Foreign Annulment - US annulment

I thought I'd share my process as I was unable to find any info online whatsoever on how to annul a Philippine marriage in the US.

I initially filed a Declaration of Invalidity of Marriage in the state of Illinois on July 1, 2011. This filing required that a summons be served by the sheriff's office to my x-spouse.

The issues I ran into was that there isn't any type of process between the US and Phillipines to accomplish this.

1) I contacted the Philipine consulate in Chicago anf I was told they serve summons from the Philippines to the US but not the other way around.

2) I contacted the department of state in Washington DC and the US embassy in Manila and being that the Philippines did not participate in the Hague convention, there is no way to do this.

3) I contacted the department of Foreign Affairs in Manila and once again I was told they do not do it.

4) My last option was to contacting an attorney friend of mine in high school to do the serving of the summons but she quoted 40k to do this which I thought was pretty ridiculous.

After exhaustingall these options, I decided to go back to my judge and file a motion to accomplish service by trackable parcel like USPS Express mail, FedEx or DHL. I was granted that motion so I was able to accomplish the service. Unfortunately, the Philippine Post office did not file a proof of delivery so when I checked the tracking number, it looked like it was never delivered. Luckily, the judge was satisfied that I had proof of sending the summons out.

30 days later... I filed for a default judgement which I was granted on September 30, 2011. The case was continued today September 8, 2011 for a prove-up hearing. I showed up in court, swore in, stated my case and was granted the annulnent after the judge verified that the timing of my filing was proper. In the state of Illinois. You can file for invalidity of marriage on prohibited/bigamous grounds up to 3 years after the first party of the marriage dies.

Whew! So to make the long story short, I got my annulment today, 69 days after the initial as opposed to the 12 or so months and probably 250k had I filed it in the Philippines.

Now I know I have no issues getting remarried in the US. I know I can file this annulment with the local court where the annulled marriage occured but do I still need to file something with the NSO. This is if my fiancee and I decide to get married in the Philippines.

if you want an absolutely worry-free wedding here, you have to file a petition for recognition of the annulment here, or file another annulment proceedings here.

otherwise you run the risk of being charged (but not necessarily convicted) of bigamy because there will be two marriage certificates with your name on it, as what happened to my client.

attyLLL wrote:if you want an absolutely worry-free wedding here, you have to file a petition for recognition of the annulment here, or file another annulment proceedings here.

otherwise you run the risk of being charged (but not necessarily convicted) of bigamy because there will be two marriage certificates with your name on it, as what happened to my client.

Hi AttyLLL! Yeah I think I need to file for recognition of annulment per what you told me before. I have a new email I'll PM it to you. I just hope that the recognition will go much faster then an annulment would over there. I was just concerned about the US and the US embassy and as far as that is concerned I think I should be able to satisfy all that with the current docs I have. Thanx pala for your advise of pursuing the annulment here first. It worked.