Divorce Alberta: Alberta Divorce Guide

When a married couple decide that enough is enough, their first thought may be to file for divorce and leave each others lives and begin new ones apart. However, there is another option to end their marriage in the form of 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.

If the process of annulment had been available to Henry VIII, he may not have needed to go to such great lengths as to create the Church of England in order to allow him to escape the clutches of one of his many wives, (she was the lucky one, escaping with her head!).

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.

Nonetheless, long-term marriages can still be annulled, yet it is simply less common due to the facts of the shared owner and guardianship of children and property etc. A Kansas family and divorce law article asserts that Generally, an annulment requires that at the very least one of the following reasons exists:

Misrepresentation or fraud — for example, a spouse has lied about the capacity to bear children, falsely claimed that she had reached the age of consent, or neglected to say that she was still married to someone else.

Concealment — for example, concealing an addiction to alcohol or drugs, conviction of a felony, children from a prior relationship, a sexually transmitted disease, or impotency.

Refusal or inability to consummate the marriage — that is, refusal or inability of a spouse to have sexual intercourse with the other spouse.

Misunderstanding — for example, one person wanted children and the other did not want them.

These are all grounds for civil annulments. Within the Roman Catholic Church, a couple may seek a religious annulment after obtaining a civil divorce, so that one or both people would be allowed to remarry, either within the church or anywhere else, and have the second marriage recognised by the church.

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.