# International surrogacy case in the High Court



## NatGamble (Mar 1, 2007)

I've just been reading the judgment from Re G, reported yesterday (though the case was heard some months ago).  It's very important for international surrogacy arrangements, and I thought I should flag it up for anyone thinking of doing this.

Basically, it involved a Turkish couple who conceived using a UK surrogate with the help of COTS.  The child was born and everyone was in agreement, but when they applied for a parental order, they were told they couldn't have one because they were not domiciled in the UK (this is one of the requirements).  COTS had told them (naively) that there would be no problem getting a parental order and they didn't get any legal advice.  There were then 7 court hearings, a full social services home assessment, all over a 9 month period, before the court found a way of allowing the couple to take their daughter home to Turkey (where they then had to apply for Turkish adoption).

The judge has sent the judgment to the government with various policy recommendations.  These will have an impact on how the courts treat international surrogacy cases going forwards and are:

- People undergoing surrogacy should take legal advice, and it was emphasised that relying on information provided by an agency was not sufficient (the judge said "COTS are not covered by any statutory or regulatory umbrella and are therefore not required to perform to any recognised standard of competence.  It is questionable whether the role of facilitating surrogacy arrangements should be left to groups of well-meaning amateurs.")

- The state should consider regulating surrogacy agencies, to ensure that there is some standard of competence asserted.

- Where couples get into horrendous messes with the law like this, the court should make costs awards against them.  The judge didn't do this in this case, but noted that the case had cost the taxpayer £35,000 and urged courts in the future to push this burden onto the parties involved (i.e. so that the commissioning parents bear the costs of the court as well as their own legal costs).

Though this case was specifically about a foreign couple doing surrogacy in the UK, the same principles apply the other way around.  Wherever a surrogacy arrangement involves any kind of international element, please please get legal advice from a specialist before you go ahead - or it could end up costing you £100,000 or even the ability to look after your child.

Natalie
[email protected]


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## surromummyuk (Oct 4, 2007)

thanks for posting this hun


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