Video answers from Jacksonville family law attorney A. James Mullaney about annulment issues in Florida family law.
How Long After I get Married can I still get an Annulment?
Transcript
In Florida, there is no time period after your marriage in which you can get an annulment if your marriage is not working out. If your marriage is not working out and you want to end it, you have to get a dissolution of marriage - a divorce. An annulment typically involves some type of fraud. Most often this involves dishonesty about actually being in love, religion, desire or ability to have children, or criminal history. These situations are called voidable marriages. In one of these cases an annulment might be possible,, but that possibility might go away if the other party knows about the fraud and does nothing about it. The other type of annulment is based on a void marriage. These cases involve a marriage that is illegal. Examples of these marriages include bigamous marriages or marriages between people who are not allowed to marry - like brother and sister.
In Florida, what is an Annulment?
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An annulment is a court order stating that your marriage never took place. It's as if you were never married. Since a marriage is essentially a contract, an annulment is the court saying that there are reasons that the contract is invalid. This is difference than a divorce where a judge breaks the contract. The difficulty, complexity and confusion surrounding annulments comes from the fact that there is no statutory basis for annulments in Florida - like there are for divorces. There are no statutes or rules that lay out a procedure on how to get an annulment. The annulment process is based on precedent and prior annulment cases.
Can I get an Annulment?
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In terms of whether or not you can get an annulment, there are two types of marriages: void marriages and voidable marriages. A void marriage is a marriage that is invalid from the very beginning. For example, if you married your brother or sister, that marriage is void because it is illegal to marry a sibling in the State of Florida. The next type of marriage is a voidable marriage. This is an otherwise valid marriage that can contain a defect that can be cured - potentially. For example, suppose that it is very important to you that your spouse is of a specific religion. You would never marry that person unless they were a member of your religion. When you meet your spouse, he or she tells you that they are of that faith. Eventually, you get married to that person. Later, you discover that your spouse lied to you and that they are not a member of that religion. In that case, you don't have a void marriage - because there is no prohibition about marrying someone with different priorities. However, your marriage is voidable. If you can prove to a judge that your spouse lied to you and that you would not have otherwise married that person, the judge would likely grant your annulment. However, if you learn the truth about your spouse's religion and do nothing, then - potentially - your spouse in a later hearing could argue that you agreed to that problem and hence cured that defect. Similar to an uncontested divorce, if you and your spouse can agree to the reasons and terms of an annulment, you can very likely get your annulment at a very reduced cost and time frame as compared to a litigated annulment.