Ok, in Maryland, I have a son and my ex and I share custody of him. In the court order, she has physical custody and shared legal custody and I get visitation.
Now, what if I die? Do my parents have any “grandparental” rights to see my son? Can my ex just say, “welp, his dad is dead, I want to move to California now, peace !” and my parents not be able to do anything about it?
Do Grandparents have any parental rights?
Virtually none. According to Troxel v. Granville, the state can interfere with a fit parent’s childrearing decisions only to prevent harm or potential harm to the child.
I do not practice in the area of family law, but I don’t know of any reason why grandparent visitation couldn’t be made a part of your child custody agreement. In that case, it seems to me that a court might be more likely to uphold it. If you’re interested in pursuing this possibility, talk to your divorce lawyer about it.
IANAL and all that, but it seems unlikely that any court would interfere with a move solely to preserve grandparent’s visitation rights even if they were specified in the divorce agreement. They might enforce their visitation rights but not to the extent of restricting where the parent could live.
Cool, thanks guys. That’s what I thought.
MOST states don’t have grandparent rights - but some do. It depends on the state. Check your local laws.
I know that here in Nevada there’s hardly any granparental rights, but enough to make a difference - my boyfriend’s mom is suing for custody of his daughter because his ex-wife won’t let him see his daughter and is a raging alcoholic. The Tashaboy doesn’t have the resources to try to get custody (or to raise his daughter) at the moment, so she’s going for it. Once he gets his stuff together (he got hurt and can’t work yet) he can share custody with her, assuming she gets it.
~Tasha