How our surrogacy specialists can help
Our solicitors have experience helping clients at all stages of the surrogacy process:
- Expert advice on surrogacy law: whether you’re the intended parent(s) or the surrogate, we can talk you through the legal requirements of the surrogacy process to ensure you have everything set up as it should be.
- Guidance on international surrogacy: if you decide to pursue surrogacy in another country, we can advise on the legal process, communicate with lawyers overseas and support you with bringing your child home and securing their British nationality.
- Post-birth legal support: in the interim between the birth and the parental order being granted, we can support you with registering the birth, parental responsibility and any other matters that arise.
- Parental orders: help with your court application to become your child’s legal parent(s), any necessary paperwork and getting your child’s new birth certificate.
- Surrogacy and fertility law: if you’re planning to use gametes or embryos stored at a UK or overseas clinic in your surrogacy, we can advise on the legal implications of this.
- Wills to protect your family: we can help you create a specialist Will to ensure you, your child and your surrogate all have protection in place.
Surrogacy and parental orders
When considering or entering into a surrogacy arrangement, it’s important to understand that UK surrogacy law automatically recognises the person who gives birth (the surrogate) as the legal parent and they will be named on the birth certificate.
This is the case even if the baby was conceived using a donated egg and the surrogate is not biologically related to the child. If the surrogate is married or in a civil partnership, their spouse or civil partner will automatically be considered the other legal parent, unless it can be shown that their spouse or civil partner did not agree to the conception.
This means that at birth one or both of the intended parents will not be legally recognised as the child’s parent. To remedy this, an application for a parental order must be made to the Court.
A parental order secures the legal status of the intended parents under UK law and is open to single parents and same-sex couples, as well as heterosexual couples. However, to be granted, at least one of the intended parents must be biologically related to the child. The surrogate must consent to the parental order being granted and can only do so after the baby is six weeks old.
Once a parental order is granted, a new birth certificate will be issued with the names of the intended parents, revoking the surrogate and her spouse/civil partner’s status as parents.
