Welcome to the world, little one.
Now — let's take care of the legal bits.
For UK intended parents after international or domestic surrogacyThe UK Parental Order process without the stress.
File correctly and on time, without paying solicitor rates to decode paperwork. We walk you through every court form, build your bundle, and answer your questions at 3am — so you can focus on your baby.
You have six months from birth to apply for a Parental Order.
Doing this alone costs more than you think.
Time you don't have
You're a new parent. Every hour spent deciphering legal language is an hour you don't get back.
Stakes you can't get wrong
The six-month deadline cannot be extended. Get a form wrong and the court returns the application — there is no informal correction process.
A process built for lawyers
The court forms assume legal literacy. The bundle must be indexed, paginated and compliant, with certified translations and notarised consent — and no checklist is provided.
Specialist solicitors charge £6,000–£12,000Structure that removes confusion. Evidence that answers the statute. A tracker that removes the risk.
Not sure this is right for you?
A free two-minute check. It dates your six-month deadline for you, and tells you honestly whether your circumstances suit self-service — or whether you'd be better off with a specialist solicitor.
The scary number becomes a tracked one.
Your deadline, calculated from the birth and visible on every page. Real email reminders at 60, 30 and 7 days — so the date works for you, not against you.
And once the court acknowledges your application, this stops being the only date that matters — a directions order gives you a real timetable. See that next →
file by —
Enter the birth date — or the date you're expecting. Nothing is saved.
The full journey, start to finish.
Right now you only need to think about the first step. We surface each stage as it becomes relevant, so you always know where you are.
Prepare
pre-birthInstruct an in-country legal team, arrange travel and insurance, and log every payment — the court requires full financial disclosure.
Birth & Documents
weeks 0–10Baby born — the six-month clock starts. Birth registration, DNA testing, the exit pack, and the surrogate's consent on C52 and A101A, valid only six or more weeks after the birth.
See the forms in actionReturn to UK
homewardTravel home and establish the child's home with you — GP and health-visitor records become part of your evidence.
Assemble Bundle
the buildDraft your statement, gather the exhibits it refers to, check the s.54 conditions against that evidence, then package it as one indexed, paginated bundle.
See the e-Bundle Hub in actionFile the application
£270 feeFile before the deadline. International applications are issued out of the Royal Courts of Justice. You are given a case number, and then a directions order with real dates.
See the timetable in actionCAFCASS assessment
court-appointedA Parental Order Reporter visits your family, then files their report with the court.
Final hearing
the orderWhen all goes to plan there is one hearing. The judge considers the report and makes your Parental Order.
Post-Order
completeRe-register the birth, obtain a UK birth certificate, and apply for a British passport.
A simplified timeline, for illustration. The real journey holds more steps, more detail and more key dates, and varies with your circumstances.
The day the order arrives, you get a real timetable.
Until the court acknowledges your application there is no schedule — only the six-month longstop. A directions order changes that. Enter it once and everything else sequences behind it.
In the Family Court
Order for directions
Four fields, two of them optional. Never guessed from the order type or the court — if we work a date out, we say so.
Never seen one before? The empty state explains what a directions order is and where on it the dates sit, with an annotated example order one click away.
Application acknowledged
—
Evidence filed and served
—
Reporter files their report
—
derivedFinal hearing
—
Illustrative dates. Your order sets your own.
Form C51, decoded.
Every question on C51, C52 and A101A, annotated in plain English — calibrated for international surrogacy.
Please complete this form using black ink. Please answer every part. If a part does not apply please say so.
1st or only Applicant
• The child must be at least 6 weeks old when the agreement is given.
Illustrative facsimile of Form C51 for comparison only — not the official HMCTS form. © Crown copyright.
Scroll the form sideways on a small screen — squashing a court form to fit would misrepresent it.
FormBrief · C51
Your application to become your child's legal parents — one plain question at a time.
This sets your six-month deadline — we track every day from here.
At least one of you must be. Usually your permanent home — not where your baby was born.
Your surrogate's consent on C52 and A101A is only valid six or more weeks after the birth — so we won't let you file it early.
“Ours was signed at five weeks — is that a problem?”
Questions at 11pm, answered in seconds.
AI calibrated for the Parental Order process. It knows which form and which field you're asking about, so the answer is about your situation — not a generic chatbot reply.
It's opt-in. Sections that may carry health information ask for separate, explicit consent before any text leaves your browser — naming Anthropic, confirming your data is not used to train their models, and citing the Article 9 basis. You can always write a section yourself instead.
“Does the surrogate need to be present at the final hearing?”
SOL team · replied in 1 day
When it needs a human, a human answers.
For anything that needs experience, the SOL team replies within 1–2 business days. A direct line, not a forum — drawn from guiding many intended parents through this exact journey.
A blank page becomes a bundle the court will accept.
Your statement, the documents it refers to, the seven conditions in s.54, and one indexed, paginated, PD27A-compliant PDF. The Hub organises it by time — what to do, in the order it actually happens.
See it livewitness-statement.doc
0 words · where do I even start?
Still to assemble
Your witness statement — 8 sections
Second applicant's endorsing statement
Exhibits EX01–EX11, cross-referenced
C51, C52 and A101A
Certified translations and notarisation
Payments schedule for s.54(8)
Index in court order, paginated throughout
+ 5 more categories, then one compliant PDF…
Draft “Decision to pursue surrogacy” — your notes are already there.
Numbered so you can see the shape of the job. The work itself loops — a document changes a paragraph, and a gap in s.54 sends you back for another document.
Seed a section prefilled from your profile — never a blank box.
Turns your profile data and the guidance into a first draft.
Your statement should be your own account, in your own voice. Jot the points down; polish and expand them. Your facts, your voice, Undo always available.
Then: each statement, both together, the index in court order, save-as-PDF, and a one-page progress summary.
What does a finished bundle actually look like?
A real filed bundle, redacted. Shown from across the room, deliberately too small to read — because the question is about shape, not words. Are you being asked for a letter, a folder, or a book?
0 pages, in the real one — index, five tabs, both statements, eleven exhibits, the forms and the authorities.
Redacted and shown unreadable on purpose. No names, and no invented specimen content that could be mistaken for a real document.
Everything else, in one calm place.
Seven in-country guides
Colombia, Georgia, the United States, Mexico, Armenia, North Cyprus and Canada — local steps, documents, notaries and certified translators.
s.54 shown as evidence
Not a checklist to tick. Each of the seven conditions reads evidence in place, partly evidenced or not yet evidenced, derived from the documents you've actually gathered.
Payments and disclosure
Every payment logged in its own currency and converted to sterling, split by agency and surrogate, totalled for the s.54(8) question about reasonable expenses.
Your inbox
Every question you've asked and every answer you've had, in one thread. Nothing lost, nothing scattered.
Filing follows PD27A as replaced on 2 March 2026. Most third-party articles about court bundles predate that and are now out of date.
A fraction of solicitor fees.
Full access, billed monthly. Cancel any time. Ideal if your journey is already well along.
Choose monthlyEverything in Monthly — 12 months' full access from the date of purchase. One payment, nothing to remember.
Get the Journey Pass14-day money-back guarantee on both plans.
The UK Parental Order process,
without the stress.
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PO NAVIGATORPO Navigator provides guidance only — not legal advice, and not immigration or nationality advice. Consider taking legal advice if you are unsure about your Parental Order application. AI responses are generated by Anthropic Claude and do not constitute legal advice.
SOL Surrogacy · Office 1503, 60 Tottenham Court Road, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2EW, United Kingdom · kbf@solsurrogacy.com