Surrogacy law
Welcome to our surrogacy law pages - free information and resources from the UK's leading surrogacy lawyers
Surrogacy information and guidance
Considering surrogacy and want to know more about the law? See our information pages for mum-dad couples, gay dads and single parents
A professional dealing with surrogacy issues? See our information pages for foreign professionals and UK professionals
Fired up about the need for change? Find out why we think surrogacy law needs reforming, learn about our surrogacy campaigning work and follow us on Twitter. We also campaign through our sister agency Brilliant Beginnings (a UK non-profit making surrogacy agency launched in 2013)
Prefer to browse by subject? See our pages on international surrogacy, UK surrogacy, legal parenthood at birth, reassigning legal parenthood, dealing with the limbo period
How we can help you
We have helped hundreds of families created through surrogacy over many years, and helped shape law and policy in Parliament and through leading court decisions. We represented the parents in the very first UK court ratification of an international surrogacy arrangement Re X and Y (2008), and subsequent published cases Re L (2010), Re IJ (2011), Re D and L (2012), Re A and B (2013), J v G (2013) and AB v DE (2013)). You can find out more about our surrogacy law services to help families here.
In 2013, we also launched a sister agency Brilliant Beginnings (a UK non-profit making surrogacy agency) to help parents with the practicalities of UK and international surrogacy.
You can also read more about our cases and campaigning work in the news:
Yotam Ottolenghi: why I'm coming out as a gay father - Guardian, 3 August 2013
Judge awards parenthood to gay dads after Indian surrogate 'disappears' - our blog, and the Telegraph and Daily Mail, October 2012
Should surrogacy law be reformed? (listen to Natalie on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour, 3 June 2011)
After the birth of Elton and David's son, can the UK deliver surrogacy reform? (Natalie Gamble writing for the Guardian, 29 December 2010)
British surrogacy ruling saves baby twins from Ukraine orphanage (The Times, 12 December 2008)
Surrogacy resources
Court forms for parental order applications
Here are the court forms you need if you are representing yourselves in a parental order application
Parental order application form (C51)
Parental order acknowledgement form (C52)
The law itself
You can read UK surrogacy law here. There are two pieces of legislation:
the Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985, which restricts the arrangement of surrogacy in the UK
the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (sections 33-55), which deals with parenthood and parental orders
Leading court decisions on surrogacy
When new issues are considered, decisions made by the family courts are sometimes published to create the groundrules for subsequent cases. You can read the UK's leading court decisions on surrogacy here.
Links to other organisations
Brilliant Beginnings - our sister surrogacy and egg donation agency, which operates on a non-profit making basis in the UK, providing advice to parents, supporting the practicalities of surrogacy journeys and campaigning for change
Surrogacy UK and COTS - the UK's two other non-profit making surrogacy agencies, providing support for surrogacy arrangements and helping surrogates and intended parents to make contact with each other
Fertility Friends - an online community of fertility patients for sharing information and support using online forums
Infertility Network UK - a leading UK charity, which provides support with all aspects of fertility treatment, including surrogacy
HFEA - the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the UK's regulatory body for fertility treatment
British Infertility Counselling Association - the UK's professional association of fertility clinic counsellors
