Hi everybody. In this video we are going to talk about how annulments of
marriages work in California. Stay tuned.
Hi everybody. It's Andy and welcome again to my office in Los Altos, California. I'm
an attorney licensed to practice law in California as well as New York and as I
said in the intro to this video, in this video, we are going to be talking about
annulments of marriages in California. So the, I guess, the reason why I put this
video out or why I'm recording this video is because for a while I was getting a lot
of people who would approach me and basically ask 'Ok, well, you know Andy, I
married this person, I married my wife, my husband, etc' and, I guess, probably the
most polite way to say it is that after getting married to these people, you know,
the person who would approach me basically had discovered something
unattractive about them. For example, this person was a mama's boy, let's say, this
person, you know, lied to me about their job, this person didn't tell me that they
had been bankrupt before, this person really is insensitive and they don't
clean up after themselves, they don't do chores, etc, etc. So there's something
basically that this person discovers after marriage that, had they known it
before, probably would not have, you know, they probably would not have gotten
married in the first place. So it's not really buyer's remorse, you
know necessarily, but there is some kind of similarity to it. So the basic idea is
that there is something that makes this person regret getting married and now
they're trying to find a way to get out of it.
So the kind of scenario that they, or the question they would give to me was, you
know, 'Andy can I annul this marriage based on these circumstances?' So to
discuss annulments in California, there's a concept that you have to understand
called a Void Marriage versus a Voidable Marriage, which I will go ahead and write
over here for you. So a Void Marriage is going to be under California Family Code
section 2200 and a Voidable Marriage is going to be under Section 2210
of the California Family Code, which I'll also write over here hopefully and
I'll link both of those Family Code sections down below for you. So the
easiest way to kind of explain Void versus Voidable, I think, is to kind of
go over some of the reasons why a marriage might be Void or Voidable or
anullable, I guess, for lack of a better word, in the first place. So
some of these reasons, I think, are going to be fairly, um, not common in terms of like,
you know, that they happen all the time but common in terms of, you know, the
general population most likely has heard of them in one way or another. So I'll
give you an example. So let's say that, you know, a parent marries a child, like a
father marries his daughter, let's say. I would hope that all of you kind of would
realize that a marriage like that is incestuous and by law it is not, I guess,
there's no scenario in which it's okay for a father to marry his daughter, for a
brother to marry his sister, and so on. So an incestuous marriage like that is not
okay. Period. Full stop. In other words, there is no scenario, no change of fact, I guess, like
it's not like 'Oh well, you know, it's not okay for a brother and sister to get
married now, but you know give them a couple years and it's okay.' So, um, there is
no way to make an incestuous marriage okay, I guess. So for that reason, that's
the, that's an example of a Void Marriage. There is no way at all, period, full stop
in which a incestuous marriage is okay. It's allowed. Yeah, so void, like that
marriage is void, period, full stop. A Voidable Marriage, um, probably the best way to
explain it would be with an example of an unsound mind scenario. So an unsound
mind scenario would be if somebody gets married, but they either don't understand
what's going on, they're senile, they have dementia, they have some mental
condition that doesn't allow them to understand that they're entering into a
marriage, what that involves, who this other person is, etc. And if that's the
case, then that marriage can be voided but the thing is voidable, like I guess
the difference between Voidable and Void marriages is that a Voidable Marriage,
like there's a time period in which, within which it can be voided, but if
you miss it and like let's say that you are okay with it later on, you cannot
go back later on and then declare the entire marriage void, I guess, if that
makes sense. So to go back to the unsound mind scenario, let's say that somebody
has an unsound mind and they get married to a, you know, their husband, let's say. And, you
know, if they decide to get divorced right then,
then it's something where they could possibly do an annulment because this
person, the wife for example, had an unsound mind she didn't understand what
was going on, etc. But let's say then that, you know, instead of actually proceeding
with an annulment right away, this wife decides to wait and, in particular,
let's say that she decides to wait even after realizing that this marriage is
not something that she agreed to initially. In other words let's say her
her mental condition, her unsound mind becomes better and then she realizes
that she doesn't love this husband, she really doesn't want to owe any
obligations to him, but she decides to stay even after realizing all this stuff.
In that scenario, she cannot then go back to declare the entire marriage void.
She's basically sort of agreed to it, I guess, for lack of a better term. She
basically has, you know, discovered like the problems, discovered that this
is not something that she would have agreed to initially, but then accepted it,
chosen to just live with it for whatever reason. So in that scenario because she's
deemed to have accepted kind of the, the "marriage" that she's sort of entered
into, if she wants, if she then wants to end the marriage, she can
but it's gonna be, you know, through a regular divorce-
dissolution sort of process. Hopefully all of that made sense. This is not a
kind of normal thing that I think most lay people think about. The reason why this
Void versus Voidable marriage kind of distinction is important is because
under the Void scenario, there are no community property rights that result,
for instance. So the marriage like I said, er, sorry
a Void Marriage, rather, void from the outset. There's no way in which that
marriage is legal ever at all. So no community property,
you know, rights exist and it's like the marriage never legally sort of happened.
A Voidable Marriage, however, is slightly different because let's say
that, you know, back to the unsound mind scenario, let's say that this wife
discovers all these bad, you know, problems, I guess, with her marriage that she
never have agreed to this. If she wants to get a annulment at that
point and void the entire thing, sure she can and there's gonna be no
community property rights that result. However, let's say that she doesn't get an
annulment right away and she basically accepts or
kind of continues to live with the fact that, you know, this marriage is not
something she would have agreed to. If she does that, the marriage then becomes
voidable. She can end it through a divorce process but there will be a
period of time within which a community property right, for example, does
actually exist. So, yeah, hopefully that made sense. For, for bigamy that's
actually like there's a special exception for bigamy also relating to
whether or not you had a belief that the prior spouse was deceased, you know,
there's a five-year rule, for example, but there's a, that's the basic idea for
void versus voidable. That's a very important distinction to actually
understand, to make. Yeah, so anyway, hopefully all of that made sense but
Void versus Voidable, that's the first thing you have to understand when you
are talking about an annulment in California. So to go over some kind of
basic reasons why an annulment might, might happen: incest I've mentioned
already. Unsound mind, for example, I've mentioned already.
Bigamy I've mentioned a little bit also. Force, you know, if somebody is forcing,
you know, another person into a marriage. If they are physically unable
to kind of participate in a marriage. All of that stuff can be grounds for an
annulment. The more common one which kind of leads back to what I said
earlier about people coming to me and saying 'Hey Andy, you know I, I didn't
realize this about her, I didn't realize this about him, can I get,' like is this
fraud basically, is this fraud that allows me to get, to get an annulment
so then I can not have to pay alimony, I don't have to split property, so that for
religious reasons I can say that I've never been married, and so on. So the
question then becomes "Is fraud sufficient?" er, sorry, "Is this - my scenario -
sufficient to constitute fraud for the purposes of annulment?" And, I guess, to
kind of generalize, if it's something where let's say that, you know, you, you're
saying "Oh well, you know, she didn't tell me that she was a shopaholic, he didn't
tell me that he was a slob, he didn't tell me that he would never go work." Is
that sufficient to constitute fraud? In general, unfortunately, the answer is no.
California like the, the rule for fraud, I guess, the criteria for fraud
in California is basically that it has to go to the, the substance of the
marriage, the essence, kind of why you get married in the first place. I'm going to
cite to a case which I'll link down below with the citation.
It's called Meager and Maleki. It's a 2005 Court of Appeals case
and that one basically goes over, you know, this rule that, you know, whatever
fraud you claim in an annulment situation has to go to the essence, the
very reason why you got married in the first place. So I'll give you some
examples that actually have qualified as fraud, you know, sufficient to, you know,
grant an annulment before. So one thing would be, let's say, that you
are impotent, for example, like your spouse didn't tell you that he or she
was impotent, or that he or she could not bear children, for example, or that he or
she would refuse, I guess, to live with you. So the thing is spouses it's sort of
assumed that, you know, once they get married, they're gonna live together,
they're gonna have sexual relations, they're most likely going to, you know,
you know, bear some, er, uh, become parents to children, etc. All of that stuff is kind
of essential, I guess, you know under the Meager and Maleki rule that it's, it's,
it's the essence of the marriage and, therefore, if, you know, that stuff is not
disclosed or that stuff is lied about in some way initially, you know, that's
fraud. You can get an annulment for that reason. I'll also give you another scenario
which, unfortunately, is more common than I would like to kind of think or
that I would have ever thought, I guess. Particularly on the west coast. If you
are actually not on the west coast of the United States, then, you know, leave me
a comment down below, I guess, and tell me whether or not this scenario is actually
fairly common where you live as well. But the scenario that I'm referring to
basically is immigration fraud. So let's say, for instance, that - I mean I'll
generalize quite a bit here - but let's say that, you know, on the west coast of
the United States, you have some man who's been married before, but you know
he's gotten divorced. He's in his, say, mid-50s or something and, you know, he
goes overseas to China, you know, Vietnam whatever, and, you know, basically marries
some woman who's much, much younger than him and he, you know, falls in love with
her, head-over-heels, he decides to bring her back to the United States on a, you
know, K visa, for example, a fiancee visa. He brings her back, you know, he marries
her, she gets a conditional green card, and then as soon as the, the
two-year period passes for a conditional green card and, you know, her green card
becomes legal, she basically says "Oh hey, sorry, I'm leaving you," like
literally the day, like the day that she gets her green card she decides to leave.
That type of scenario basically I'm hoping you guys can see, is she married
this guy just to get a green card. That type of marriage can be, be, you know,
annulled also because, you know, this person from overseas never really intended to
be a spouse, I guess, never intended to live with you, never intended to have
sexual relations with you, never intended to, you know, bear children with you, etc.
Her sole purpose in this example - this is not gender specific, guys can do this too -
but in my example this person from overseas, the sole reason why they got
married was to come to the US, get a green card and as soon as he or she got
the green card, BOOM! she's gone. So, yeah, so immigration fraud scenarios like
that are actually fairly common also. So I don't have a video on immigration
stuff that I just mentioned, like, you know, the K visa, the conditional green
card, and so on. If you are interested in something like that, go ahead and leave
me a comment. I'm always taking suggestions for what new videos to put
out. So those are some scenarios that basically work, I guess, for annulments.
They're not guaranteed, but there are cases that basically go over each of
those scenarios that I mentioned that said "Yes this is, you know, sufficient
fraud to, er, sufficient fraud to grant an annulment. So I'll give you some
examples of stuff that does not work. So if, let's say that you get married to a
guy and he didn't disclose, I guess, that he had gone bankrupt before, he didn't
disclose that he had a criminal record before, that he'd been in prison before, let's say.
He didn't disclose that he was an alcoholic, he didn't disclose that he
was poor, for example, or that he had no money and maybe he hid that from you,
maybe you just never bothered to ask. I don't know, but wealth, I guess, you know
if there's like a misrepresentation about wealth, not enough.
Misrepresentation about criminal record, not enough. Alcoholism, not enough. Yeah so
I guess hopefully all of that made sense, like the Void vs. Voidable thing, that's
actually pretty important to understand when it comes to discussing annulments
in California. In general, I guess, the people that I have dealt with at least,
they basically want to take a broader reading of fraud, you know, include more
things under fraud than the cases in California really allow. So, you know, like
I said, unable to have children, unwilling to live with you, immigration fraud, for
instance. Yeah all of that stuff there are cases that basically hold that that
is sufficient fraud, but merely, like basically having buyer's remorse over
the fact that your, your new husband's an alcoholic, your new wife, you know,
basically spends money like there's no tomorrow. All of that stuff, unfortunately,
is not sufficient to constitute an annulment, like to grant an annulment.
However it is something where, you know, you can always go through a normal
divorce. The problem, I guess, and I use that word problem literally, er sorry,
liberally, rather, liberally here. If you go through a normal divorce process then,
you know, of course, you will have community property rights that you have
to basically deal with. So if you go through an annulment, the reason why
people want to do that, is because depending on whether or not it's void
versus voidable you either have no community property rights at all or you
have very very little ones, I guess, over a very small period hopefully. So, yeah, I
guess, that's basically it, like that's, you know, annulments in California in a
nutshell. Again hopefully that helps, not too confusing, go ahead and comment, share
like, subscribe, all that social media-y stuff that, you know, people do now and I
will talk to you guys next time. Thanks.