Changing child's name with absent father?

[Uhplistrailer]

Ok, DS really wants to change his last name to my DH's sir name. He's been using it unofficially for about 6 months, DH has been his dad since the age of 3.5, he's now 9 and DH and i got married early this year.

He currently has my sir name, but as i understand it, i also need to seek the permission from his bio dad to change it. He lives abroad and hasn't seen him since he was 3 months old, but i'm confident he'll give permission.

So i've got all the forms, and it says they need to be signed by both parents in front of a solicitor. How exactly can i do this when he's in another country?

Also, does anyone have any idea how much a solicitor would charge for this process?

Thanks!

Things may have changed but when I was a kid my mum had a similar situation in that she had no contact with my father and she went on to remarry. I had took her married name at birth but once she remarried she changed my name by usage rather than by deed poll presumably due to the fact she couldn't contact my father. I lived with my second surname from the age of 7 to when I got married at 25. The only thing I had different to others was my passport had to have both names in it. Like I say I don't know if things have changed any (I'm now 32) but might be worth looking into

Things have changed. You cannot change a child's name, either by usage or deed poll, unless you have the consent of everyone with PR.