A recent study found that 2.9 million children were living with their grandparents. As more parents become unable or unwilling to care for their children, grandparents are increasingly filling this role. Some grandparents decide to adopt their grandchildren to formalize their legal relationship with the grandchildren and to eliminate any custody disputes with the parents.
What rights do the non-adoptive grandparents have to see their grandchildren? The answer is there are few rights allotted to the non-adoptive grandparents.
Courts have held that an adoption is a statutory proceeding that “creates a nonbiological parent-child relationship through the severance of the biological parents’ legal and natural rights to a child.”
Some courts have further held that the adoption resulted in the non-adoptive grandparents being legal strangers to their grandchildren because their rights were derivative of the rights of their child, and the adoption terminated their child’s parental rights to the grandchildren.
These courts further held that the biological relation in and of itself does not entitle the non-adoptive grandparents to any visitation rights, and that the adoptive grandparents had the right to deny visitation to the non-adoptive grandparents.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, the advice of an attorney is recommended.
This insight into the law is provided by the attorneys at Bailey & Gunderson Co., L.P.A., with offices in Norwood, Western Hills and Anderson Township. Phone: (513) 631-0022.
