Due to travel on Sunday, just found out 5 year old sons passport isn’t valid due to brexit HELP

[Shinebright21]

So due to travel to France and Italy via rail from this Sunday.

Mine, my husband and daughters passport are all valid. My sons expires on 31st July and I was under the impression you can travel, until the expiry date and we are back way before then.

Do we cancel and use our insurance to claim the money back, or just risk it and go and see what happens at the border?

Feeling utterly miserable

Don’t go with paper forms. Do it all online. Or better still go to an actual passport office (London or wales) and sit it out.
my brother got one this way last week after an 8 hour wait.

you easily do it online too~ download an app on your phone take a photo of ds and they’ll remove the background. Its very easy and costs very little.

good luck. You’re one of 100s who forgot to check the validity of their passport when booking flights etc and it’s a totally normal thing in real life chaos of kids!

If it wasn't for the Brexit fiasco she'd not be in this situation in the first place.

I'm sorry OP. The whole thing is a mess.

It is disorganised to not know when passports expire. We've never been abroad as a family (only school trips), have no plans to go and even I know when our passports will expire and will renew them months early.

Even when we were in the EU people forgot to check the dates on passports and found they had expired completely just before they wanted to travel.

It’s no different. People forget stuff.

Although such a fuss has been made about the 3 month rule I’m amazed anyone can forget frankly.

It’s people being too nicey nicey all the time that is making the world the way it is today (pandering so as not to hurt people’s feelings all the time is causing chaos). The poster is right, it was your responsibility to check these things. Own it!

Don't take all the blame, it's half your dh's fault as well! Good luck with the passport office.

Oh no OP what a complete nightmare, hoping you somehow get sorted! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Sorry to say that I did get a laugh out of this thread also though. The absolute outrage from pro-brexit posters who take personal insult at any mention of a negative consequence from Brexit. 😅

Urgent passport application? Can you go and do it face to face?

curious at what age he had his passport?
he is 5 and his passport is almost expired?

I quite agree. I was crossing a supermarket car park yesterday, wondering where all the trollies were. A man didn’t think I should be doing so and shouted that I was a ‘fat ugly old cow’ because of it. I went over to him and told him I may have made a mistake but he was plain nasty and should be ashamed. His g/f liked mortified by the whole thing. He was of an age to have parents my age. I hope she gave him hell. OP is it possible to get to a passport office?

www.gov.uk/find-regional-passport-office

Mine had a passport from 3 months old.

If it's Durham passport office unfortunately you have no hope, they still aren't back to work fully.

Best bet make an appointment with Peterborough passport office and try and have it done in a day.

Nothing to go with Brexit -has always been the rule -you should change your misleading thread title

Of course it is to do with Brexit and it has not always been the rule!
Am guessing you had just as poor a grasp of the facts when you voted to leave?

My DD has had her passport since 8 weeks old. It would have been sooner but it took 7 weeks for the embassy to sort her birth certificate.... babies do travel!
She also flew across the whole of Europe (to Cyprus) with a passport with less than a week remaining on it pre brexit. That did use to be allowed.

Good luck OP. People make mistakes. I think you got harsh responses as there have been dozens on similar threads in the last six months.

I know this isn’t AIBU (despite some of the responses) but YANBU! Fucking Brexit. I will blame it for everything I possibly can until the day I die. So far it’s only been irritating and cost us money. Although there are other contributing factors, if it wasn’t for Brexit, OP’s holiday wouldn’t be in jeopardy.

Ignore the joy stealers smugly telling you you should have been more organised. They lack imagination.

I hope you get it sorted.

Good luck op.

I think the moderators should leave this thread just as it is as a helpful post on what options someone has if they haven't checked the expiry dates of their passports and they want to travel from the UK to other countries post-Brexit.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the UK post-Brexit. It's really wonderful, isn't it. All of the rules and regulations that for so many never ever applied (only people who were born pre-1970's would know a world similar to what you're experiencing), while the rest of the EU residents can use the blue EU starred lane to travel and not have these conditions being applied to us due to free travel and free movement of EU citizens. Ah well....

My boss had a similar situation with his passport and he was not able to travel - he was stopped at the airport. Unfortunately I don't think your travel insurance will cover it. Maybe try to rearrange everything instead?

@AgathaMystery your link sounds very promising for the OP

I think it was OP's comment about claiming on the insurance that got things off to a bad start.

Hello OP , I was in your shoes in February. Mumsnet gave me an absolute volley of abuse in this situation too when I needed helpful advice and commiseration.

I’m a senior professional person but these things do happen when you are a busy person. Completely understand. Sadly options are bugger all. I investigated extensively in Feb. Multiple phone calls to passport office.

You can’t travel without huge risk of being sent back from your destination.
You can’t get a same day appointment in person for a child for child protection reasons as they need to send the passport to a known address.

only options are half the family to go on holiday or if a long trip try to get fast track renewal and follow on for second week of the holiday.

big hug!!

These things happen!! Try and go to the post office for an emergency travel document or temporary extension. Or go online to the passport office via the gov website xx

One week fast track?

Completely ignore and disregard all these perfect people in their perfect world who never make mistakes and nothing goes wrong for them!!
hope you’re all ok xx