Resources
Legal parenthood
A child can only ever have two legal parents under English law (although additional adults can acquire legal status or rights for a child, e.g. parental responsibility or a child arrangements order).
Legal parenthood for a child denotes:
- Inheritance rights – giving your child an automatic right of inheritance from you
- Financial responsibility for a child
- Citizenship and nationality – enabling the conferral of British citizenship upon a child (except in certain prescribed situations)
Legal parenthood creates a lifelong legal connection with a child. Legal parenthood is different from parental responsibility and it is possible to hold one without the other or both in law.
Legal parenthood can become a complex legal issue for alternative structure families and families created through assisted conception, as law in the UK can override biology:
- A solo mother conceiving with a known donor may not have sole legal parenthood for her child (and could vest unwanted legal status in her known donor)
- A surrogate mother and her husband will be a surrogate baby’s legal parents at birth to the exclusion of the intended parents (pending the grant of a parental order)
- A non birth lesbian mother may or may not have legal parenthood for her and her partner’s child
- A biological co-parent may or may not have legal parenthood for their child
Media & Commentary
Anything but child’s play: surrogacy and thorny issues of identity, parenthood and status in modern families (Family Law, 29 August 2018)
Birth certificates: a new era? (BioNews, April 2010)
How can we help?
I can provide expert, supportive and accessible legal assistance to include:
- Advice on acquisition of legal parenthood for a child in the UK, which is especially important if you are undergoing assisted conception and you have complex personal circumstances or want to conceive with a known donor
- Advice on acquisition of legal parenthood for a child in the UK, which is especially important if you are undergoing assisted conception and you have complex personal circumstances or want to conceive with a known donor
- Advice and preparation of a donor agreement (to clarify the legal position of you and your known donor)
- Advice and preparation of a co-parenting agreement (to clarify the legal position of you and your co-parent/s)
- Advice and representation for you in a parental order application following surrogacy (to confer legal parenthood on intended parents and extinguish the legal status of surrogate parents)
- Advice and representation for you in a private adoption application (eg if you are a step-parent or a non birth lesbian mother)
- Advice and representation for you if there is a dispute surrounding the legal parentage and responsibility for your child
