This page provides library resources and links to Ohio laws about terminating a marriage through a civil annulment. Please refer to the Annulment without Children and the Annulment with Children tabs of this guide for legal forms for obtaining an annulment.
Please refer to the Ohio Divorce Law guide on this website for forms and information about obtaining a divorce, and to the Ohio Dissolution of Marriage Law guide on this website for forms and information about obtaining a dissolution.
If you just want a legal separation, meaning neither one of you are interested in remarrying, refer to the Ohio Legal Separation guide.
A religious annulment through the Catholic Church is beyond the scope of the guide, although there are a couple of articles about church annulments in the the Links box of this page.
Anderson's Ohio Family Law by Also available on Lexis from the Franklin County Law Library public computers. Also available as an ebook for attorneys with Franklin County Law Library cards.
Baldwin's Ohio Domestic Relations Law by 
Child Custody & Visitation: Law and Practice by 
Collaborative Law: Achieving Effective Resolution in Divorce without Litigation by 
Divorce and Separation by 
Domestic Relations Journal of Ohio by 
Family Law and Practice by 
Family Law Checklists by 
Ohio Domestic Relations Practice Manual by 
Ohio Family Law Handbook by 
Ohio Family Law Institute by 
Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations by Attorneys with a Franklin County Law Library card may check out these books. Other members of the public may use them in the Franklin County Law Library. The Library maintains the current edition of each of these books, unless otherwise noted.
The circumstances under which a marriage is annulled are called "grounds." There are six grounds for an annulment. You may qualify for an annulment if, at the time of the marriage:
1) You were under the age required for marriage (males must be 18 and females must be 16), and you did not thereafter live with your spouse in a husband-wife relationship. This annulment action must be brought within two years after you attain the legal age for marriage.
2) Either you or your husband/wife was already legally married and the spouse from the other marriage is still alive.
3) Either you or your spouse had been declared incompetent, unless competency was later restored and you lived together afterward as husband and wife.
4) The marriage consent of either you or your spouse was obtained by fraud, unless, after learning all of the facts, you lived together as husband and wife. An annulment action based on fraud must be filed within two years after discovery of the facts that constitute fraud.
5) The consent of either you or your spouse was obtained by force, unless afterward you lived together as husband and wife. This annulment action must be filed within two years of the date of the marriage.
6) Your marriage was never consummated. This means that you and your spouse have not had sex at any time following the marriage ceremony. Such an annulment action also must be filed within two years of the date of the marriage.
