Sperm donors (known donors and co-parents)

wellies The law on known donation in the UK is still evolving, grappling with a range of different situations. You might be a friend or relative acting as a known donor as a favour without intending any ongoing involvement. At the other end of the spectrum, you might be a gay or single prospective dad looking to share parenting with the birth mother on an equal basis.

Will I be the legal father?

Where you donate to a couple and your recipients are treated as the legal parents, you are not the legal father. The rules are complicated, but generally speaking you are not treated as the legal father if you donate to:

A married couple, as long as you conceive artificially, whether at home or at a clinic, and both spouses consent
A civil-partnered lesbian couple after 6 April 2009, as long as you conceive artificially, whether at home or at a clinic, and both partners consent
An unmarried couple (or non-civil partnered lesbian couple), if your recipients conceive with your sperm at a licensed clinic and both sign the relevant HFEA parenthood forms
A couple who later adopt the child.

In other cases (including donation to a single woman, donation to a lesbian couple before 6 April 2009 and donation through intercourse), you are treated as the legal father. People mistakenly believe that, if you donate through a licensed clinic and sign the relevant HFEA consent forms to donation, your parental status as a donor is automatically excluded. That might be the case, but the law is complex, particularly if you intend any ongoing role in your child's life.

Will I be financially responsible?

If you are treated as your child’s legal father, you are financially responsible, whether you are named on the child's birth certificate or not. You could be liable for regular maintenance payments, or even for a lump sum capital award to maintain your child. Find out more about donors being pursued for child maintenance.

Your offspring might also have rights of inheritance from you, which you can secure or exclude by putting in place a will.

Co-parenting situations

If you are donating on the basis that you will be involved as a co-parent, you might want to ensure that your status is protected as far as possible. If you are in a gay relationship, you might also want to acquire status for your partner as the non-biological father.

Whether you can be named on the birth certificate depends on your particular circumstances. You can be named on the birth certificate only if you are the legal father, and this choice might not be available to you (for example, if your co-parent mothers are civil partners).

If you are the legal father, being named on the birth certificate is not just symbolically significant; it gives you parental responsibility, so that you share decision making authority with the birth mother. It also enables you to confer parental responsibility on your civil partner, if everyone agrees.

Co-parenting disputes: what if we fall out?

Co-parenting disputes, sadly, happen from time to time. Typically problems arise because the father (or fathers) want a more significant role in the child's life than the mothers wish. This might be to do with the level and regularity of contact, or how everyone sees their respective roles.

You can apply to court if there is a dispute and you cannot reach agreement with your co-parents. There are also options other than court proceedings for resolving disputes, including mediation.

The court applications available to you depend on the detail of your situation, but potentially include applications for contact, parental responsibility and residence. If you are not a legal parent, you cannot apply for parental responsibility (at least directly) and you probably need the court's permission before you can apply for other orders.

Find out more about known donor disputes.

Do we need a preconception agreement?

If you are planning a known donation or co-parenting arrangement, putting in place a written agreement is a good idea. There are broadly two types of preconception agreements:

Donor agreements, which are designed to minimise the donor's legal rights and status
Co-parenting agreements, which envisage shared parenting and seek too clarify how the arrangement will work in practice.

Which is most appropriate for you depends on your situation.

The primary purpose of known donation agreements is to provide evidence of the circumstances of conception. As such, they might be legally binding in excluding your legal fatherhood. However, every case is different, and a great deal depends on the particular facts and what the agreement is trying to achieve.

Co-parenting agreements are more fluid and aim to set out what is agreed about how care will be shared. Written agreements are not binding on the family court (the child's welfare is always the paramount consideration), and the courts have given different levels of weight to what was agreed at the outset in different cases. Find out more about recent cases on donor disputes.

Preconception agreements also have real value in facilitating discussions and helping everyone to enter into an arrangement with clarity and consensus. In practice, this is enormously powerful as a means of avoiding later disputes.