Colorado Grandparents Rights: Know Your Rights and Exercise Them

Colorado Grandparents Rights: Know Your Rights and Exercise Them

Grandparents Rights in ColoradoIn general, the legal rights of grandparents are established on state level, meaning that state laws significantly vary from state to state. Colorado, however, is known as one of the states with strong grandparents’ rights.

Colorado Grandparents Rights Laws

Currently, Colorado enforces two specific laws regarding grandparents’ rights, the UDMA or Uniform Dissolution of Marriage Act and the Children’s Code. According to UDMA provisions, grandparents can be given rights in case a child is considered to be living in a disrupted or disturbed home. This could mean that a grandparent for a minimum of six months has cared for a child or the child isn’t in the parent’s physical custody. In this case, a grandparent can request for visitation rights or obtain parental rights to the child.

The Children’s Code on the other offers the chance for grandparents to obtain and maintain visitation rights with their grandchildren. In the event that there’s a disturbance in the family home, grandparents can file for visitation rights. Shaynelaw.com states that these aren’t guaranteed, but grandparents can pass a petition so the court can appoint someone to monitor the situation.

Common Incidents that Involve Grandparents Rights

Among the most common circumstances that involve grandparents’ rights is following a divorce and grandparents requests visitation rights. These could be granted in different situations, among the most common is when parents get a divorce, legally separates, or get an annulment.

Additionally, in the event that child custody is awarded to a third party, not including adoption, grandparents could request for visitation rights, or in worst-case scenarios, custody. Grandparents may request for custody if they feel that the home environment of the child’s legal guardian isn’t stable enough; this is however very difficult to attain in Colorado. Due to the complexities of laws regarding grandparents rights and the complicated factors surrounding every case, it’s imperative that grandparents wishing to exercise their rights get legal representation so they can understand the options available to them.

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