How to Get a Marriage Annulled in Texas
Some of these include: situations where a party is under the age of 14 when married; a party to a marriage was under the influence of alcohol or narcotics; impotency is alleged; fraud, duress, or force was involved in the marriage; a party was mentally incompetent; one party concealed the fact that he or she had been divorced within the last 30 days; or the parties were married within 72 hours of obtaining the marriage license. Under the impotency category, this applies to one of the spouses not being able to have sex because of permanent mental or physical reasons. However, you cannot have known of the condition when you married and you cannot have voluntarily lived with the other party since you learned of it.
In cases such as the ones in the above paragraph, the other spouse receives nothing in return regarding property; etc.
But if you have kids you are liable for child support if you aren’t the custodial parent, according to one expert.
Annulment laws vary from state to state. Fraud is a little harder to pin down in annulment cases. If you file under the grounds of fraud, duress, or force you cannot have lived with the person since you learned of the fraud or from the time that you were able to escape whatever duress or force made you marry him or her.
To dissolve most marriages, annulment is rarely an option, says one attorney.
In the case of mental incapacity, this again, goes back to marriage being a contract that’s freely entered into by two competent individuals. But if at the time you were married you lacked the mental capacity to consent to a marriage or understand the nature of the marriage relationship because of mental illness or a mental defect and; you did not go on voluntary living with the other person when you had the mental capacity to understand what you had done then you can get an annulment, for example.
You can also get an annulment under these grounds if you spouse did not have the mental capacity to understand the nature of marriage or to enter into the marital contract; there was no way that you could have known that your spouse lacked that capacity; and you haven’t lived with your spouse since you discovered that he/she lacked the mental capacity to understand the marriage relationship or to enter into the marital contract.
Annulments often have additional rules which may be complicated.
The main thing to remember about civil annulments is that they are in place to dissolve marriages that had defects before the marriage began even if not discovered until after the marriage occurred.
When you go to an attorney’s office in Texas you will be given a form to fill out in which you will have to state why you feel an annulment is necessary in your case.
The length of the marriage has nothing to do with the question of availability for an annulment.
Void and voidable are just legal terms for the grounds that you must have to get an annulment in Texas. The grounds for annulment of a marriage in Texas are divided into two separate groups: void marriages and voidable marriages.
There are two grounds for declaring a marriage void in Texas: consanguinity and the existence of a prior marriage. Consanguinity is just a large word for getting married to someone who is too close a relative.
Under the voidable marriage category if you entered into a marriage when you were over 14 but under 18 and you married without parental consent or a court order you may get an annulment.
