Sometimes, after you’ve stayed in a marriage for a while, you realize that your spouse has changed. The fun-loving party animal you knew during your time of dating might turn out to prioritize alcohol and weed over your relationship. The sheltered girl next door you fell in love with might have turned into a conspiracy theory-spewing bigot. What will you consider between annulment vs. divorce for your marriage?

Maybe you caught your spouse in so many lies during your first year of marriage. Therefore, some of the viable options entail either the annulment of your marriage or divorce. What differences exist between annulment vs divorce? Read on to know more!

When to Justify Annulment or Divorce

If the court declares your marriage not legally valid, an annulment makes a good option. Some of the similarities between annulment and divorce outline that they both entail formal divorce proceedings and the division of marital property.

All US states grant no-fault divorce, which allows either spouse to justify the divorce. Here, they can cite irreconcilable differences without specifying their nature. A few states allow the use of covenant marriage as a way around a no-fault divorce. Such instances may call for legal counsel.

What Happens During a Default Divorce Process?

During a default divorce process, all the divorce laws regarding the dissolution of marriage come into play. For an uncontested divorce, the respondent doesn’t need to file divorce papers. One can only certify the annulment of marriage on the legal grounds that the couple can’t justifiably live with each other.

Therefore, such common grounds call for a legal separation. If you need a divorce annulment, then the document preparation services of a California legal document assistant make a great alternative to hiring a lawyer.

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…or continue reading the article below to learn more about annulment vs. divorce.

Annulment vs. Divorce in California: The Difference Between Divorce and Annulment

When a court issues you an order of dissolution of marriage, you formally forfeit your marital status. Therefore, you gain the right to enter another valid marriage. However, there exists some differences. In a divorce, the court considers the couples legally married before the divorce judgment.

If the court declares your marriage not legally valid, you’ll have to seek an annulment and not a divorce. However, the court will still make judgment on major issues like:

  • Division of property
  • Legal rights for parenting time
  • Child custody issues
  • Court-ordered child support
  • Child visitation, and
  • Administration of community property

If a couple with children requests an annulment, the court usually requests a DNA paternity test before recognizing the man as the child’s father and awarding them parental rights. Therefore annulment always requires a court hearing; divorce doesn’t necessarily demand a normal court hearing.

What Parenting Options Exist for Annulment vs Divorce?  

The option for spouses during either an annulment or divorce could entail retaining parental rights with regards to issues of child custody. The complexities of child custody and child custody questions get minimized through mutual parental consent to address the needs of the children from the marriage.

Therefore, issues of child custody make up both types of divorce. Despite their method of service, both types of divorce result in marriage dissolution. Regardless of the types of annulment, you can seek guidance about the division of marital estate from a family law attorney.

What Makes You Qualify for an Annulment?

Do you have the facts on your side regarding legal annulments? This could either apply for civil annulments or religious annulments. California law recognizes the following circumstances as valid reasons for an annulment:

  • The court declares the marriage license or marriage certificate invalid.
  • One spouse coerced the other at the time of marriage.
  • One party engaged in a legal marriage with someone else.
  • One party had not reached the legal age of consent (underage spouse) when they got married. This also gets referred to as underage marriage or child marriage
  • One spouse had an unsound mind when they entered the marriage.
  • One spouse entered the marriage through fraud or deception.
  • The parties have close blood relatives.

Statutory deadlines take a significant part when establishing the grounds for annulment. For some of these situations, the deadline for filing for annulment stands at four years from the time you conducted your marriage ceremony. In other cases, it stands at four years from the time you found out the truth about your spouse. In the case of bigamy, a separation between spouses can happen as long as either of them still lives.

What Makes You Qualify for Divorce?

Having a divorce formally declares the termination of your marriage bond. Different from an annulled marriage, a divorced marriage indicates that the couples had married legally. Therefore, they seek a divorce as a means to end their formal marriage. A marriage qualifies for divorce when one of the spouses files a divorce petition in court.

Depending on the nature of feedback from the respondent, the next step could either lead to a collaborative divorce or a contested divorce. The parties can also reach a divorce settlement agreement after fruitful divorce mediation. The division of property during divorce varies depending on the type of property in a divorce.

Contentious divorces always take a long period of time compared to normal divorce. This gets attributed to the long divorce action. Also, the spouses will incur additional divorce costs to complete the entire process. You can contact a legal document assistant if you want any divorce FAQs answered.

Which Divorce Option Is Better?

During a divorce, both parties have to meet some expenses. However, there exists an affordable alternative to divorce: a collaborative divorce process. Working with a divorce attorney also makes a good option. The adequate grounds for a collaborative divorce demand mutual consent to divorce.

The spouses must also clearly address the issues of property division. A legal process would always seek an equitable division after divorce. The forms of service may also indicate whether there existed any separate property during divorce. Legal requirements stipulate the importance of transparency regarding property ownership from both spouses.

A Legal Document Assistant Can Help with the Annulment of Your Marriage

Choosing a legal document assistant to prepare your annulment paperwork demands little cost than working with a lawyer. Contact A People’s Choice about court documents related to marriage annulment or divorce.

We can help to file your marriage dissolution documents to end your current marriage. We boast of efficient services that take minimal time. Call us today at 800-747-2780.

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