What Your Surrogacy Agency Won't Tell You (But the High Court Will)

There is a phrase that travels through the international surrogacy world faster than any legal update: "Don't worry, this is how it's done here."

Agencies say it about destinations with no regulatory framework. They say it when surrogates travel across borders mid-pregnancy. They say it when parents ask why documentation seems incomplete, or why the birth country changed from what was originally agreed.

It is not reassurance. It is a sales technique. Actually, a costly one for the people who believe it.

In 2024 and 2025, a series of UK High Court judgments made this explicit. Three separate cases landed before senior Family Division judges, each involving intended parents who had trusted agency assurances about international surrogacy arrangements. All three cases ended in serious, avoidable harm. The judges didn't hold back in their assessments.

These cases involved UK families and UK courts. But the questions they raise, and the guidance that followed, apply regardless of where you live or where you are planning to pursue surrogacy. 

If an agency is unwilling to answer them clearly, that tells you something important before you sign anything.

What Actually Happened in These Cases

Re Z (Foreign Surrogacy) [2024] involved a same-sex couple who engaged an agency and were told procedures would take place in Northern Cyprus. Ultimately the child was born in a different country because the agency recommended that it would be easier to get the child’s travel documents there. Mrs Justice Theis described the parents as "extremely naïve" and criticised their "lack of due diligence" and "abdication of the most basic responsibility" to ensure the arrangement they were entering was lawful and child's welfare was protected. The parental order was ultimately granted, because refusing it would have harmed the child, but the Court made clear this would not automatically be the outcome in future cases. Read more.

Read more about Surrogacy in Cyprus here.

Re Z (Unlawful Foreign Surrogacy: Adoption) [2025] went further. A same-sex female couple in their late sixties paid approximately £120,000 to an agency in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Children were not genetically related to the parents and they did not qualify for the Parental Order process and could only legally adopt them. As a result parents were trapped in Cyprus for four years while the Home Office refused UK entry. The President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, issued a formal public warning: courts may, in future cases, refuse to grant adoption or parental orders entirely, leaving children born through such arrangements "permanently stateless and legally parentless." His words were direct: "Put bluntly, anyone seeking to achieve the introduction of a child into their family by following in the footsteps of these applicants should think again." Full case coverage via Progress.org.

Read more about Surrogacy in UK here.

X v W [2025] involved a single father who was told by the agency that the birth would take place in the Czech Republic. The surrogate was from Kyrgyzstan. She flew to Northern Cyprus for treatment. The child was born in Moldova, a country where surrogacy is illegal, and the father was instructed by the agency to present himself as the surrogate's partner. He had not sought independent legal advice, partly because of cost, and the agency had not informed him of any legal complexities that might arise. He found out about the change of country only when he arrived for the birth. See the Reforming Surrogacy Law analysis of this case.

Read more about Surrogacy in Czech Republic here.

Three cases. Possibly the same or different agencies. Three families who were told, in effect, not to ask too many questions. None of them received accurate information about where their arrangement was actually happening. All three ended up in litigation that consumed years and significant money.

The Court's Response:- 21 Questions Every Intended Parent Should Be Able to Answer

Following these cases, the Court issued consolidated guidance setting out 21 questions that any intended parent considering international surrogacy should be able to answer before committing to a program. The full list is published by NGA Law here.

Let’s read through the clusters that matter most:

The legal framework in the birth country

Is surrogacy permitted there? Will you be recognised as the legal parents automatically, or only after taking formal legal steps? What is the surrogate's legal status at birth, and if she is married, what is her spouse's?

These are not bureaucratic questions. They are the foundation of whether your child will have any legal identity at all.

The agency's actual role

What is the agency doing, specifically, in matching you with a surrogate? What information, preparation and support has the surrogate received? Does she understand, and can she read, whatever she is being asked to sign?

Who controls where the birth happens

This one is direct: can the birth country be changed at any stage, and if so, by whom and in what circumstances? 

In two of the three cases above, the birth country changed. The parents were not asked. One found out on arrival.

The path home

What nationality will your child have at birth? What documents are needed for them to travel to your country? How long does that process take? Has it been done before from that destination?

Your child's future if something happens to you

Questions 19 through 21 cover estate planning, incapacity, and death. Most intended parents skip these entirely. The Court included them for a reason: a child without legally recognised parents and without a plan is a child left exposed.

Go through this list with your agency. Ask each question directly. If the answers are vague, incomplete, or accompanied by reassurance rather than evidence - write that down.

Why "Everything Will Be Fine" Is Not a Legal Answer

Surrogacy agencies are not legally accountable in your home country for what happens to you or your child in another jurisdiction. Their job, as they define it, typically ends at the point of arrangement. But your legal exposure does not end there.

International surrogacy agencies operate in a largely unregulated environment globally. There is no mandatory international licensing, no standardised disclosure requirements, no universal inspection regime. The responsibility of verification falls on you.

This is not theoretical. In December 2025, the FBI opened an investigation into a Washington state surrogacy agency that shut down suddenly, leaving approximately 150 families with funds they could not access, with individual losses of $40,000 to over $66,000. That case followed a Texas-based surrogacy escrow company that collapsed in 2024, with alleged losses of more than $16 million across an estimated 800 families. These are not isolated failures in a generally reliable system. They are evidence of what happens when intended parents cannot independently verify the structures they are relying on.

In the High Court cases, the problem was not financial fraud. It was misinformation. Parents were told things that were not true about where their arrangement was happening, what was legally permitted, and what they should tell authorities. The agency in the X v W case failed to inform the father of any legal complexities that might arise. He found out what country his child would be born in when he landed there.

Independent surrogacy consultant and independent legal advice, in your home country and in the country of birth, is not a luxury. It is the mechanism by which you can separate what an agency tells you from what the law actually says. The two are not always the same.

What Independent Guidance Actually Changes

I work as an independent surrogacy consultant,  which means I do not represent agencies, I do not run surrogacy programs. Over the years, I have built a trusted network of providers and clinics internationally, and I help intended parents understand their options and choose the destination and program that best suits their needs. My job is to help you ask the questions that an agency has a structural conflict of interest in answering honestly.

Has the birth country for this agency's programs ever changed mid-arrangement?

What is the actual track record for exit documentation from this destination, but not the estimate, the real timeline?

What happened to families with this agency when Argentina, Georgia and Thailand changed their rules?

Who are the lawyers on the ground, and are they independent of the agency?

These are not hostile questions. They are due diligence. Any agency running a legitimate, ethical program should be able to answer them without hesitation.

If you are in the early stages of research and want to work through the Court's 21 questions before committing to any program, that is exactly what an independent consultation is for. It is also available to you if you are already in a program and something is not sitting right.

You deserve real answers before you sign anything. The UK High Court had to publish formal guidance, in three separate judgments, because too many families found out what the questions were only after it was too late to ask them. You do not have to be one of those families.

If you are beginning to research international surrogacy and want an honest, unfiltered overview of the destinations and what to look for in a program, get in touch here. No pitch. No program to sell. Just the information you need to make this decision with your eyes open.