Grandparent rights in Colorado: family time, custody, and the parent’s presumption.

When a grandparent may ask: three situations, and only three.

Any grandparent or great-grandparent may seek “reasonable grandparent family time” “when there is or has been a child custody case or a case concerning the allocation of parental responsibilities with respect to that child” (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.4(3)). The statute then says that such a case includes three situations, whether or not custody was actually an issue in them.

Who counts, and who does not.

Great-grandparents. Covered expressly (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.4(2)(b)). The older statute, as the Court of Appeals read it in 2013, did not include them (In re M.D.E., 2013 COA 13).

By blood, adoption or marriage. A grandparent is the parent of the child’s father or mother, related “by blood, in whole or by half, adoption, or marriage,” except the parent of a legal parent whose parental rights have been terminated (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.4(2)(a)). That exception matters after a stepparent adoption: see Step-Parent Adoption.

No case, no standing. Where the parents had never married and no court had ever been involved, the Court of Appeals held that a grandmother had no standing (In re D.C., 116 P.3d 1251 (Colo. App. 2005)). A parentage or custody case between unmarried parents counts, and the court’s guide lists it. In an intact family with no case, the relationship runs on the parents’ permission.

Siblings, aunts and uncles. They are not grandparents, and no Colorado statute lets a sibling petition for visitation in a divorce case. Siblings in foster care have a statutory right to “frequent and meaningful contact” (C.R.S. § 19-7-203(1)(g)), and after an adoption, contact depends on a post-adoption contact agreement that only the adopting parent can ask for (C.R.S. § 19-5-208(4.5)). A relative who has been raising the child uses the non-parent custody route below.

The presumption and the burden: what a grandparent has to prove.

The Constitution protects a fit parent’s decisions about who spends time with the child. In Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), the Supreme Court of the United States held unconstitutional, as applied, a visitation order that gave no special weight to a fit mother’s decision about the grandparents’ time. Colorado’s answer is a presumption and a heavy burden, set first by its Supreme Court and, since 2023, written into the statute.

A grandparent’s standing is a right to be heard. The parent’s decision is still presumed right.

The 2023 rewrite and the 2026 change: what the new law does.

Much of what is written online about Colorado grandparent visitation cites a statute that no longer exists. The history, in the order it happened:

1. Before August 2023
   Grandparent visitation, in the Children’s Code.

   The right to ask lived in former sections 19-1-117 and 19-1-117.5, and the presumption and the clear-and-convincing burden came from the courts, in C.A. (2006).

2. August 7, 2023
   Moved, renamed, written down.

   HB 23-1026, the Grandparents’ Rights for Aaliyah and Myah Act, repealed those sections and moved the law to C.R.S. § 14-10-124.4 and C.R.S. § 14-10-124.5. Visitation became “grandparent family time,” meaning “any form of contact or engagement” between grandparents and grandchildren “for the purposes of preserving and strengthening family ties.” The presumption and the burden went into the text, and the court may now appoint a legal representative for the child (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.4(5)).

3. June 9, 2025
   K.M.S.: an adoption cut off a deceased parent’s family.

   The Colorado Supreme Court held that “after children are adopted, the parents of a deceased father or mother lack standing to seek grandparent visitation,” because standing belonged to a person who is presently the parent of the child’s parent (In re Parental Responsibilities Concerning K.M.S., 2025 CO 35).

4. June 1, 2026
   HB 26-1314: “is or … was.”

   A grandparent is now a person who “is or, if the child’s father or mother is deceased, was the parent of a child’s father or mother,” and the same for great-grandparents. The same bill added a kinship-placement presumption in dependency cases, below.

What the 2026 amendment probably does, and what it does not.

Since June 1, 2026, the parents of a deceased mother or father remain grandparents. The burden, the forms and the adoption exception did not change.

It appears to restore standing for the parents of a deceased mother or father, including after the surviving parent’s new spouse adopts the child. The definition no longer asks whether the grandparent is presently the parent of a living legal parent, and the death ground in subsection (3)(c) has no adoption exception. No appellate court has applied the new definition yet, so “appears” is the honest word.

It does not change the burden. An adoptive parent is a parent, and the presumption and the clear-and-convincing burden protect that parent’s decision as fully as anyone’s.

It does not reach the placement ground. Subsection (3)(b), a child placed outside the parents’ home, still excludes a child placed for adoption or adopted.

The forms have not caught up. The court’s guide, JDF 1130, was last revised in October 2023 and still says a request can’t be made if the child has been adopted. A grandparent filing on the new definition should cite it, not rely on the guide.

The other side of a stepparent adoption. The definition still excludes the parent of a legal parent “whose parental rights have been terminated,” and a stepparent adoption terminates the other parent’s rights (C.R.S. § 19-5-210(6)). That parent’s own parents are therefore likely shut out of new petitions. Whether an order entered before the adoption survives it is unsettled; the Court of Appeals has treated a stepparent adoption as a change in circumstances that can support ending one.

Filing the request: JDF 1130 to 1134, step by step.

A request for grandparent family time is not a new lawsuit. It is made inside the case that gives you standing, by someone who is not yet a party to it. So it takes two filings: one to get in, one to ask.

1. Step 1
   Ask to intervene.

   A motion to intervene under C.R.C.P. 24 (JDF 1131), with a proposed order (JDF 1132), filed in the existing case. The court decides it; intervention is a request, not an automatic right.

2. 21 days
   The parties answer the motion.

   Each parent may respond (the court’s guide points to JDF 1315), and the court rules on intervention. The request belongs in “the district court for the district in which the child resides,” so a case in another district may need a change of venue first (JDF 1323 and 1324).

3. Step 2
   File the request, with an affidavit.

   The request (JDF 1133) and its order (JDF 1134), with “an affidavit setting forth facts supporting the requested order,” and notice with a copy of the affidavit to every party (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.4(4)). The form asks whether you filed in the last two years, whether a parent’s rights were terminated, your best-interests reasons, the schedule and transportation you propose, any protection order in the last two years, and whether you want a hearing.

4. 21 days
   Responses, and the hearing.

   “A hearing must be held if either party so requests or if it appears to the court that it is in the best interests of the child that a hearing be held.” The court may appoint a legal representative for the child, and in a contested case it often does.

5. The order
   Decided on the record.

   An order granting time over a parent’s objection carries the special-factors findings. If it is not followed, enforcement is a separate motion under C.R.S. § 14-10-124.5.

Fees and limits.

Mediation, enforcement and refiling: after the first order, or the first no.

Mediation first, where it fits.

Family-time disputes belong with a mediator more often than a judge. An order that is ignored comes back on a verified motion.

A court may refer any case to mediation, but not over a party’s claim of physical or psychological abuse by the other (C.R.S. § 13-22-311). A family-time dispute is often a better fit for a mediator than for a courtroom: the relationship between parents and their own parents usually matters to the child more than the schedule does, and a hearing rarely improves it. A mediated schedule can also be modest and practical in ways an order seldom is. How the process works is on the mediation page.

When an order is not followed. A verified motion alleging noncompliance. The court may deny it, set a hearing, or “require said parties to seek mediation and report back to the court on the results of the mediation within sixty days” (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.5(1)). After a hearing the remedies include additional terms, a modified order, a bond, make-up time “within one year after the noncompliance occurs,” contempt with a fine or jail, and the actual expenses of enforcement, including attorney fees (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.5(2)).

Changing or ending an order. “The court may establish, modify, or terminate grandparent family time if the order would serve the best interests of the child” (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.4(7)). A change in the parents’ own parenting-time orders does not by itself affect it (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.4(8)). And the court may not restrict the child’s movement solely to preserve a grandparent’s time; a parent’s move is decided between the parents.

Two years, and fees both ways. A grandparent or great-grandparent “shall not file a petition seeking an order granting grandparent family time more than once every two years absent a showing of good cause” (C.R.S. § 14-10-124.4(6)). The same subsection lets the court award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party. Under the old statute the Court of Appeals read that sentence as not reaching a first request; the current wording has not been tested. Treat fees as a risk on both sides.

Custody as a non-parent: the 182-day rule and the psychological parent.

When a grandparent has been raising the child, family time is the wrong request. The right one is an allocation of parental responsibilities to a person other than a parent: decision-making, parenting time, or both (C.R.S. § 14-10-123(1)). The same route serves a stepparent after a divorce, an aunt, or a former partner who never became a legal parent.

Standing: three doors.

Standing, as the Supreme Court now reads it.

Standing takes 182 days of physical care and a prompt filing, or a child in neither parent’s care. The merits take clear and convincing evidence against the parent’s presumption.

Care need not be exclusive. In In re Parental Responsibilities of E.K., 2022 CO 34, a stepfather who had lived with the child for eight years, been involved in school and activities, and paid expenses had standing: the statute “applies even where the nonparent’s physical care of the child is not exclusive of the parent’s,” and “parental consent is not required to establish standing.” The Court had said the same about consent in In re B.B.O., 2012 CO 40. Standing is the door, not the room: it entitles you to be heard, and the allocation is decided on the merits.

The psychological parent, and the parent’s presumption.

No Colorado statute uses the words psychological parent. The courts do, and the Court of Appeals has called the 182-day rule the legislature’s recognition of psychological parenting (In re E.L.M.C., 100 P.3d 546 (Colo. App. 2004)). In In re Custody of C.C.R.S., 892 P.2d 246 (Colo. 1995), the Supreme Court held that “the best interests of the child standard is the paramount consideration in a custodial dispute between a natural parent and the psychological parents,” and that the parent’s “first and prior right” is a rebuttable presumption; no finding of unfitness is required.

After Troxel, the burden is heavy. The Court of Appeals has held that a court may allocate responsibilities to a non-parent over a parent’s objection only by giving the parent’s decision special weight, requiring the non-parent to rebut it by clear and convincing evidence, and making special-factors findings, still without a finding of unfitness (In re Reese, 227 P.3d 900 (Colo. App. 2010); In re M.W., 2012 COA 162). When a grandparent asks, the court “shall consider any credible evidence of the grandparent’s past conduct of child abuse or neglect” (C.R.S. § 14-10-123.3).

Winning is not the end. If the parent later moves to modify, the parent’s status “creates a presumption that he is a fit parent who will act in the boy’s best interests,” and the non-parent must overcome it (In re Parental Responsibilities Concerning B.R.D., 2012 COA 63). Plan for the second case while you win the first.

Not the same as a presumed parent. A person who received the child into the home and openly held the child out as his or her own may be a legal parent by presumption (C.R.S. § 19-4-105(1)(d)). That is a parentage question, not a non-parent one: see Parentage & Paternity.

Physical care is not help with the children. It is the child living in your care, and the 182 days are counted.

Guardianship, kinship and foster care: when consent or the county sets the path.

Two situations fit neither request above: parents who agree that a grandparent should step in, and a child already in a dependency-and-neglect case.

Which request fits.

Six things people get wrong.

What to bring, and what to settle first.

The grandparent questions that fill my inbox.

Related: Parental Responsibilities  ·  Parentage & Paternity  ·  Step-Parent Adoption  ·  Relocation & Move-Away  ·  Mediation