Annulments…After Death?

Today’s post covers a little of a few legal worlds, everything from marriage to divorce to probate. We had a situation crop up recently that had never occurred to us and inspired a little digging, with surprising results. A client’s father passed away several years ago and he wished to have his father’s marriage declared void or annulled, as it was affecting his inheritance. Sounds like a case of a simple desire for more money, right? Well, it gets more interesting. His father, it turns out, was married twice – and was never divorced the first time. This renders the second marriage void and thus any rights of the second wife to inheritance (barring any mention of her in a will). The son does in fact have the ability to file a bill for annulment, as a void marriage can be attacked by annulment after the death of a party. Evidence would be required to prove the dual marriage – public records confirmation as well as verbal testimony on the part of the first and second wives would be necessary. It’s definitely not an everyday situation, but we found it really interesting that Tennessee law gives you the right to pursue an annulment post-death!

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