What are the Georgia requirements for getting an annulment?
Fairly frequently, people call our office attempting to get an annulment of their marriage rather than a divorce. Often we find, however, that the caller is not eligible for a annulment. The reason why is that you can only seek to obtain an annulment for certain specific grounds.
In Georgia, there are six grounds for granting an annulment in Georgia. Four of these grounds fall into a category of unique cases, specifically: 1) intermarriage between the parties (such as father/daughter, etc); 2) one of the parties is under 16 years of age; 3) one of the parties did not have the mental capacity at the time of the marriage; 4) one of the parties was committing bigamy (i.e. one spouse was married to someone else at the time of the marriage). Outside of these four unique factual circumstances, there are really only two grounds for annulment that are commonly used in Georgia: 1) Force, menace, or duress was used in obtaining the marriage; 2) Fraud.
Of note, some people believe that they can get an annulment if the parties did not consummate the marriage. Even though this may be a valid ground in other states, it is important to note that a failure to consummate the marriage is NOT a valid ground for annulment in Georgia.
One last note, if you and your spouse had any children during the marriage, regardless of whether one of the above grounds exists, then you must seek a divorce instead of an annulment. This is because, according to O.C.G.A. § 19-4-1, the judge will not grant an annulment if there were children born during the marriage.
