here properly legalised and translated before anything can move, which is the step that quietly adds months when nobody plans for it. We work this out before filing, not after.

Custody when one parent lives in another country

This is the hardest question foreign families bring us, and the one with the least written about it in English. Which court decides depends substantially on where the child actually lives rather than on either parent's nationality or on where the relationship began. For a parent abroad that cuts both ways: it can mean the matter belongs here even though you do not live here, or that it belongs there even though your child was born in Costa Rica. The answer shapes everything that follows, so it is worth establishing at the outset instead of discovering it through a jurisdictional fight.

Does a U.S. custody order work here?

Not by itself. A foreign custody order has no automatic effect in Costa Rica: it has to be recognised through a formal procedure before anyone here is bound by it. Parents regularly arrive believing their order travels with them, and discover otherwise at the point they most need it — usually when the other parent is already in the country with the child. Recognition is a real and workable route, but it is a proceeding with its own requirements and its own timeline, and it is far better started early than used as an emergency measure.

Child support across borders

Support can be claimed here when the child is in Costa Rica even if the paying parent lives abroad, and it can be owed by a parent here to a child elsewhere. What tends to be underestimated is enforcement: obtaining an order and collecting on it against someone in another country are separate problems, and the second depends on what the paying parent owns, where, and what cooperation exists between the two systems. We look at enforceability before filing, because an order that cannot be collected is an expensive piece of paper.

Exit restrictions on children — the one that catches people at the airport

A Costa Rican court can bar a child from leaving the country, and this surprises foreign parents more than any other measure in family law. It can arise from a support matter or from a custody dispute, and it operates regardless of the child's other nationality or passport. The place it is usually discovered is the airport, when a family is already travelling. If there is any open family matter and you plan to travel with a child, that belongs in a conversation with a lawyer beforehand — both to check whether a restriction exists and, where one is being sought against you, to argue it at the hearing rather than afterwards.

Unmarried couples: unión de hecho

Costa Rica recognises unión de hecho — a legally recognised partnership between people who live together without marrying — and it can carry consequences for property and for support. Foreign couples who never married, and who assumed that living together here was legally neutral, are frequently the ones most affected when the relationship ends. Recognition is not automatic and it has requirements, so whether it applies to a given couple is a question worth answering while things are calm rather than during a separation.

Who handles these cases

Family matters here are led by Álvaro Ramírez Largaespada, who presided over the Family and Domestic Violence Court for 25 years and served a further five as a Juvenile Criminal Judge, within a 33-year career in Costa Rica's Judicial Branch. That is a specific kind of preparation: he has decided thousands of the matters our clients now bring, so he knows which arguments carry weight with a court, how evidence is actually weighed, and where a case is won long before any hearing. He works alongside Ricardo Montes Guevara, a former Child Support Judge and Judicial School professor. Both credentials can be verified against the Judicial Branch — which is the point.