biometric

[almaprice33]

hello

im planning to apply for British citizenship soon but the problem is my biometric still in my maiden name the same name in my passport and my passport just expired last 1st of June 2015.Do i need to renew my passport before i can change my name in my biometric?i really wanted to use my married name to put in my certificate and in my british passport in the future. Please i really need some advice so that we proceed the application .


many thanks,

Alma

[noajthan]

hello

im planning to apply for British citizenship soon but the problem is my biometric still in my maiden name the same name in my passport and my passport just expired last 1st of June 2015.Do i need to renew my passport before i can change my name in my biometric?i really wanted to use my married name to put in my certificate and in my british passport in the future. Please i really need some advice so that we proceed the application .

many thanks,

Alma

Alma,
There is a recent but very poorly publicised HO policy on names & identity, dating from February 2015 - see here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/crac ... -detection

If you apply to naturalise in your married name HO (Naturalisation section) will let you do that (using a passport in maiden name plus marriage certificate as evidence).

However, due to the new policy, if you then apply for a British passport & submit an uncancelled passport in maiden name (i.e. different from married name), HO Passport Office are likely to refuse or delay issuing the British passport

The passport guidance notes (& guidance from the Check&Send service at Post Office) are very unclear on all this.

See this forum thread for details on how it's caught a lot of people people out during this year, (including my wife):
british-citizenship/passport-refused-un ... t#p1196883

Forewarned is forearmed!
If you can straighten out the names before naturalising in married name you can save yourself a lot of unnecessary stress and delay.

The point is the Passport office don't readily accept a mismatch in 'identities' between the new passport you are applying for & any other current passports you hold.

It may be enough to have your expired passport cancelled before you apply for the British passport (as only uncancelled passports have to be submitted).
You would have to check with your embassy if that is possible.

Otherwise, and especially if you are going to keep dual nationalities, it probably makes sense to renew & update your foreign passport to your married name.

Note: BRP is not submitted with a British passport application so the name on BRP is not so important.
You will not need it once naturalised as BRP (& any ILR) are invalidated by becoming a UK citizen.
(However you would have had to update the name on your BRP within 3 months of marrying & changing your name anyway).

Best of luck.

[jpk]

Hello,
My wife is going through a similar yet opposite situation. She has submitted the Naturalisation application with her married name, marriage certificate as the evidence of name change. Her current passport is in her maiden name but NCS didn't even count it as a problem, extra comment was added re name change.
She received the application acknowledgement letter addressed to her married name, which was a good sign. However, she received the biometric enrollment letter addressed to her maiden name, albeit MRS [maiden name], just to confuse everyone. I called the Citizenship advice line and their advice is, take the marriage certificate with the biometric enrollment just in case they have the application showing the different name. Biometric and naturalisation are two separate processes and Home Office will only consider you in your maiden name as that is the details they hold.
Home Office lady was quite relaxed, if and when the application is successful the certificate will be in her married name. I don't see why the passport application will be problematic as you have to attend an interview to double check the identity so as long as you produce all the documents on the name change, especially the citizenship certificate, everything should be fine.

In your case, this link is what you need I guess https://www.gov.uk/change-circumstances ... p/overview. Renewing the passport isn't essential I don't think as long as you have other forms of identification. In terms of name change, Marriage Certificate does wonders trumping all problems without going through the deed poll, or at least in our experience.

[noajthan]

...

Home Office lady was quite relaxed, if and when the application is successful the certificate will be in her married name. I don't see why the passport application will be problematic as you have to attend an interview to double check the identity so as long as you produce all the documents on the name change, especially the citizenship certificate, everything should be fine.

...

The difficulty my wife encountered is the Passport Office objected to a current foreign passport in maiden name even though naturalisation was done successfully (by HO!) in her married name;
(all was backed up by same foreign passport plus marriage certificate).

So the passport office blocked the British passport and didn't call her to interview until the name difference was resolved.
- it took 4 months of stress and confusion and delay.

At the interview it was not even discussed, so the interview is not really the opportunity to sort these matters out.
In our experience, you need the passport & other documents in order well ahead of that.

[jpk]

...

Home Office lady was quite relaxed, if and when the application is successful the certificate will be in her married name. I don't see why the passport application will be problematic as you have to attend an interview to double check the identity so as long as you produce all the documents on the name change, especially the citizenship certificate, everything should be fine.

...

The difficulty my wife encountered is the Passport Office objected to a current foreign passport in maiden name even though naturalisation was done successfully (by HO!) in her married name;
(all was backed up by same foreign passport plus marriage certificate).

So the passport office blocked the British passport and didn't call her to interview until the name difference was resolved.
- it took 4 months of stress and confusion and delay.

At the interview it was not even discussed, so the interview is not really the opportunity to sort these matters out.
In our experience, you need the passport & other documents in order well ahead of that.

Ha! That is great to know, thank you for the heads up. They do know how to make things more difficult!
So what did you have to do to sort it out? change the foreign passport with the new name then apply for the British passport?

[noajthan]

The difficulty my wife encountered is the Passport Office objected to a current foreign passport in maiden name even though naturalisation was done successfully (by HO!) in her married name;
(all was backed up by same foreign passport plus marriage certificate).

So the passport office blocked the British passport and didn't call her to interview until the name difference was resolved.
- it took 4 months of stress and confusion and delay.

At the interview it was not even discussed, so the interview is not really the opportunity to sort these matters out.
In our experience, you need the passport & other documents in order well ahead of that.

Ha! That is great to know, thank you for the heads up. They do know how to make things more difficult!
So what did you have to do to sort it out? change the foreign passport with the new name then apply for the British passport?

That was one option but we didn't take that path.

In our case we had to cancel my wife's passport and provide a letter from her embassy to confirm it had been cancelled; secondly, to confirm that it was no longer valid (& that she was no longer a citizen of her country).

This was in fact always the case since, as a Filipino, the act of acquiring UK citizenship had cancelled out my wife's Philippine citizenship & her passport (i.e. under their laws).
Our mistake was to innocently assume the HO would know this & process the passport application accordingly.
However HO would not accept my say-so on all this & they would not accept copies of the relevant Philippine legislation either.

We had to discover the new UK policy, (as initially the Passport office would not admit to us there was one), then figure out what to do, then approach the embassy and persuade them to produce the (for them) non-standard letter.

The HO legal department then provided an incorrect legal interpretation of Philippine law to their caseworkers which confused maters further (& which I had to argue against and correct).

End to end it all took around 4 months to do.

[jpk]

The difficulty my wife encountered is the Passport Office objected to a current foreign passport in maiden name even though naturalisation was done successfully (by HO!) in her married name;
(all was backed up by same foreign passport plus marriage certificate).

So the passport office blocked the British passport and didn't call her to interview until the name difference was resolved.
- it took 4 months of stress and confusion and delay.

At the interview it was not even discussed, so the interview is not really the opportunity to sort these matters out.
In our experience, you need the passport & other documents in order well ahead of that.

Ha! That is great to know, thank you for the heads up. They do know how to make things more difficult!
So what did you have to do to sort it out? change the foreign passport with the new name then apply for the British passport?

That was one option but we didn't take that path.

In our case we had to cancel my wife's passport and provide a letter from her embassy to confirm it had been cancelled; secondly, to confirm that it was no longer valid (& that she was no longer a citizen of her country).

This was in fact always the case since, as a Filipino, the act of acquiring UK citizenship had cancelled out my wife's Philippine citizenship & her passport (i.e. under their laws).
Our mistake was to innocently assume the HO would know this & process the passport application accordingly.
However HO would not accept my say-so on all this & they would not accept copies of the relevant Philippine legislation either.

We had to discover the new UK policy, (as initially the Passport office would not admit to us there was one), then figure out what to do, then approach the embassy and persuade them to produce the (for them) non-standard letter.

The HO legal department then provided an incorrect legal interpretation of Philippine law to their caseworkers which confused maters further (& which I had to argue against and correct).

End to end it all took around 4 months to do.

Interesting update, just called the HMPO helpline and explained the situation, 'non British passport still valid in maiden name, citizenship certificate in married name, first British passport application etc'. She was very clear that it is not going to be a problem. I will call them again and get an advice from a different person just to make sure, but I will be very disappointed to put it nicely if they reject/delay giving same reason as you got.

[noajthan]

Interesting update, just called the HMPO helpline and explained the situation, 'non British passport still valid in maiden name, citizenship certificate in married name, first British passport application etc'. She was very clear that it is not going to be a problem. I will call them again and get an advice from a different person just to make sure, but I will be very disappointed to put it nicely if they reject/delay giving same reason as you got.

It may be the helpline hasn't got the memo yet:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/crac ... -detection

[jpk]

It may be the helpline hasn't got the memo yet:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/crac ... -detection

Thank you again, useful link. I have written to the Passport Office for clarification so we have something in writing.
If my wife's home country and the UK allows dual nationalities then how can HMPO control the passport issued by another country?
Feel like we have hijacked the thread, apologise for that.

[noajthan]

Thank you again, useful link. I have written to the Passport Office for clarification so we have something in writing.
If my wife's home country and the UK allows dual nationalities then how can HMPO control the passport issued by another country?

Yes good question - the policy needs fully testing & challenging really.
At least it's published now; (when my wife's application got blocked we were initially met with denials that there was any new policy).

It really discriminates against various groups including law-abiding, married women.
It doesn't seem to have been thought through - it's unacceptable it's out of sync with UK naturalisation practice (let alone 3rd countries).

You will notice the current guidance notes & any advice from Check&Send are still lacking in this area,
I don't think the published guidance & training has caught up yet.

Hope you get a clear answer from Passport Office.

[jpk]

Hope you get a clear answer from Passport Office.

I guess as clear as I can get, "Once the Citizenship is approved through the married name, this will count as official name change so the current non British passport should be changed to the new name".

Not worth asking them anymore, a lot easier just to change the name rather than being delayed for months as your wife's case.
Thank you for the advice on this.