A New York Court may grant reasonable visitation to a grandparent if it is determined to be in the best interest of the child due to a preexisting relationship between the grandparent and the child.   There is a rebuttable presumption that grandparent visitation is not in the best interest of a child if the child’s parents agree that the grandparent should not be granted visitation rights.  Visitation rights for a grandparent that conflict with the right of custody or visitation of a birth parent who is not a party to the proceeding at hand may not be granted. 

 A petition for grandparent visitation may not be filed while the natural or adoptive parents are married, unless the parents are currently living separately, one of the parents has been absent for more than one month without the other spouse knowing the whereabouts of the absent spouse, one of the parents joins in the petition with the grandparents, the child is not residing with either parent, or the child has been adopted by a stepparent.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Custody and Visitation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.