Palm Springs Annulment Attorneys
Thurman Arnold is an expert family law attorney whose practice is based in Palm Springs, Riverside County, California. Annulments are a specialized area of California family law practice, and your eligibility for this type of decree is strictly governed by statute in this State - annulments are only granted if certain conditions are met. The following information will help to tell you whether the Court will likely annul your marriage or domestic partnership.
Annulment in California is referred to as a "Nullity of Marriage". As a sentiment it describes a desire to wipe the slate clean and be returned to the legal state before marriage, often without the legal consequences of a valid marriage.
A
Decree of Annulment is permitted only upon specific statutory grounds. It cannot be granted just because you and your partner agree you want it.
An annulment is one of the alternative requests of the
FL-100 California Judicial Council Petition for Dissolution and as with all court forms, the appropriate boxes must be checked in order for the Court to have the jurisdiction to consider your request. You may check that box 'in the alternative' to a dissolution in case a judge determines you do not qualify for an annulment but be clear that you are giving the other party fair notice of your contentions or you may find your request denied or delayed on that basis.
Annulments can importantly affect spousal support and property rights. If you are responding to an annulment request, please understand that your failure to challenge the other party's requests may have significant economic consequences for you.
California Family Code sections 2200
et seq. set forth the grounds for annulment. They are divided into two categories: Void Marriages and Voidable Marriages.
What is a Void Marriage?
A "void marriage" is between people related to a certain degree by blood (half siblings, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces). How closely people need to be related by blood before their marriage is deemed invalid differs from state to state.
Grounds for annulment most commonly include "bigamous" marriages, which sometimes occur where one party thought they had a decree of divorce from a previous spouse but it was never reduced to a formal Judgment. Honest mistakes can be made - sometimes a party believed their attorney brought the case to its full conclusion, but more often a party was representing themselves and did not understand what formal documents needed to be filed to finally dissolve the marriage. The law views such marriages as void, which means that the marriage is deemed to have no legal effect, and so is invalid. This may have the important result that no community interest in property acquired during 'the marriage' is created and it may make it impossible to obtain spousal support. It may also result in the loss of health insurance coverage, among other valuable rights.
For an
innocent spouse in the case of
bigamy
(Family Code section 2201) in particular, such a result can work an extreme hardship and be totally unfair. To be denied a right to spousal support after years of believing one was legitimately married, only because the other spouse kept their prior still existing marriage a secret, would be unjust.
Therefore the law protects such legally unmarried persons if they qualify as
"putative" spouses. Where a person had no reason to suspect that their marriage was invalid and if they relied upon their belief that they were legally married, putative spouses can be afforded the same rights as married persons receive even though there is otherwise no marriage
in the eyes of the law.
When are Marriages Voidable?
Unlike void marriages which, "voidable marriages" are only void if certain conditions are met and have not been waived. These conditions are fact specific. These may include marriages involving an unemancipated minors, or where there is a prior spouse who was reasonably believed to be dead, or marriages involving a person of unsound mind, or where the consent of either party was obtained through a fraud that relates to the essence of the marital relation, or where consent was obtained by force, or whether either party at the time of the marriage was physically incapable of entering into the marriage and that incapacity continued and is incurable.
These situations are pretty rare.
Family Code section 2210 sets forth the statutory grounds for annulment in California. It will give you some further guidance on this subject.
For information you can rely on, contact the Law Firm of Thurman Arnold III.
Committed annulment attorneys in Riverside County, CA
