Grandparent’s Rights in Arizona

When parents divorce, their children must adjust to many lifestyle changes. Grandparents can, and often do, play a critical role in helping children adjust. Grandparents are often able to provide the support, nurturing, time, and attention that a child needs and that a working newly-single parent struggles to provide. Yet, when children need them the most, the severing of their parent’s marital relationship also severs their relationship with one or both sets of grandparents.

Arizona law recognizes the important role grandparents play in the life of a child and authorizes the Superior Court to order grandparent visitation where the court finds that it is in the children’s best interests to do so and where at least one of the following circumstances exists:

• The parent’s marriage has been dissolved for more than three months;

• A parent of the child has been missing or deceased for at least three months; or

• The child was born out of wedlock.

The Superior Court may also grant visitation rights to great-grandparents under similar circumstances. Application must be made to the Superior Court within the parent’s domestic relations case. Either or both of the children’s parents may contest the application.

Contact our office to speak with an experienced Arizona family law attorney at Platt & Westby for help with a grandparent visitation claim.