Reviewed by Luke Shaw, CoilLaw™ Quick Answer: Do Grandparents Have Visitation Rights in Utah? Utah grandparents can ask a court for visitation, but they don’t have automatic visitation rights. Under Utah Code § 81-9-403, a grandparent must overcome the presumption that a parent’s decision about contact is in the child’s…
Reviewed by Luke Shaw, CoilLaw™ | Quick Answer Utah law defines coercive control as a pattern of behavior that intentionally, or in effect, unreasonably interferes with another person’s ability to make or act on independent decisions. In a Utah custody or parent-time case, the court considers the child’s best interests…
Utah child support comes from a published table and a statutory formula. A worked example using the real figures, plus what counts as income and how to change an order.
In Utah, a father has the same custody and parent-time rights as a mother. Utah Code 81-9-204(7) states that the custody statute “does not establish a preference for either parent solely because of the gender of the parent.” A married father is a legal parent from birth. An unmarried father…
The minimum parent-time in Utah for a child age 5 to 18 is one weekday evening each week, alternating weekends from Friday evening to Sunday evening, a rotating holiday schedule, and up to four weeks of extended summer time. That schedule comes from Utah Code 81-9-302 and applies when parents…
The things that hurt a custody case in Utah are, in rough order of damage: any evidence of abuse or domestic violence, interfering with the other parent’s relationship with the child, substance abuse, ignoring court orders, moving away without proper notice, not showing up for your own parent-time, and dragging…
No. In Utah, a child cannot choose which parent to live with, at any age, until they turn 18. The court can consider a child’s wishes as one factor among many, and Utah law gives added weight to the preference of a child who is 14 or older. But the…
In Utah, you can be disqualified from alimony if you do not have a demonstrated financial need, if your spouse does not have the ability to pay, if the marriage was short, or if you are able to support yourself at the marital standard of living. Alimony that has already…
In Utah, you generally cannot be ordered to pay alimony for longer than the marriage lasted. A ten-year marriage caps alimony at ten years. Within that ceiling, the court sets the actual length based on the recipient’s need and your ability to pay, and many awards are shorter than the…
In a Utah divorce, a wife is entitled to an equitable share of the marital property and debts, which usually means half of what the couple acquired during the marriage. Depending on the facts, she may also be entitled to alimony, a custody and parent-time arrangement that serves the children’s…
How to Survive and Thrive When Your Marriage Ends