Dual citizenship. UK passport renewal issue due to marriage related name mismatch

Thurrafork

Hello folks

Posting here on behalf of my sister who's in a bit of a pickle.

She was born in the UK but has dual citizenship with Australia (thanks to our Australian mother).

Her Australian passport unfortunately expired about 7 years ago, at a time when - crucially - she was not yet married.

Now she's just been going through the process of renewing her UK passport and she had no choice but to send in her expired Australian passport as well as her UK one.

But the UK passport office said they cannot renew her UK passport as there is a name mismatch - her UK passport which she wants to renew has her married name, her expired Aussie passport has her maiden name.

She explained that she had simply got married, and asked why it mattered since the Aussie passport was long expired anyway, but the guy wouldn't budge. He explained her only options to get her UK passport renewed are 1. To formally cancel her Australian citizenship, 2. To renew her Australian passport now with her married name, 3.to change her name via deed poll back to her unmarried name - legitimizing the name in her aussie passport, and then using that name for her UK passport renewal.

What a tangle!

Is this really the situation? Are there no simpler options?

Any suggestions would be very gratefully received.

Thank you

eskbanker

The guidance the UK passport office follows does seem to mirror what she's been told:

Customers may send us a passport application in a name that does not match their foreign documents. Unless it meets one of our exceptions, we expect customers to change the name on their foreign document, so it matches the name on their passport application, before they send their application to us.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/names-aligning-names-on-foreign-documents/names-aligning-names-on-foreign-documents-accessible

Having said that, one of those exceptions doesn't seem to have been mentioned above, I don't know how viable it is here:

if a customer’s foreign passport has expired and they do not wish to renew it but can provide evidence that their change of name has been registered with the foreign authorities

DullGreyGuy

jamieboo said

Is this really the situation? Are there no simpler options?

Any suggestions would be very gratefully received.

According to the senior caseworker we dealt with its another thing to thank the tories for. 

Caseworkers do have discretion to issue in a non-matching name, putting an observation into the new British passport about the existence of the expired passport in a different name, but only when correcting the name in the other nationality would cause undue hardship or disruption. 

We managed to convince the chap that despite their system saying it's easy to change ours that in fact it isnt and would require 6 months at least outside the country to do it. 

Personally think its stupid, even if a new passport was issued under the married name for the second nationality its not like the expired passport suddenly ceases to exist and any person, dual national or otherwise, that's changed their name equally has old passports in different names.

twopenny

What a strange thing to happen. Surely there are lots of people who've got married and had to change their name.

Did the guy ask for a marriage certificate and any other documents to support the change of name?

If it's immovable then probably it's just much easier to get the Aussie one renewed and try again.

"If you have a non-British passport

If you have dual citizenship (‘dual nationality’) and have a non-British passport, the name and gender on your non-British passport must match the name and gender you want on your British passport.

If they’re different, change the details on your non-British passport before you apply for a new British passport."

Seems that's the way to go.

eskbanker

twopenny said:

What a strange thing to happen. Surely there are lots of people who've got married and had to change their name.

Did the guy ask for a marriage certificate and any other documents to support the change of name?

OP says that the sister's current UK passport is already in her married name, so the UKPO has already accepted her change of name and the issue arises from the discrepancy with the non-UK one in a different name.

twopenny said:

If it's immovable then probably it's just much easier to get the Aussie one renewed and try again.

"If you have a non-British passport

If you have dual citizenship (‘dual nationality’) and have a non-British passport, the name and gender on your non-British passport must match the name and gender you want on your British passport.

If they’re different, change the details on your non-British passport before you apply for a new British passport."

Seems that's the way to go.

That was indeed one of the options offered to OP's sister, but apparently it was considered onerous, hence the question about whether there's anything simpler....

DullGreyGuy

eskbanker said:

twopenny said:

What a strange thing to happen. Surely there are lots of people who've got married and had to change their name.

Did the guy ask for a marriage certificate and any other documents to support the change of name?

OP says that the sister's current UK passport is already in her married name, so the UKPO has already accepted her change of name and the issue arises from the discrepancy with the non-UK one in a different name.

twopenny said:

If it's immovable then probably it's just much easier to get the Aussie one renewed and try again.

"If you have a non-British passport

If you have dual citizenship (‘dual nationality’) and have a non-British passport, the name and gender on your non-British passport must match the name and gender you want on your British passport.

If they’re different, change the details on your non-British passport before you apply for a new British passport."

Seems that's the way to go.

That was indeed one of the options offered to OP's sister, but apparently it was considered onerous, hence the question about whether there's anything simpler....

If it is onerous then you can appeal for dispensation, as we successfully did. But onerous needs to be onerous not just a pain in the !!!!!!. In our case it would be renewing her overseas one in her maiden name which is a 6-9 month process. Then going to her home country and "persuading" a judge to allow a name change which normally involved brown envelopes and dollars. Then apply for a new passport in her new, to them, name, which is another 4-6 months (slightly quicker than from there).

Mrs can't work remotely, I can't work from there and so it'd be expensive, onerous, disruptive to personal life and over a 12 month process. 

smudge56

jamieboo said:

Hello folks

Posting here on behalf of my sister who's in a bit of a pickle.

She was born in the UK but has dual citizenship with Australia (thanks to our Australian mother).

Her Australian passport unfortunately expired about 7 years ago, at a time when - crucially - she was not yet married.

Now she's just been going through the process of renewing her UK passport and she had no choice but to send in her expired Australian passport as well as her UK one.

But the UK passport office said they cannot renew her UK passport as there is a name mismatch - her UK passport which she wants to renew has her married name, her expired Aussie passport has her maiden name.

She explained that she had simply got married, and asked why it mattered since the Aussie passport was long expired anyway, but the guy wouldn't budge. He explained her only options to get her UK passport renewed are 1. To formally cancel her Australian citizenship, 2. To renew her Australian passport now with her married name, 3.to change her name via deed poll back to her unmarried name - legitimizing the name in her aussie passport, and then using that name for her UK passport renewal.

What a tangle!

Is this really the situation? Are there no simpler options?

Any suggestions would be very gratefully received.

She will have to change the name on her Australian passport to align with her British passport, the British passport won’t be issued until that’s been done or she has proof that the process has started. This is because she can’t have two identities
There are exceptions to this rule but Australia isn’t one of them as the passport can be changed at the UK.