Cousin Wants Annulment He Wont Consent

[TheStinkyPrincess]

My cousin got married in March and had doubts before but went ahead.

He is 17 years her senior and she has found out he is a drug user he goes out drinking nightly.

She told him she wants to end it. She owns the apartment they live in outright before she met him.
He has two teens and a ex. He has a small ex council flat he rents out.

My cousin works in the family business she is a qualified pharmacist her Dad owns two pharmacies.

This guy said he wants the business or her flat otherwise he will sit it out.
What can be done?

She needs proper legal advice.

She needs to take proper legal advice. But she can just divorce him - it’s a short marriage with no children, they should both be able to leave with what they brought into the marriage.

The courts will not support him fleecing her when it's such a short marriage.

It can only be an annulment with a small number of circumstances, the easiest of which is if they have not had sex since the ceremony. However, a divorce can still happen pretty quickly if that's no the case.

She needs to chuck him out of her house asap and get proper professional legal advice.

"This guy said he wants the business or her flat otherwise he will sit it out"

That's called blackmail. And one could reasonably argue in court that it was what he was after all along. A stake in her family's profitable business and half her flat.

I'm not a lawyer but pretty sure that he has no stakes in the business' as they are her father's and also any inheritance (dad passes before divorce) is not included in 'shares'

I assume this was an arranged marriage and there may be cultural issues?

If that's the case she needs to go to her family and be honest with them that he only wants their money. They might support her, if not then yes she needs legal advice.

She can't divorce him until they have been married for one year. As a previous poster said, there are only limited grounds for annulment. These are:

• the marriage is not legally valid
• the marriage has not been consummated (i.e. they haven't had sex since marrying)
• she was forced into the marriage
• her husband had an STD
• her husband is in the process of transitioning to a different gender

Assuming none of these apply, she will have to wait until March before starting divorce proceedings. If she does, and assuming there are no children, the normal approach of the courts is that she will retain any assets she had prior to marriage but assets acquired during the marriage will be shared between them. It is unlikely he will have any claim on the flat or the business.

She does not need his consent to divorce him, so he cannot blackmail her or her family by refusing to consent.

If she needs to get him out of the flat now, she may be able to get an occupation order.

She needs to take proper legal advice.

Ffs mn need to remove the ability to quote the OP. Especially two posts in.

No it wasnt a arranged marriage my cousin and her husband are both british born.

She knows she has made a huge mistake and wants out she is only 28.

He thinks because he is older and has children he will qualify for at least half her apartment and she is worried.
Her parents were not invited to the wedding he wanted one of his mates to walk her in the register office.
He is controlling.

She suspects he wants money off her so he can buy another house with his ex.

OP, read the post above by prh47bridge.

That poster is an experienced lawyer of longstanding MN membership.

The husband also owns his own flat, further protection against him being able to claim hers.

But your cousin needs to start the process now to be ready to divorce in March. She doesn’t have to wait til then to get prepared. She can see a solicitor now, and doing so might make her feel less afraid, less susceptible to his threats and blackmail.

Is she getting any emotional support for the abusive control?

She needs a lawyer but if he owns a property then he can house himself so he can’t claim for needs (I’m assuming they weren’t living together for a decade before or something as courts take into account time living together beofre sometimes) - he is not going to get half her flat from this short a marriage (ie based on it being the marital home) and him claiming money from her on a needs basis (which is the other main way to claim money at divorce) goes away because he owns a reasonable asset himself. I don’t think the kids make a huge difference here (but may be wrong as that’s a bit more complex). She needs to kick him out (she can employ baliffs if needs be), change the locks and file for divorce asap.

Yeah - as they say, you get the advice you pay for

As several people have stated, your cousin can't start divorce proceedings until they've been married a year. There's nothing stopping her from getting legal advice in the meantime. It sounds as if she'll need to seek legal advice anyway, in order to get him out of her property. She needs to speak to her family too, as hard as that may be, they need to know so she's got support in her corner. Him having children, by a previous relationship, I can't see being her issue, they aren't hers. He's not homeless, he rents out his own property.

What @prh47bridge said.

Although she can't actually start official divorce proceedings immediately she has no obligation to permit him to live with her or guve him any access to any financial resources in the meantime. However if she can show evidence of his abusive controlling nature and can demonstrate that this meant her consent to the wedding was not actually of her own free will then that would be another potential grounds for annulment even if the marriage has been consumated. If consent wasn't freely given but was under duress that is acceptable reason for annulment which can happen sooner than a year.

It may possibly fall under the not legally valid reason if he concealed serious facts.

If she didn’t know he had drug/alcohol issues, then he has misrepresented himself. That will be the only chance she has for an annulment.

She definitely needs to get legal advise as there may be steps she absolutely has to take to align with the annulment application.

He can’t contest a divorce, all she has to do is make the application. He’s not going to get her flat or business, he’s being ridiculous. She should see a solicitor as soon as possible to get the ball rolling.

The drug/alcohol issues do not give any grounds for an annulment, regardless of whether they were concealed. The only grounds for annulment are those I set out in my earlier post.