Grandparents Rights In South Carolina

Grandparents and parents are not treated equally under the law, and neither should they be. The rights of grandparents to visit are always secondary to the rights of parents. Even if the child’s parent disagrees, a court can order grandparent visits under certain circumstances.

When deciding on visitation, a judge will consider numerous aspects, including the child’s emotional and physical needs. Grandparents who want to spend more time with their grandchildren should be aware of their legal rights as well as the factors that influence a judge’s decision. This article explains grandparents rights in South Carolina. 

Grandparent Visitation Rights In SC

The importance of grandparents in a grandchild’s life is recognised under SC legislation. In circumstances where a youngster would benefit from it, grandparents’ visits are permitted under grandparents rights in South Carolina. As required by the Troxel decision, any visitation order must prioritize the child’s best interests. If either of the child’s parents is deceased, divorced, or living separately and apart, a grandmother may be entitled to visitation:

• The grandparents are being denied access to their child by the child’s parents, who are acting in an unreasonable manner.
• The child’s parents are unsuitable, and grandparent visitation will not disrupt the parent-child bond.
• There are compelling reasons to override a parent’s decision to keep grandparents from visiting.

Even when grandparent visiting is in the kid’s best interests, it must not significantly disrupt the parent-child connection. The maternal grandparents, for example, were refused visitation in one case in South Carolina.

In view of the mother’s instability, the lower court originally determined that grandparent visits were in the children’s best interests because it would provide a stabilizing factor.

However, the higher court found the mother to be a fit parent, and grandparent visits took a significant amount of time away from her. As a result, the higher court reversed the ruling, finding that there were no compelling reasons to overrule the mother’s choice to deny visitation.

Grandparent Custody Rights In South Carolina

Children should, in theory, be raised and reared by their parents. However, in cases of abuse or neglect, a court may be required to interfere. A grandparent who has a close relationship with the child or has been the child’s primary caregiver might petition the court for custody of the child.

A grandparent’s right to custody is mainly confined to situations in which a parent is unable or unwilling to meet the child’s most basic needs. A grandparent requesting custody must demonstrate that:

• The child’s parents has abandoned him or her forever.
• The youngster has been ignored for a long time by the parents.
• Parental rights were relinquished by the parent to someone other than the child’s other parent.
• The parent refuses to take on traditional parental duties.

A deep link between grandparents and their grandchildren isn’t enough to support court-ordered visitation, according to a South Carolina court. The mother, not the grandparents, was given custody of a 6-year-old kid by the court. Even though the child had lived with his grandparents since he was 9 months old, the mother was a fit and proper parent who deserved custody.

In a separate instance, the court upheld a stepparent’s entitlement to grandparent custody in the absence of abuse, neglect, or abandonment. The maternal grandmother petitioned for custody of the mother’s oldest child and visitation with the younger child shortly after the mother committed suicide. The biological father of the older child gladly gave up custody.

The grandmother’s plea was dismissed by the court because the elder child’s stepfather (and younger child’s biological father) had acted as the older child’s father and was a fit and proper parent. The grandmother’s visitation request was eventually granted, but the court declined to give her custody of the children since it was not in their best interests.

Can a Biological Grandparent Obtain Visitation with an Adopted Child

When a kid is placed for adoption, legal links between the youngster and his or her biological family are severed. Both parents and grandparents are affected by this termination of rights. In most cases, a grandparent with an adopted grandchild has no entitlement to visitation.

The only exception is if the child is adopted by a stepparent or if the grandparent’s son or daughter refuses to consent to the adoption. In one SC instance, for example, the grandparents were granted visitation after their son (the child’s father) died and refused to consent to the adoption. The child’s mother remarried, and the youngster was adopted by the mother’s new husband. However, because a grandparent’s ties to a grandchild aren’t broken by death, the court permitted grandparent visitation.

Grandparents rights in South Carolina privileges are frequently revoked as a result of changes in a parent’s relationship. However, it is usually at these difficult times that a youngster requires the most stability from a grandparent. There are regulations that protect grandparents and give hope to people who want to keep their relationship with their grandchildren intact.

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