If you are intending to adopt a child or make arrangements to have a baby through a surrogate mother, we can help you prepare the applications, support you in court and arrange representation i.e. a barrister for any hearings.
Adoption
The process of adoption transfers the legal parentage of a child permanently from its birth parents, (usually), to the new, adoptive parents. The adoptive parents then have full parental responsibility for the child - the birth parents give up parental responsibility completely.
Step parents
In situations where a step parent wishes to adopt his or her wife's, husband's or civil partner's children, there are two possibilities:
- you can make a single application, which gives the step parent parental rights over the child, but extinguishes the parental rights of the other parent
- you can make a joint application. However, the birth parent then becomes an adoptive parent, rather than a biological one
We can advise you on the implications of each option, to help you make the best choice for your circumstances.
Surrogacy
A Surrogacy Agreement can be drawn up when a woman agrees to bear a child via artificial fertilisation for someone else (known as "the Commissioning Parents").
The commissioning parents can apply to Court for a Parental Order, to become the child's sole legal parents. (NB an application cannot be made if the child is conceived as a result of normal intercourse between the surrogate mother and biological father.)
