Grandparent Rights

Texas Family Law and Grandparent Rights

Child Custody and Grandchildren

Adults who have legal parental status have important rights regarding Possession and Access to their child.  The core principle on which such rights are based is that parents are the sole decision makers for their children’s welfare, at the exclusion of influences outside the parent-child relationship.  Texas family law does not allow anyone to compromise this fundamental parental right unless a parent makes decisions that could jeopardize the child’s well-being.  This principle also applies to grandparents.

Where there is bitterness or strained family relations, divorce can greatly impact the rights of grandparents to see their grandchildren. In the most extreme cases, one party might attempt to cut off all contact between the grandparents and their grandchildren.

Texas law recognizes the importance of the bond between grandchildren and their grandparents and provides special rules for suits for possession of or access to a child by a grandparent, which do not apply to other non-parent individuals involved in the child’s life. Under the Texas Family Code, a biological or adoptive grandparent may request possession of or access to a child by filing an original suit or by requesting that an existing order be modified to provide them with access or possession to their grandchild.

The trial court may then order reasonable possession and or access to the grandchild by the grandparent if the following requirements are met: (1) at least one biological or adoptive parent of the child is alive; (2) the grandparent requesting possession or access of the child overcomes the presumption that a parent acts in the best interest of the child by establishing that denial of possession or access to the child by the grandparent would significantly impair the child’s physical health and emotional development; and (3) the grandparent requesting possession or access of the child is a parent of the child has been incarcerated in jail for three months prior to filing the suit, has been found by a court to be incompetent, is dead, or does not have actual or court-ordered access to the child.

In addition to access and/or possession, a grandparent may file a suit seeking to be appointed managing conservator of their grandchild if the child’s present circumstances would significantly impair the child’s physical health or emotional development, or both of the child’s parents, the surviving parent, or the managing conservator consent to the suit.

Also of note, the Texas Family Code does not allow grandparents to file original suits for possessory conservatorship. The law does, however, grant grandparents leave to intervene in a pending suit (such as a divorce action) if there is satisfactory proof that the appointment of a parent as sole managing conservator or both parents as joint managing conservators of the child would significantly impair the child’s physical health or emotional development.

Texas law is constantly in flux on this issue.  We stay up to date on this changing area of law.  Please contact us to find out the latest state of the law concerning grandparent’s rights.