When a married couple decide that their relationship is over, their first thought may be to file for divorce and begin new lives, apart from each other. However, there is another way to end their marriage that may be easier, and that is an annulment.
An annulment will essentially ‘void’ the marriage and treat it as if it has never happened, as opposed to the lengthy procedure of dividing assets, custody battles and other aspects of a divorce filing. If you feel as if you would like legal advice on annulments then contact a Sheffield divorce lawyer today to see if you would qualify for an annulment.
Now, with celebrities such as Britney Spears filing for them after ‘shotgun’ weddings in Las Vegas, an annulment may seem a relatively contemporary concept, yet annulments actually have a fairly long and interesting past; royalty throughout history have looked for formats to allow them to escape wedlock without resorting to divorce.
Henry VIII went as far as to create the Church of England so that he could escape the marital clutches of one of his many wives, (she was the fortuitous one, escaping with her head!); however, if the process of annulment had been available to him, he would not have needed to go to such great lengths.
Now we shall look at exactly what differentiates annulments from divorce and how they are applicable to certain marriages. For an annulment to happen, the marriage will usually have to be in its early stages with no children or joint property to argue over, as it will cancel out a marriage rather than end it and divide its assets.
However, long-term marriages can be annulled, but it is simply less common because of the shared owner and guardianship of property and children etc. A Kansas family and divorce law article argues that, generally, an annulment requires that at least one of the following reasons exists:
Misrepresentation or fraud — for example, a spouse lied about the capacity to have children, falsely stated that she had reached the age of consent, or failed to say that she was still married to someone else.
Concealment — for example, concealing an addiction to alcohol or narcotics, conviction of a crime, offspring from a prior relationship, an STD, or impotency.
Refusal or inability to consummate the marriage — that is, the refusal or total inability of a spouse to have sex with the other spouse.
Misunderstanding — for example, one person wanted children and the other did not want them.
These are all some of the grounds for civil annulments. Within the Roman Catholic Church, a couple may obtain a religious annulment after obtaining a civil divorce, in order for one or both people to remarry and have the second union recognised by the church, within the church or anywhere else.
An annulment can end a marriage that was never right to begin with, without all the messy details of who owes what to whom; it can be a viable option for some couples, so if you think that your marriage would qualify for such an annulment, then seek legal advice from a Sheffield divorce lawyer.
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