A divorce has consequences for your family and for your financial future. Clear arrangements about children, housing, maintenance and assets help to prevent problems from continuing after the relationship has ended. From our office in Eindhoven you can discuss your family law question with Arslan Advocaten.
What can we assess your question on?
You can contact us about separation, maintenance, arrangements concerning children, parental authority and the financial settlement of your relationship. Read the explanation of divorce or choose your topic in the overview of family law.
Do you or your partner own a business? Mention this at the intake and, where available, bring your prenuptial agreement and recent financial documents. Ownership of a business, its value and income for maintenance purposes are separate questions.
Contact our office in Eindhoven
Address: Croy 7C, 5653 LC Eindhoven. Telephone: 040 711 30 99. You can also contact us via the website. Mention any hearing date or other specific deadline.
For a substantive engagement, the work and the costs are discussed. Also read the explanation of costs and possible legal aid. Choosing our office does not automatically determine which court will hear your case; separate rules on jurisdiction apply to that.
Anyone getting divorced in Eindhoven usually assumes that the hearing will take place in the court building in Eindhoven. That is not correct, and it is the most important practical difference between family law and the other areas of law in this city.
The substantive explanation of the divorce procedure, maintenance, parental authority and division can be found on the national pages divorce and family law. This page is about what works differently in Eindhoven.
Which court hears my divorce if I live in Eindhoven?
Your divorce is handled by the District Court of Oost-Brabant, but the hearing takes place at the 's-Hertogenbosch location, Leeghwaterlaan 8, 5223 BA 's-Hertogenbosch — not in the court building in Eindhoven.
There is no "District Court of Eindhoven". The district is called Oost-Brabant and has two court locations: 's-Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven. Which case is heard at which location is set out in the case allocation regulations (zaaksverdelingsreglement) of the District Court of Oost-Brabant (Government Gazette 2019, 57966). In that scheme, the entire category of personal and family law is assigned exclusively to the 's-Hertogenbosch location — both for hearings and for the registry desk.
This applies to the entire category, not only to the divorce itself:
| Type of case | Court location |
|---|---|
| Divorce and related cases | 's-Hertogenbosch |
| Parental authority, contact and the children’s place of residence | 's-Hertogenbosch |
| Maintenance (alimentatie) | 's-Hertogenbosch |
| Division and settlement | 's-Hertogenbosch |
| Acknowledgement and denial of paternity | 's-Hertogenbosch |
| Tenancy and employment cases (for comparison) | 's-Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven |
Your documents also go to 's-Hertogenbosch. The correspondence address for family cases is Postbus 70584, 5201 CZ 's-Hertogenbosch; the court’s Family and Youth Law Team is based there.
Incidentally, which court has jurisdiction does not depend on where you married but on where you live: under article 262(a) of the Code of Civil Procedure, the court of the place of residence of the petitioner or of one of the interested parties named in the petition has jurisdiction. If one of you lives in Eindhoven or in one of the surrounding municipalities of the district, that is the District Court of Oost-Brabant.
Why is the hearing not in the court building in Eindhoven?
Because the District Court of Oost-Brabant has concentrated family and youth law at the 's-Hertogenbosch location, while the Eindhoven location deals with subdistrict cases and criminal cases.
For you, this is mainly a matter of planning. Allow for a journey to 's-Hertogenbosch for the oral hearing, and for the possibility that more than one hearing will be needed — for example, first on the provisional measures and later on maintenance or the division.
What this does not mean is that you have to instruct a lawyer in 's-Hertogenbosch. A lawyer is authorised to practise throughout the Netherlands, and by far the largest part of a divorce file — the meeting, the petition, the negotiations on the parenting plan, the exchange of documents — does not take place in the courtroom. Where you meet your lawyer and where the hearing is held do not have to be the same place.
According to the same regulations, the court board may decide by way of exception to have a category of cases heard elsewhere, and a court may also deviate in a special case, giving reasons. Do not count on it, however: the main rule is 's-Hertogenbosch.
Does the neighbourhood judge for divorces also apply to Eindhoven?
No — according to the District Court of Oost-Brabant, the route by which a specific issue in a divorce case can be put to the neighbourhood judge via a Family Lawyer (Gezinsadvocaat) is open to 's-Hertogenbosch, Boxtel, Sint-Michielsgestel and Land van Cuijk, and not to Eindhoven.
This is a point on which you can easily be misinformed online. Eindhoven does have a neighbourhood court — the first in the country — but there it focuses on criminal cases involving suspects who face several problems at the same time, in cooperation with the municipality of Eindhoven, the Public Prosecution Service and housing associations, among others. The option, available since February 2026, of putting a specific issue in a divorce to the neighbourhood judge via the Family Lawyer applies to other municipalities, and those hearings also take place in 's-Hertogenbosch.
For a divorce dispute in Eindhoven, the ordinary route therefore remains: a petition to the District Court of Oost-Brabant, or — often quicker and cheaper — a settlement reached through consultation, possibly with mediation.
What must the petition contain if we have children?
If you have minor children together, the petition must include a parenting plan signed by both spouses.
This is laid down in article 815(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure. Under paragraph 3, that plan must in any event contain arrangements on three matters: how you divide the care and upbringing tasks or give shape to contact, how you inform and consult each other on important matters concerning the children, and how you bear the costs of their care and upbringing.
The petition also states, among other things, the surname and first names of your spouse and, where known, his or her place of residence and actual whereabouts, as well as the names and place of residence of each minor child.
In practice, the parenting plan is the part that takes the most time and from which most later conflicts arise. A plan that only says "by mutual agreement" is not a plan: it merely postpones the discussion to the moment when you do not agree.
When is my divorce final?
Your divorce is only final when the court’s decision has been registered in the civil registry — and the request for registration must be made within six months, otherwise the decision loses its effect.
This follows from article 1:163 of the Civil Code. Paragraph 1 provides that the divorce is effected by registration. Paragraph 3 provides that the decision loses its effect if the request for registration has not been made within six months of the day on which it became final and conclusive (in kracht van gewijsde).
Pay attention to where that registration takes place. The registrar adds the divorce as a subsequent entry to the certificates held by him or her (article 1:20(2) of the Civil Code). That is therefore the municipality in which your marriage certificate was drawn up — not automatically the municipality where you live now. If you married in Eindhoven, the registration goes through the municipality of Eindhoven; if you married elsewhere, through that municipality.
By way of illustration. After lengthy proceedings, two spouses receive the divorce decision and assume that they are divorced. They arrange the move, their banking and their insurance, but nobody submits the request for registration — each thinks that the other or the lawyer is doing it. More than six months later, it turns out that they are still married and that the decision has lost its effect, with all the resulting consequences for the community of property that has continued to exist in the meantime. The question is then not who was negligent, but whether the entire procedure has to be started again. This is a hypothetical situation illustrating the rule, not a case handled by our firm.
Where is the appeal heard?
An appeal against a decision of the District Court of Oost-Brabant goes to the Court of Appeal of 's-Hertogenbosch, Family and Youth Law Team.
An example from published case law shows the course of such a case. In the case that led to the decision of the Court of Appeal of 's-Hertogenbosch of 19 December 2024 (ECLI:NL:GHSHE:2024:4126), the divorce petition was filed with the District Court of Oost-Brabant on 13 April 2021, the court pronounced the divorce on 14 March 2023, that decision was registered in the civil registry on 7 September 2023, and the Court of Appeal ruled on spousal maintenance and the division of the marital community of property at the end of 2024.
That is a realistic timeframe for a case in which the parties cannot agree on the finances. It is also the reason why it pays to determine early on what you really disagree about: the divorce itself is usually the quickest part.
Can I go to Arslan Advocaten in Eindhoven?
Yes, by appointment: Arslan Advocaten has an office in Eindhoven at Croy 7C, 5653 LC Eindhoven, reachable on 040 711 3099.
Here you meet a lawyer at an agreed time, Monday to Friday between 09:00 and 17:30. In family cases, that meeting is more important than in any other area of law — so allow sufficient time for it and do not drop by unannounced.
| Address | Croy 7C |
| Postcode and town | 5653 LC Eindhoven |
| Telephone | 040 711 3099 |
| Appointments | Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:30 |
| Type of office | Arslan Advocaten office; meetings by appointment |
More about this location can be found on the page Eindhoven office.
How do I get in touch?
Call 040 711 3099 on working days between 09:00 and 17:30, or use the form at https://arslan.nl/contact/.
Bring the following to the first meeting: your marriage booklet or marriage certificate, any prenuptial agreement, your children’s details, and a rough overview of the assets, debts and income of both of you. If there is already a court decision or a time limit running, mention this straight away when making the appointment.
Besides Dutch, Arslan Advocaten can also help you in Turkish, Polish and English. When making the appointment, indicate which language you would like to have the meeting in — in family cases this pays off twice over, because the details you do mention in your own language are often precisely the details that determine the outcome.