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AIBU?

aibu to get the rage trying to apply for passports?

83 replies

WexlerandMcGill · 21/04/2016 23:53

So,
We stupidly booked a holiday for 5 weeks time then realised the DDs don't have passports and that I have lost mine while moving house recently.
I have been trying to fill out the forms to DDs first passports and it is ridiculously difficult.
I need to find out all of the GPs dob, marriage date, place, etc. Then as I don't have a passport currently. Try to get their birth certificates.
We are not even in touch with these people.
I want to scream!!

OP posts:

Report

CakeNinja · 21/04/2016 23:59

Just had to do mine. Can sympathise, some of the sections may as well just say "jump through this hoop, which is suspended 75ft in the air, without using a trampoline".
I'm not sure what you do in those situations where you aren't even in touch with people you need information from.
Have your dds ever had passports?

MrsTerryPratchett · 22/04/2016 00:05

I just had to apply for my first Canadian Passport. Piece of piss. And when he said, "your passport will be with you by..." I almost fainted. Less than two weeks. The UK system is not as efficient.

fatmomma99 · 22/04/2016 00:06

ha ha ha... this reminds me of the time I helped a traveller family fill in passport applications. Neither parent could read or write (although both of them were SMART cookies), so I was there to do the reading/writing, and they already thought of me as some kind of alien because I had those skills, and I'd said to mum "get spare copies, they're a bugger to fill in" (because you can't make a mistake) and when I got the 5th one out to redo because I'd made mistakes on the previous 4 her face was something I'll never forget!

DontOpenDeadInside · 22/04/2016 07:26

I don't think I needed gps dobs. Try and do it online. It only lets you fill in the bits you need.

HughGrantsHair · 22/04/2016 07:35

You need GPs dates of birth for the children if their parents were born in 1983 or later.

You have my sympathy. I'm in the process of renewing my lost passport and my children's passports and so far it's taken about 11 applications as I keep making mistakes!

welshweasel · 22/04/2016 07:35

We definitely didn't need GP details. If I were you I would pay for the one week service. We applied for my sons first passport at the end of Feb and had a text yesterday saying it had been dispatched, so 7 weeks in total. We are both British, with current passports so should have been straightforward.

Arkwright · 22/04/2016 07:41

Could you sign up to one of these trace your family tree type websites to get the dates and places?

Then fill the forms in online it's easy.

WexlerandMcGill · 22/04/2016 07:47

High grant dear god, you must be pulling your hair out! I hope you didn't have to pay every time you applied!
What supporting documentation did you have to provide for your lost passport?

I am going to do the 1 week service, I can get in for an appointment on Monday.

OP posts:

Missymoomoo1979 · 22/04/2016 07:48

Just done my kids 1st passports and I done it online, it was so much easier, but it took a couple of weeks for the birth certificates to come through.

Once I had everything and had filled the forms in and sent them off it took 8 days altogether for them to arrive, very quick service, just waiting for mine and next week we're doing dhs.

LavenderRains · 22/04/2016 07:49

I thought you meant general practitioners dob.
I'm thinking blimey why do they need to know when her Dr was born
sorry, night shift brain
You have my sympathy those forms are a pig

LindorBunny · 22/04/2016 07:51

You should be able to find the dates you need via something like ancestry.com (try and get a free trial).

If you need birth /marriage certificates you can order them online from the government website. Or directly from the register office where the birth was registered. If you need additional details to get the bc then try free bmd or ancestry.

And yes, do fill it in online. Miles easier to correct an error - just watch you use the gov website and not some dodgy one that will charge.

justmatureenough2bdad · 22/04/2016 07:54

in defence of the system, i recently applied for a passport renewal for me and a first passport for dd...did the online bit, and sent off the delcaration bit with my old passport and recieved both mine and dd's new passports in....THREE days! now in all fairness, i had my old passport, the birth certificates and was able to get dobs for gps but still!!!!! 3 days! i tell everyone i meet...it's my new "hey you'll never believe it but..." story!

chicaguapa · 22/04/2016 08:05

Have you filled out a form online? It makes it easier as it only asks the relevant questions. And then prints off a list of what you have to send in. We did ours recently and it took less than 2 weeks to come through. They were renewals though.

TriJo · 22/04/2016 08:26

Am doing this at the moment - my (London-born) son's application needs quite a lot of documentation because I'm a citizen by descent, my mum was born in Birmingham but I was born in Dublin. Still working out quicker than getting his Irish one though, damn Brexit bandwagoners making that take forever! I just renewed my Irish one and it printed yesterday after applying in late February!

wasonthelist · 22/04/2016 08:29

YANBU Anything to do with admin and government in this Country is 100% shite.

MrsK · 22/04/2016 08:33

Hope this link helps, I renewed my passport this way & it was very straightforward

www.gov.uk/apply-renew-passport

WexlerandMcGill · 22/04/2016 09:22

Thank you for the link MrsK
I have spoken to the passport office this morning and they said they will be able to process the applications with my birth certificate, which I also lost whist moving. So I have ordered another one for £30 which should arrive Monday.
I sound like an unorganised mess. I have everybody else's documents filed and kept safe. I'm so busy organising their lives that I've made a big f*up with my things.
My DDs will be heart broken if we can't go. They have been through so much recently. I feel like the worst mother.

OP posts:

Fizzielove · 22/04/2016 10:23

We applied recently and got them back within 4 days!!

WexlerandMcGill · 22/04/2016 10:33

Would I be a fool to pay the premium for the 1week service? I am seeing they can have a very fast turnaround

OP posts:

welshweasel · 22/04/2016 10:43

Probably! But you might be unlucky like we were. Ours was delayed due to them checking out the counter signatory. I don't think they check them in every case, just a random selection. Every other passport renewal I've done has always taken less than two weeks. Is it worth losing a holiday over though?

welshweasel · 22/04/2016 10:44

Oh and another thing, once you've made an application it's very difficult to upgrade it to a premium service, they make you cancel it and apply again. So you pay twice. I looked into this as we are traveling in a couple of weeks and I was getting a bit stressed that it still hadn't been processed

Pinkheart5915 · 22/04/2016 10:47

When we set off for newborn ds first passport last year, We got his passport back in 6 days. So you might be lucky

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crazywriter · 22/04/2016 11:00

MrsTerryPrachett I'm envious about your canadian passport. I've just applied for my first one. Had to take a trip down to London from Glasgow to sort it out and was told it would take 6 weeks because there are so many requests (the website says 20 days). I've not booked flights yet but were trying to get out at the end of June to move there.

As for DDs were having to jump through all the hoops bit were in touch with both sets and can quite easily fill it in. It's been trying to get the signatures for photos because our guy is a former colleague of husband and they don't work in the same store anymore so means lots of pints as they meet up (they keep forgetting certain bits to sign and date grr).

Ricardian · 22/04/2016 11:38

The recent changes which require grandparents' birth certificates are because of changes to British Citizenship which took effect on 1 Jan 1983.

Prior to then, being born in the UK was sufficient for you to be a British citizen, so if you had a UK birth certificate, that's the end of the conversation. If you didn't, you obviously could still be a British citizen by a variety of other routes including naturalisation, your father's citizenship, etc, etc, but you'll usually have the paperwork for this.

After 1 Jan 1983, being born in the UK isn't enough. The standard route to UK citizenship is to be born in the UK and one of your parents also being a UK citizen (or "settled", which has a complex definition). Hence the need for grandparents' birth certificates, although I can't quite see why you need all four of them, because if you're both born in the UK post-1983 and your children are born in the UK, I think (I am not a lawyer, etc) that it's sufficient for one grandparent to be a UK citizen.

This is becoming an issue because now, a large proportion of children applying for their first passport have both parents born after 1/1/83, and therefore the child's claim to a UK passport requires one or more of the grandparents to be UK citizens.

See here for the gory details.

CoraPirbright · 22/04/2016 11:44

Re: the keep making mistakes thing, try using the Post Office "check and send" service. Then if you have made a cock up they can tell you straight away and you dont have to wait for the passport office to send it back to you.

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