The importance of families contributes to the reason why there is so much emotion in family law issues such as child custody. Because of the importance of families in individuals’ lives, the Utah State Legislature has recognized that family members besides a mother and father have certain visitation rights concerning children.
The state legislature has specifically recognized the importance of a grandparent in a child’s life by allowing a grandparent to have standing before a court to enforce visitation rights with a grandchild.
Since 2005, the Utah law has allowed grandparents the right to bring an action in a Utah district court to petition the court for visitation rights. In a pending divorce or other child custody battle, a grandparent may file a petition for visitation rights. There is a presumption that a parent’s decision concerning grandparent visitation is in the child’s best interest.
A court may, however, overrule this presumption if the grandparent has rebutted the presumption based on different relevant factors considered by the court such as the loss of a relationship between the child and the grandparent is likely to cause harm to the grandchild.
If your visitation rights are being threatened by a pending divorce or other child custody issues you need to be more informed. Get a copy of my comprehensive grandparents rights book No Greater Loss. After that, once you understand the issues better you may wish to consult an attorney. Utah has many that can aid you in obtaining your grandparents rights.
One of the tenets of my Dale Carnegie training is that we should speak in…
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This info is misleadingly out of date. The Utah supreme court recently invalidated the idea of a fundamental visitation right for grandparents
http://fox13now.com/2015/09/18/grandparents-dont-have-a-fundamental-right-to-visitation-utah-supreme-court-rules/