Adoption and Surrogacy: How an Expert Family Law Firm can Support You

Choosing to start a family is among the most personal decisions there is, and for many people the road runs through adoption or surrogacy rather than biology. The reasons are as varied as families themselves: infertility or medical conditions that make pregnancy unsafe, single people and same sex couples building a family, or the simple wish to give an older child a stable and loving home. Both routes are wonderful ways to become parents, and both involve legal processes that exist to protect the interests of everyone concerned, above all the child. This guide explains the essentials, and how our family law solicitors can help.

What is adoption?

Adoption is the legal process by which a person or couple who are not a child's biological parents acquire full, permanent and legal parental responsibility for that child, with the same rights and responsibilities as if the child had been born to them. It is a lifelong commitment, and the process is deliberately thorough.

Who can apply?

You may apply as an individual, or as a couple if you are married, in a civil partnership, in a same sex relationship or living together as partners. Two family members, such as a mother and daughter, cannot adopt together, though a relative may adopt a child alone where the birth parents can no longer care for them. Adopters include people with birth children, people with none, and those who have fostered before. Applicants must be at least twenty one; there is no upper age limit, though agencies commonly suggest a gap of no more than about forty five years between parent and child. You will need to show a stable home, whether owned or rented, and a financially stable position. Parenting experience is not required, but commitment is, and some children arrive with complex social or emotional needs that deserve honest reflection before you begin.

The adoption process

In most cases both birth parents must consent to the adoption, unless they cannot be found, are incapable of consenting, or the child's welfare requires that the adoption proceed without it. Applications are made through an adoption agency, either one attached to your local council or a voluntary agency such as Barnardo's. There follows information, meetings, a formal application, assessment and approval, matching with a child, a settling in period, and finally the adoption order from the court that makes the relationship permanent. It is lengthy by design, and good advice makes it navigable.

Surrogacy

Surrogacy has its own distinct legal architecture, and it surprises many people. In English law the surrogate is the child's legal mother at birth, whatever the genetics, and surrogacy agreements are not enforceable as contracts. The intended parents acquire legal parenthood through a parental order, which the court may make where at least one applicant is genetically related to the child, the child is living with the applicants, and the surrogate consents after the child is six weeks old. Commercial surrogacy arrangements are prohibited, though a surrogate's reasonable expenses may be met. Because so much turns on getting the order right, legal advice before the arrangement begins, rather than after the child arrives, is worth a great deal.

About the author: Dr Aamir Nawaz, LLB (Hons), LLM, PhD, Solicitor, Barrister (np) and Notary Public.