What are the Grounds for Having a Marriage Annulled in Kentucky?

An annulment is much like a divorce with one key difference: instead of dissolving a marriage as in a divorce, an annulment erases the marriage as though it never happened. If you have made the challenging decision to end your marriage, under certain circumstances having your marriage annulled may be a viable option. Only an experienced Kentucky family law attorney can provide personalized advice; however, understanding the grounds for an annulment in the Commonwealth of Kentucky can be helpful.

In Kentucky, if any of the following circumstances were present at the time of your marriage, you may be eligible to have your marriage annulled:

• A spouse was unable to legally consent to the marriage. This could be due to severe mental disability or intoxication.
• A spouse was forced or coerced into the marriage.
• A spouse defrauded the other party about something essential to the marriage. For example, if the wife told the husband that she was pregnant when she was not in order to get the husband to marry her, that may be grounds for annulment.
• A spouse is impotent.
• The couple would be committing incest if they remained married. This means the couple is more closely related than second cousins.
• One of the spouses committed bigamy. This means one of the spouses was already married to someone else at the time of the marriage.
• One of the spouses was under the age of 18.

If you want to get your marriage annulled you must make this request within 90 days of discovering the cause of the annulment. If you want to get an annulment due to reasons of mental disability, incest, or lack of consent, you have up to one year from the time you learn of the reason for the annulment to make this request. The exception to these rules occurs if one spouse was under the age of 18 at the time of the marriage. In this case you must get an annulment before the time the underage party turns 18. After the underage spouse turns 18 an annulment is no longer an option.

Due to the complexities of the grounds for annulment and the process of getting a marriage annulled, this is absolutely not a do-it-yourself job. Given that there is a strict statute of limitations, you want to ensure that no time is lost maneuvering your way through the legal system. Contact an experienced Kentucky family law attorney today.