Birth Certificate and unmarried parents

[InnocentRedhead]

Hi all, i am asking this question for myself and not sure where to put it, so its here and in legal.

Basically, I have just found out I am pregnant, due February 2012, and me and the father (my DP) are unmarried. However, we will only be unmarried at the time of birth until the baby is 5 month old.

The child on the Birth Certificate will have DPs surname, but is there anyway of getting the birth certificate changed after the wedding (date set for 24/07/12) so all our surnames match (it will only be mine that needs changing as i am changing my name at the wedding).

What can i do and what legal channels will there be to follow?

[fuckmepinkandCALLmegoran]

I don't think you can do this but honestly why would you bother?

[tiokiko]

Yes, this is pretty straightforward to do, if you want to - details are here.

You basically just need to re-register your baby after the wedding and they can issue a new birth certificate with your married name.

[bumpybecky]

I wasn't married to DH when we had dd1 and dd2. By the time we registered dd3 we had got married, so we re-registered dd1&2 at the same time. I'm pretty sure it's a legal requirement to do so, but not the sort of thing they hassle you about - we'd been married 4 years when dd3 was born.

From memory we weren't charged for the re-registering, but you do have to pay for the long birth certificate (but you do when they're first registered). I think you need the long one to apply for the passport.

We did all of it at the local registrars office even though we'd lived in a totally different district when dd1&2 were born.

[tiokiko]

PS there was a thread about this a few weeks ago, some stated that you have to re-register the birth but you really don't. We decided not to as we have been together for 15+ years and didn't want to change the birth certificate as we didn't feel there was anything to hide or apologise for.

We had lots of conflicting advice from different people and ended up talking to our solicitor who explained it properly. This just changes your child's legal status from 'illegitimate' to 'legitimated' but only children actually born after you're married will count as 'legitimate'.

It's a pretty archaic system but I guess if it's really important to you to change the birth certificate then you can do so, but you definitely don't have to.

[InnocentRedhead]

It's not a case of having to, it is probably more for myself and yeah it is something that we want. I understand that the rule is archaic, but i want the whole family to have the same last name iyswim. Me being me i suppose. So that is the reason why i would bother fuckme.

[HappyAsASandboy]

Another way to do it would be to change your name to your partners surname now, by deed poll. Then you can register your baby as Baby FathersSurname, with both parents listed as X FathersSurname and Y FathersSurname.

There would obviously be a fee for the deed poll bit, but personally I'd rather do it that way than trying to rewrite history by re-registering births.

[TheArmadillo]

The reason you are supposed to reregister births if the parents get married is all to do with legitimacy when it comes to inheritance.

Basically if you don't reregister any children from before the marriage and you subsequently have more children and then die before leaving a will it makes a big difference to who inherits (basically it goes to the legitimate child/ren).

It does change the mother's name to her married name (if she chooses to change it) on the new birth certificate.

[EricNorthmansMistress]

You mean you want all the surnames to match on the BC? You can change your name by deedpoll for about a tenner.

[tiokiko]

Armadillo is right in that if the wills specifiy only 'legitimate' children then children born before marriage will not be included. But you can't make a child 'legitimate' by re-registering, can only make them 'legitimated'.

But - most wills now will include (or give you the option to include) all three categories of legitimate/illegitimate/legitimated children as beneficiaries. So even if you do re-register you still need to make sure that your will (or any others that would be relevant) include legitimate children too.