Do grandparents have a legal right to visit with their grandchildren in Florida?

Grandparent in Florida only have a legal right to visit with their grandchildren under very, very limited circumstances.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Let's go to Chrissy. We were talking about grandparent rights and that there was a Florida statute that gave grandparents the absolute right to visit with their grandkids that went away for many years. Then just a few years ago, two or three years ago, a new law comes back about when do grandparents absolutely have a right to visit with their grandkids. Chrissy, you're on.

Chrissy: Thank you, Tom. You were absolutely correct. You were on the right track but to give some more specifics to the listeners that the new statute, as you pointed out, just in the last few years, first of all, a grandparent would need to petition the court, and these are the circumstances that a court would at least even hear that petition to have visitation.

If it's a minor child whose parents are deceased, missing or in a persistent vegetative state or one parent is deceased, missing and the other one is in a persistent vegetative state and who-- also the other option is if they are incarcerated.

Those are the situations that you can petition the court and they are incarcerated under a felony, then the court will have a hearing about this and at that point, then the court will determine if it is in the best interest of those grandkids to be able to have visitation with the grandparents because any one of those circumstances are in place.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Those are limited circumstances.

Chrissy: Exactly.

Attorney Tom Olsen: What we're talking about is both natural parents, mom and dad, both of them must be dead, vegetative state, or in jail for a felony.

Chrissy: Exactly.

Attorney Tom Olsen: In the grand scheme of things, it's going to be like 1%.

Chrissy: Exactly.