Forming a Family and Assisted Reproduction

Surrogacy is becoming an increasingly popular option for those requiring assistance to have a child both in the UK and abroad. However, there are many legal pitfalls that intended parents and surrogates are often not aware of that may create unintended legal outcomes.

Getting legal support from our specialist lawyers at the start of your surrogacy journey will alleviate this risk. We will guide you through the process from pre-conception, birth registration, parental responsibility, and finally applying to the court for a parental order to transfer parentage.

We can provide specialist advice to ensure you understand who the legal parents are and steps that need to be taken at the pre-conception stage to achieve your desired legal outcome.

If you are planning to co-parent or start a family with a known donor, we can advise and draft a bespoke co-parenting or donor agreement to suit your circumstances and requirements. While such agreements are not legally binding, they serve as a clear record of your intentions, which a court may take into consideration in the event of a later dispute. Having an agreement is particularly important if you intend to co-parent with another individual or couple to ensure that your expectations align.

Adoption is the process that permanently severs the legal relationship between a child and their birth parents and reassigns it to the child’s adoptive parent(s), providing all the same rights and responsibilities. You may be a stepparent, have had a child through assisted reproduction or had a child placed with you for adoption by an adoption agency or local authority. We can guide you through the adoption process to help you legally secure the future of your family.

There are stringent rules that fertility clinics must adhere to in the UK, as regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. If you are preserving your fertility, we can assist you with any legal issues that you may have as a result of your stored eggs, sperm or embryos.

An often-overlooked issue is what will happen to your stored embryos in the event of a relationship breakdown. We can advise and draft specialist nuptial agreements setting this out to help alleviate a dispute or provide a clear record of your intentions at the time of preserving your fertility.

Sometimes disputes can arise out of surrogacy, co-parenting arrangements or when you have a donor-conceived child. If this should happen, we have the experience to be able to advise you and represent you at court if that should become necessary. This can be extremely stressful, and we’ll do our best to give you peace of mind.

Starting your family with assistance may mean that you and your family do not have automatic inheritance rights. We work closely with our Wills, Trusts and Probate team to ensure your will is tailored to your family’s unique circumstances, to provide the necessary protection and security.

A surrogacy solicitor advises intended parents and surrogates on the legal steps involved in a surrogacy arrangement, including drafting surrogacy agreements, applying for a parental order, and ensuring legal parenthood is correctly transferred after the birth. Since surrogacy law in the UK is complex and surrogacy agreements are not automatically enforceable, early legal advice helps prevent disputes and ensures the process runs as smoothly as possible for everyone involved.

Yes. Even when treatment is arranged through a licensed clinic, an assisted reproduction lawyer ensures the legal parenthood of any child conceived is properly established, particularly for unmarried couples, same sex couples, or where a known donor is involved. Clinic consent forms alone do not always cover every legal scenario, so independent legal advice helps protect your rights as a parent from the outset.

No, surrogacy agreements are not legally enforceable in the UK, regardless of how detailed they are. This makes guidance from a surrogacy solicitor essential, since legal parenthood only transfers to the intended parents once a parental order is granted by the court after the birth. Until that point, the surrogate remains the child’s legal parent, even if she is not biologically related to the child.

Intended parents must apply for a parental order after the birth, which transfers legal parenthood from the surrogate to the intended parents. An assisted reproduction lawyer can guide you through the eligibility requirements and application process, which must usually be made within six months of the birth. Getting this right is essential, since without a parental order, intended parents have no automatic legal status as the child’s parents.