Use USLegal’s Grandparents Visitation site to locate laws about the rights of grandparents for your state.
In earlier days, grandparents were commonly awarded visitation rights within the jurisdiction of residency. However, upon move by the custodial parent, the grandparents were commonly faced with addition litigation in an effort to obtain visitation as grandparents in the child’s new state of residency.
However, in the year 1998, The Visitation Rights Enforcement Act was enacted. This was a major improvement in achieving a uniform state visitation law making provisions for grandparent visitation consistent from state to state.
The Act states that grandparents can visit their grandchildren anywhere in the United States as long as they have visitation rights in one state. This law does not impose a federal decision about a grandparent’s visitation right in any state. It calls for reciprocal recognition of grandparents’ rights once a state has established those rights.
However in some states, The Visitation Rights Enforcement Act has been interpreted loosely providing many grandparents with no visitation rights of grandchildren in specific situations, i.e. death of a child. Therefore, even with The Visitation Rights Enforcement Act, grandparents can never make sure that they will always have ongoing access to a grandchild.