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What Are a Parent’s Visitation Rights After a Divorce?
After a divorce in Utah, if you are involved in a child support, child custody, or child visitation dispute, you will need reliable, personalized legal advice and representation from a South Jordan child visitation attorney.
Under Utah state law, a biological or adoptive parent may seek visitation rights during a divorce, custody, or paternity proceeding or at any time after a divorce. Utah’s courts have considerable discretion to decide whether visits by a particular parent are in a particular child’s best interests.
The court usually grants visitation requests unless it can be persuaded that visitations are not in the child’s best interests. As a divorced parent, what are your visitation rights? When should you take the matter to a South Jordan child custody lawyer?
What Are Utah’s Child Visitation Rules?
When divorced parents are involved in a child custody, child support, or visitation dispute, the top priority of a Utah court is the best interests of the child. In custody cases, if custody is not shared, in almost all circumstances, the noncustodial parent has the right to regular visits.
Lawmakers in Utah presume that – in most situations and for most families – consistent, regular contact with both parents is in a child’s best interests. On that basis, in a Utah divorce, a parent who is not awarded sole physical custody is usually awarded visitation rights.
When you divorce in this state, you and your spouse may agree to your own visitation schedule and present that plan to the court for approval. Your plan will almost certainly be approved, provided that it does not violate Utah law or the best interests of the child.
How Are Visitation Disputes Resolved?
If you and your child’s other parent can’t agree on a visitation schedule, you must attempt to settle the dispute through mediation before you may take the matter to court. Unlike most states’ courts, the courts in Utah will not hear a visitation case unless you go to mediation first.
Mediation can be quicker, less costly, and less contentious than a courtroom proceeding. A neutral mediator helps both parties find ways to compromise, agree, and in many cases, avoid an acrimonious battle in court.
After mediation, if you and your ex still can’t agree on a visitation schedule, you may take the dispute to court and let a judge make the decision. If this happens, you must be represented by a South Jordan child visitation attorney who will ensure that your rights are honored by the court.
What Does the Court Consider in a Visitation Dispute?
While Utah law requires minimum visitation times (a specific number of days and hours based on the child’s age), a Utah court has the discretion to order any visitation schedule that aligns with the best interests of the child.
However, a court will usually grant a noncustodial parent’s visitation request unless that court can be persuaded that such visitations are not in the best interests of the child. When it considers a visitation request, the court takes these factors into account:
- the emotional bonds between the parent, the child, and other family members
- the parent’s interest in and attitude toward the child
- any record of domestic violence or abuse
- the custodial parent’s preference and the amount of cooperation between the parents
Who May Request Visitations?
In Utah, both biological and adoptive noncustodial parents may petition the court for visitations with their children. If a child’s parents never married, before a noncustodial parent may request visitations, paternity must be established.
Grandparents and other relatives also have a limited right to request visitations in this state, but in every case, the party requesting the visits must demonstrate to the court that the approval of the visitation request is in the child’s best interests.
Can Visitations Be Denied When a Parent Fails to Pay Child Support?
Both parents must obey all divorce-related court orders. If a noncustodial parent fails to pay child support, the custodial parent may not prevent court-ordered visitations. Instead, the custodial parent, with his or her lawyer’s help, may ask the court to enforce its child support order.
If you don’t allow your child to have court-ordered visits with the other parent, that parent may file his or her own petition asking the court to enforce its visitation order. There is no leniency for parents who do not make child support payments or parents who deny visitation rights.
An enforcement order may include a judgment for child support owed or a judgment for more visitation time. The court may also find a parent in contempt of court for violating a court order, and that parent may be penalized with a fine of up to $1,000 and/or up to thirty days in jail.
What Else Should You Know About Child Visitations?
When a noncustodial parent is involved in criminal activity, substance abuse, or other illegal or dangerous behavior, and that behavior comes to the court’s attention, the court may issue an order requiring visitations to be supervised.
If your parental rights are legally terminated by a court for any reason, you may no longer be granted visitation rights. In any of these situations, a parent must have sound legal advice from a child custody lawyer who has substantial experience handling custody and visitation disputes.
Your child custody lawyer will prepare and file the legal paperwork, ensure that you meet legal deadlines, and advocate aggressively and effectively for you and your child. But how can you locate a lawyer in the Salt Lake City area who will make your child and your case a top priority?
How Can You Choose the Right Attorney?
When you choose an attorney to handle your child support, custody, or visitation dispute, you need someone who has considerable family law experience. The family law attorneys at RCG Law Group are here to guide you through the most complicated legal issues you encounter.
We serve clients in South Jordan and throughout the greater Salt Lake City area. The attorneys at RCG Law Group handle divorces, child custody and visitation disputes, and most other matters of family law. We have substantial experience resolving the most difficult family law disputes.
To find out more about your parental rights after a divorce, schedule a consultation today with a South Jordan child custody lawyer at RCG Law Group by calling our offices at 385-503-3663. Your first consultation with RCG Law Group is provided without cost and with no obligation.
