Building a family through surrogacy

The Stowe Family Law surrogacy team will support you with legal advice to ensure you have the information you need to make key decisions and ensure that the necessary documentation is in place, and legal formalities complied with.

What is surrogacy?

Surrogacy is where a woman carries and gives birth to a child with the intention of handing the child over to a person or couple known as the intended parent(s) who will raise the child as their own. There are different types of surrogacy arrangements and our legal team is happy to discuss them with you.

Download our Guide to Surrogacy PDF

As the intended parents you are denied full legal rights and status in respect of your child, even if one or both of you are the genetic parents. Clearly, this is not the aim of a surrogacy arrangement.

The solution, provided you are in a relationship, is a Parental Order – at present such Orders are not available to single people but this will be remedied hopefully in the near future.

A Parental Order transfers parental responsibility and legal recognition as the child’s parents from the surrogate and her husband/wife/civil partner to the intended parents. The child’s birth will be re-registered so the child will have a new birth certificate which names the intended parents as their parents.

There are various practicalities to consider also like arrangements during your surrogate’s pregnancy including communication with her, time spent with her, whether you will be present at the birth, and when she will hand over the child to you. Our legal team can explore these with you.

A key arrangement which could cause issues is payments to the surrogate. Although it is not illegal in the UK to pay a surrogate, the family court will consider any payments made to your surrogate as part of your Parental Order application.

One of the criteria which must be met in order for a court to make a Parental Order, is that no more than ‘reasonable expenses’ have been paid. This term has never been defined, making this issue tricky for both intended parents and surrogates. The judge considering your application for a Parental Order will want details of the payments you have made to the surrogate so it is important to get advice about payments at any early stage.