Passport renewal for children

[jifnotcif]

Is it me or are the passport office being extraordinarily vigilant by wanting my MIL's date of marriage for my daughter's passport? They also want her date of birth which I will find difficult enough to get out of her.

I've put in a form asking them to contact me (you can't phone them nowadays).

Previously I've not had to do any of these things for my dcs as their Dad is British born and bred and I am British bred (but not born). Is it because we are not married?

It's you

Presumably you haven't read this page that explains who has the right to British citizenship, and gives a phone number for the IPS adviceline

People used to claim citizenship by virtue of marriage so it does matter when your PIL were married.

I am married, born and raised in UK, as was DH and still had to fill in exactly the same forms for my DD's passport renewal.

If it's a renewal you don't need all that additional info - only for a first application. We renewed DD's passport last week and just needed mine and DH's details and marriage date.

It's because your daughter's entitlement to British C/ship from what you say is through her father.

Check out the links Sabriel gives.

I didnt need that info for ds's passport renewal and I only did it 2 weeks ago.

p.s. Passport Adviceline is 0300 222 0000

If it a renewal for a child then the instructions say:

?Child? tick box
Put a cross in this box if the passport is for a child under 16. Then fill in sections 2, 3, 4 and 9 of the form. You must also fill in section 6 if the child is aged 12 to 15.

If the child is 11 or younger, the form will need to be countersigned (see page 13) and one of the child?s photographs will need to be signed. In this case the person countersigning the photo must fill in section 10.

You can always go to the births, deaths, marriages place. I didn't need an appointment and they charged £1 per bit of information. So in your case £2, might save some hassle?

She's already had 2 passports and we didn't need those details last time. Just to clarify we are applying online.

My dd was born here, both me and her father are British, him native, me not born in UK.

We are not married. They have told me twice on the phone that they don't need the in-laws information but it won't let me past the system. I'll try reading the small print AGAIN.

We could rally round the rellies and get the information, but it's a bit of a faff as dp's Dad no longer with us and split from MIL years before.

Thanks for all your replies.

Ah I've found it

If born before 1 July 2006, British nationality can only be claimed through the father if the parents were married at the time of the birth, or have married since.

Well that's new! But I still don't get why the people on the phone are saying I don't need the grandparents information.

I can't believe that my kids don't have automatic British Nationality despite me having it, her Dad having it, and my own Mum and Dad having it. It's just because I wasn't born here.

Both my parents are fully legal immigrants, here since the 1950s!

Holy cow! My children aren't British.

If you were born overseas on or before 31 December 1982 you can only claim British nationality if your father was British at the time of your birth. If he was also born overseas, it is possible that his nationality cannot be passed on to you. You cannot claim British nationality through your mother.

Ah. my Dad was NOT British at the time of my birth. He was naturalised as a British Citizen later.

He worked from the British Government FFS!

Correction - I'm not British, they are.

Why don't you just ask for a blank form to be sent out and fill it in at home or get one from a post office. They post the online one out for you to sign, etc anyway.

You don't need to provide the details as you are doing a renewal and would probably have provided them when you applied for their first ever passport.

You have British citizenship by descent, so are not easily able to pass on British citizenship to your children.

By not being married to your children's father, you make this even more difficult.

Perhaps it is time to throw away whatever is holding you back from getting married?

The two classes of British citizenship (by descent and otherwise than by descent) are there to prevent people claiming citizenship with little or no ties to the United Kingdom. Other countries have their ways of doing this, eg the US says you have to live in the USA for 5 years after the age of 14, Canada says that you have to live in Canada for 1 year before the age of 27.

If you live in the UK and your children were born and are settled here, there should be no problems getting a passport, but the basic forms do not cater totally for your needs without disclosing grandparent information.

Seona, you are right, I do not need the grandparent details because it is a renewal. They called me back and explained. The organization that sends you the form once have a system that does not allow for my scenario. Wonder how many millions of taxpayers money that cost... Funnily enough though, I didn't provide those details for their first passport. You wonder whether they are trying to put people off...

I thought that because m

Claireall thanks for the information, other countries seem very lenient. I have lived here for 45 years now and it seems I am still not British, yet anyone could marry a Brit after a couple of years gain full citizenship. What if they suddenly change the law like Thatcher did in the 80s and there was mass deportation. I remember my best friend's gran was deported, it was very sad. I could end up being sent to the other side of the world, or a war torn country in Africa.

A foreign spouse does not become a British citizen a couple of years after marriage. They have to jump through the same hoops as anyone else, with the only concession being that they can do it 3 years after gaining full residency rather than five.

A British citizen cannot be deported, so don't worry that that might happen to you.

But being British by marriage carries more weight than being British by descent it seems, regardless how much time you have been here.

What mass deportation was this?

Jif- being British "by marriage" doesn't exist and hasn't for a long time. You can, as Claire says, apply for c/ship under the section of the act for people already married to b/cits which has slightly less stringent rules (ie 3 years residency instead of 5) You then become British OTBD (otherwise than by descent) because you have naturalised.

Are you sure you can't be deported if you are a british citizen? I remember in NZ there were a couple of cases where dual citizens got deported back to their country of origin. Or it might be the other way round. It involved Australia and Britain. The persons were deported even though they've lived their whole live in NZ (or the other way round, like I said, I can't remember the details).

They can revoke the citizenship if you are naturalised isn't it?

Yes, OLBT you can be deported and you can also have your citizenship revoked. Very rare circumstances but it can and does happen.

The only time that being a British citizen by descent carries any problems is when you have a child abroad and want to claim British citizenship for them. Other than that, you have exactly the same rights as a citizen otherwise than by descent.

my daughter is caught in this, she was born in 2005, I am not british, but a dual canadian/eu citizen. my partner is born and bred british. We are not married, so my daughter has no automatic claim to british citizenship unless naturalized, which costs loads of money... we applied for a passport for her and discovered this quirk of the law left over from the colonial days, stopping british men from fathering children overseas and them then having a claim to british citizenship. (or so said in a roundabout way by the passport office official when we phoned her up to ask her about the details of our daughters passport refusal!!)

so my little girl was stateless for a while, finally got her NL passport when she was 9 months, I did wonder whether they were going to arrest her for entering the country illegally!!

I think that case is more down to the assumption that the woman's husband is the child's father, and that it easier to prove who the mother is rather than the father. If there is no marriage, then it is harder for the powers that be to automatically accept paternity claims.

well, sort of, but then why does the state automatically grant parental responsibility to the father named on the birth certificate? If they don't believe the "mother's word" about who has fathered their children then why do they even recognize the father as being the father? (oooh, so if you're an unmarried mother, you must be lying about it??) Just reading between the lines of what you have said, mind!

none of it matters anyway, the rules have changed with regards to why my daughter does not have uk citizenship, if she were born after 2006 she would have been eligible. we just got caught outside of a boundary.