Hi to all. I'm new here. I'm hoping that someone here can help me with this. My fiancé and I want to be together as soon as we can but first she needs to get her marriage annulled in Manila. Could anyone tell me if it is possible that we could do it from the UK. All advice would be great. Thanks Mark
Hi Mark, Welcome to the forum. My understanding is that the annulment will have to be processed in PI and probably best done with a reputable lawyer. There are other people here in the forum who will provide a more concise answer but as far as I am aware the process can take quite some time, hence the need for a reputable lawyer. Good luck
Thanks for the advice and good luck I think I'll be needing it. I've been checking and it's going to cost about 3.5k.
.. to which I would just add my rule of thumb for ALL lawyers' bills - and in my day job I instruct a lot of lawyers, usually from very well known firms - TRIPLE the number that the lawyer you choose to instruct gives you as an estimate. This is not because lawyers are crooks, it is because they always under estimate their time, and they overlook disbursements and assistants' time. So work on £10K, but get a written estimate that it will cost £3.5K. It will help a bit later on. The next piece of advice is that nothing costs more than delay; you MUST NOT let the lawyers whom you instruct go to sleep on the case. The terrible practice of the Filipino courts of starting a hearing and adjourning, having another hearing and adjourning again, and again, and again means that what should be a short simple case will drag out. This is bound to happen if you instruct the lawyers from overseas and are not in the same city so that you cannon call them on the phone, drop into their office, take them to lunch to discuss progress, and otherwise generally make them get on with it.
Hi Mark, welcome here. Your good lady will have to get an annulment in the Phils before you attempt to bring her here on a fiancée visa. My lady got an annulment in Manila about 6 years ago and it cost her around 3-4k but that was a straight forward case and it took around 6-8 months. Search the recent posts, we had an in depth discussion on this very subject 3 weeks back where there is a lot of more detailed information given by myself and chaps on here who know a lot more than me on this subject. I was looking for the thread myself before posting this but couldn't find it (I'm pretty new on here too). Lot of people on here that can help you, good luck with it, oh and whilst I remember, try not to let your loved ones ex know you are involved in the annulment as you might find the price going up as he may want to complicate matters and demand compensation to put it in a kind way. And remember that you can get locked up in the Phils for adultery, hope her ex is well out of the picture, his family too, wont happen of course but just thought I'd give you the worse case scenario. I will chip in on later posts as my memory on the subject comes back. Mothergate has offered some very good advice there, make sure you get a good lawyer and really keep the reigns on the lawyers, just like here they all pee in the same pot, but its a bigger pot there
Thanks for your time and your advice. It's so different to getting a divorce here. I never even had to go to court. Her ex won't even show up it think as he's in Dubai. But he left her and had another child 6 years ago. So he was the one how did wrong.
My loved one was living in Dubai when she started the annulment, I know she used IM to converse with her Lawyer in the Phils then did lots of running around there when she went home on holiday for a month. Instant messaging may be a cheaper option if you need to contact the lawyers over there. I will see if I can find the thread from a few weeks back then post the link here, I know it will be of help to you.
http://www.british-filipino.com/index.php?threads/help-needed.8505/ The Title of the thread is Help Needed if the link above doesn't take you to it, hope it helps.
Thanks a lot. It's her ex in Dubai. While my fiancé is in Manila doing it all. He hasn't had anything to do with her for 7 years na. Any help is great thanks for your time.
The link in my last post does work and there is more helpful information for you there. If the ex is in Dubai I would assume (that lovely word assume) that he is earning decent money and he will not make waves during the course of the annulment. I know one thing, if he doesn't cooperate with you on the annulment then you can get an annulment without him, my loved one did just that as the ex now lives in the US. Try not to worry about it too much, it can be done, I'm sure your lovely Filipina is worth the wait. Please post and tell us how you are getting on with the proceedings so that you can help other people here in the same situation, cheers
