UK citizen changing name abroad
January 13, 2017 8:53 AM Subscribe
I am a UK citizen living in Switzerland and I want to legally change my name. If I were resident in the UK, I could just make my own deed poll and have it signed by two witnesses. As I live abroad, it has to be notarised.* I have a few questions.
1) My plan is to get the notarised deed poll, use this to get a passport in my new name, and then use both of these as necessary to update my records with other organisations both here and in the UK. Is there anything I've overlooked here?
2) Does it matter if both witnesses and I all share the same address? I have coworkers who would act as witnesses for me, but it would mean all three of us taking time out from a workday to visit a local government office with an uncertain wait time. My housemates have much more flexible schedules and I'd feel much less bad about taking up their time, but could this pose a problem for getting the deed poll accepted by the passport office?
2a) I've been working on the assumption that the witnesses need to sign in the presence of the notary -- is this correct?
*) The gov.uk site has plenty of useful advice on this topic (e.g.). Unfortunately, it's in several locations and I'm blessed if I can ever find the same page twice, so I can't currently find the page that said this. I'm pretty sure that's correct, though.
Thanks!
1) My plan is to get the notarised deed poll, use this to get a passport in my new name, and then use both of these as necessary to update my records with other organisations both here and in the UK. Is there anything I've overlooked here?
2) Does it matter if both witnesses and I all share the same address? I have coworkers who would act as witnesses for me, but it would mean all three of us taking time out from a workday to visit a local government office with an uncertain wait time. My housemates have much more flexible schedules and I'd feel much less bad about taking up their time, but could this pose a problem for getting the deed poll accepted by the passport office?
2a) I've been working on the assumption that the witnesses need to sign in the presence of the notary -- is this correct?
*) The gov.uk site has plenty of useful advice on this topic (e.g.). Unfortunately, it's in several locations and I'm blessed if I can ever find the same page twice, so I can't currently find the page that said this. I'm pretty sure that's correct, though.
Thanks!
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Here is the gov.uk page on renewing your British passport from overseas. They will take you through a short quiz to give you the correct information for your country and situation. Through there, I found this pdf with lists of required supporting documents, which says that in my case I need to send in some evidence of using my new name in everyday life.
So I suppose I'll use the signed and notarised deed poll to change some accounts here in Switzerland and then send documents from those in with my passport application. Fun times!
posted by daisyk at 8:33 AM on January 17, 2017