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If you are legally married and want to get divorced, you must file a case in court. If you and your spouse agree on everything, including dividing assets, custody, child support, etc., you can file an “uncontested” divorce with the court. You will not have to physically appear before the judge. You will have to file paperwork that includes all the terms of your divorce.
If you and your spouse don’t agree on everything, you will have to file a “contested” divorce in court. To start the process, you just have to file a divorce “complaint.” You have to get your spouse served by a sheriff or other neutral party. A court date will be set. The judge will make a decision about everything in your case.
For help with this process, you can use the automated forms available here.
You typically need to know your spouse’s address in order to get divorced. There are ways to get divorced without it, but it more difficult and expensive.
In a divorce, the court can divide assets (such as a house or cars), bank accounts, debts, etc. If you have minor children, the court will also decide custody and child support.
Contrary to popular belief, an annulment is not based on how long you were married. In Alabama, you can only get an annulment if a marriage was invalid from the start.
Some examples of this include:
– One spouse was already married (bigamy)
– One spouse was not of legal age to be married.
– Fraud on something that goes to the heart of the relationship (such as lying about having an STD)
Annulments are pretty rare in Alabama. If both parties were legally able to get married, they will probably have to get divorced, even if it has been a very short time.
Common law marriage is another often misunderstood concept. The first thing to know is that common law marriage was abolished in Alabama on January 1, 2017.
This means that you cannot start a common law marriage after that date.
However, if you had a common law marriage before that date, it is still valid.
The biggest factor in being common law married is “holding yourselves out as a married couple.” This means that you refer to each other as husband and wife, and people in your community refer to you as a married couple. Some things that can show this include:
– Wearing wedding rings
– Owning property together
– Filing taxes together
– Having joint bank accounts
You do not need all of these things, but they are taken into account. There is no requirement that you be together for a certain number of years.
If you have a common law marriage, you must get a regular divorce through the court system. That is probably the easiest way to protect your rights to any property you own with your spouse.
Most people who think they are common law married are not. It is very rare and very hard to prove.
