Your Guide to Grandparent Rights

Families can splinter for a number of reasons: divorce, the death of a parent, drug or alcohol abuse, incarceration. When those situations occur, grandparents do have certain legal rights, and can seek visitation with grandchildren or even custody, but the relevant laws vary from state to state. Understanding your own basic rights can help ensure that your relationship with your grandchildren doesn't end even if the children's relationship with your adult child does.

The State of Grandparent Rights Grandparents in every state in the United States have rights, in some circumstances, to be awarded custody of their grandchildren or to be awarded court-mandated visitation with their grandchildren. Grandparents' rights are not constitutional in nature....Recognition of grandparents' rights by state legislatures is a fairly recent trend, and most of the statutes have been in effect for less than 35 years. Federal legislation may affect grandparents' rights, though these rights are based primarily on state law. Congress passed the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act in 1980, which requires that each state give full faith and credit to child custody decrees from other states. Federal legislation passed in 1998 also requires that courts in each state recognize and enforce grandparental visitation orders from courts in other states. All states have adopted a version of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (previously the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act), which requires courts in the state where a child resides to recognize and enforce valid child custody orders from another state. Though the UCCJEA is not a federal statute, the provisions of this uniform law as adopted in each state are similar.

Understanding Annulment

When considering a divorce you may wonder if you are eligible for an annulment. An annulment is a void of marriage. People belonging to certain religious groups may find an annulment a sound alternative from divorce. If you have an annulment you are considered single rather than divorced after the process. An annulment may be granted for the following reasons:

- Your spouse was married to someone else when you were married

- Lack of consummation

- Your spouse was not of sound mind at the time of marriage

- Fraud or misrepresentation

- Your spouse is impotent

- You or your spouse was under the age of consent at the time of marriage.

When seeking an annulment you must give specific reasons and supply evidence supporting you claims. The filing timeframe for an annulment varies from state to state. Annulments usually follow a brief marriage, but can depend on if your seeking an annulment due to something such as fraud. In such case your time limit may depend on when you discovered the fraud, and not on your actual marriage date.

State law governs annulments. Similar to divorce the rules vary state to state. Your annulment should be filed in the county where you live.

To obtain a civil annulment you must have a reason beyond irreconcilable differences to justify terminating your marriage. If you can not prove this a no-fault divorce may be a better way to dissolve the marriage without having to prove that one spouse or the other engaged in misconduct.

You will want to seek advice from a family lawyer if deciding to obtain an annulment. Family Law can help with establishing the timeframe for filing in your state. A family layer can also establish if the grounds for filing make any difference for the timeframe when filing and if you have prof necessary to move forward with an annulment.