Changes to court forms

[legulbeagul]

I am a solicitor but non contentious, and commercial. In my personal life I have come across a provision in a court form which I really think needs to be reviewed - I don't want to go into details here but it is effectively a loop hole about achieving something in one limited scenario which wouldn't be possible in relation to the same issue in any other situation. If that sounds like gobbledegook, apologies. Are there any legal beagles familiar with court forms who could tell me who I need to write to about it? I really think it has to be an error and needs to be reviewed.

tldr who do you write to if you think that there is a mistake on a court form. I am happy to write to (or email, preferably) more than one person.

Thank you

Does anyone know who you write to if you think a provision on a court form needs to be reviewed? Are there working groups and if so how would you communicate with them?

To the poster who sent me a PM, if you can help by PM that would be great too.

The poster who PM'd me wasn't able to help, so if anyone knows the answer, please can you let me know. Bump bump bump!! Thank you!!

Collaborate my PMs to you were private and confidential and I made that clear, and you were aware of that.

And what you have written is incorrect, which is what I was trying to explain.

And I am not a man.

If the first sentence of Collaborate's post is correct (i.e. you think that adoptive parents can change a child's name more easily than non-adoptive parents), the rest of his post is also entirely correct. A change of name deed does not need to be enrolled at the RCJ so there is no need for an affidavit.

@xobni Why are you so invested in this, it seems a very odd thing to target.

Coll above seems right to me. However sometimes there are errors on forms and other official forms which need to be corrected so as a general principle ones I have heard about tend to involve tax law - accountants notice an error - eg last year loads of tax payers had to post tax returns by hand because HMRC had an error affecting some of them who filled in the form on line.
I think I remember some other form in the past too which was wrong and people just had to try to publicise the issue in the relevant trade press.

The first line of collaborate's post is her words - I didn't say "have it easy" for example, and think those words in the context of adoption are inappropriate. I think that Collaborate needs to take a long hard look at her integrity.

But anyway - moving to the issue - if you look at the court forms for changing names, it seems pretty clear to me that other in very limited circumstances where you can change the name on a birth certificate, if you want to change a minor's name in a legal sense - eg to get a new passport in the new name - you need a deed poll, and to get the deed poll you need to provide an affidavit of best interest, and that this will be considered by the senior master in every case. Collaborate thinks this is wrong and that you can get a child's name changed on a passport without the court approving the name change - there is some other document they will accept - but she hasn't explained what. If you look at the court forms you will see that form LOC022 is the deed poll but that form LOC019 makes it clear that to use this you must have provided an affidavit for consideration of the senior master. Unless I am wrong - but Collaborate hasn't so far provided evidence or explanation, simply that she skips the affidavit step and uses the LOC022 without it, which if right is a bit of a loophole in my opinion. Or if there is some other document for minors which the passport office accepts, what is it?

Please see the link, and read LOC019 guidance

www.gov.uk/government/publications/change-your-childs-name-forms-loc022-loc023-loc024-and-loc026

Incidentally there appears to be a lot of case law about changing a child's name too - and there are also all sorts of safeguarding issues to consider if it is easy to change a child's name on formal documents.

Sorry - name change fail on my part. I was the OP.

I don't know anything about name changes so cannot add anything to that. However it is certainly the case that a lot of official forms in the UK are really badly written and hard to follow even for lawyers.

OP's confusion is because there is no clear legislation dealing with the rules here. It is a mix of Statute, Statutory Instruments and case law.

OP has referred to the steps necessary to obtain a change of name on a passport. However the government's own website says that the person applying for the change will need to send
Supporting documents
You must send:

the old passport
a deed poll or similar document about the name change

From here

The Enrolment of Deeds (Change of Name )Regulations 1994 does indeed say that if you want to enrol a CON deed you must also send in a statement of best interest.

However the government guidance does not say it needs to be an enrolled deed poll if you want to change a name on a passport- just a deed poll or similar document.

We need therefore to examine the difference in status between an enrolled and an unenrolled deed poll.

This lead me to the case of D v B (otherwise D) (child: surname) [1979] 1 all ER

This is a copy of the summary of the case: (i) Since at common law a surname was merely the name by which a person was generally known, and the effect of a deed poll to alter a person's surname was merely evidential and had no other effect, the mother could not be required to execute a fresh deed poll. Furthermore, the mother's deed poll was not in any way vitiated by her failure to comply with the 1949 regulations, since (a) compliance with those regulations was required only where it was intended to enrol the deed, (b) the effect of a deed poll was the same whether or not it was enrolled and (c) there were no regulations governing the execution of deeds poll; the sole effect of the failure to comply with the 1949 regulations was that the deed could not be enrolled. Accordingly the direction in the April 1978 order to execute a fresh deed poll was unenforceable

This is in the main body of the judgment: No doubt the judge felt that since the mother had complied with none of those formalities, this deed poll could be amended or disposed of, in some unspecified way as being contrary to the regulations. But that, with respect, is a complete misunderstanding. There are no regulations governing the execution of deeds poll. The regulations only apply to the enrolment of such deeds poll, and the purpose of enrolment is only evidential and formal. A deed poll is just as effective or ineffective whether it is enrolled or not; the only point of enrolment is that it will provide unquestionable proof, if proof is required, of the execution of the deed, and no more. So that the deed poll in this case is not vitiated in any way by failure to comply with those enrolment regulations. It simply means that the deed cannot be enrolled.

So, an unenrolled deed poll is as effective as an enrolled one.

Your link to the passport office has a link embedded into it which take you to the government website which I linked earlier, which does clearly state that the affidavit is required and that the Senior Master will review, however.

This is not my area of law and so I need to make it clear that I do not have any special knowledge at all about all this, nor familiarity with relevant practice or case law, and i have only skim read the extracts of the judgement, but it does seem to me that what i have said above (and also in the light of the fairly recent case law about the seriousness the court takes children name changes, the most recent case 2013 I think) might in substance be more applicable than the 1979 case? Even though none of it directly passes comment on the enrolled vs not question?

But I take it from what you have said that normal practice is that most people don't comply with the affidavit requirement? And it does seem to me that the court form 022 could be clearer and refer directly back to the 019 requirements.

Just in case my first paragraph wasn't clear - if you look at the passport office link, it says that you need a deed poll, and the words "deed poll" are a link, and if you press on it you go to the court forms I linked in an earlier post - 019 and 022 - which state that for a deed poll you must provide an affidavit which is considered by the Senior Master.

• for a deed poll for a child, that is. The link refers to enrolled/unenrolled only in the context of deed polls for the over 18s.

A change of name deed is always called a deed poll. The only choice you have when making one is whether to enrol it or not. As the case law proves, you do not need to enrol it for it to be effective. the Statute that refers to requirement to file an affidavit (later altered to witness statement in a later amendment) states the law on how you enrol one. It doesn't follow that it means that applies to all deed polls that are not intended to be enrolled.

This gov uk link www.gov.uk/change-name-deed-poll states:

There are 2 ways to get a deed poll. You can either:
make an ‘unenrolled’ deed poll yourself
apply for an ‘enrolled’ deed poll
[....]
The process is different if you want to change a child’s name

ie it states clearly that the process is different if you want to change a child's name - and you then get taken to the link I referred to above which states the affidavit requirement etc.

My reading of that is that the rules about enrolled vs unenrolled do not now apply to changing a child's name. Do you agree?

Do you think that gov site is wrong in terms of substantive law and if so what status does the guidance have?

If I am right, and the law requires compliance with the guidance, it sounds as though the passport office is accepting unenrolled CON deeds in error, from what you say.

*That would be unenrolled CON deeds in error in relation to children.

The government website does sometimes get it wrong.

It is not any kind of authoritative statement of the law. The only way to ascertain what the law says is to look at statutes, statutory instruments and case law.

Halsbury's Laws states this about Deed Polls: Deeds at common law are either deeds poll or indentures. A deed poll is a deed made by and expressing the active intention of one party only, or made by two or more persons joining together in expressing a common active intention of them all. A deed poll is so called because the parchment required for such deeds has usually been shaved even or polled at the top. An indenture is a deed to which two or more persons are parties, and which evidences some act or agreement between them other than the mere consent to join in expressing the same active intention on the part of all. An indenture derives its name from the fact that the parchment on which such a deed was written was indented or cut with a waving or indented line at the top.

To examine the law we need to firstly look at the D v B case (correct reference [1979] 1 All Er 92). This states clearly that an unenrolled deed poll is as effective as an enrolled one (for which see the quote above).

The Enrolment of Deeds (Change of Name) Regulations 1994 does not change the law on deed polls generally. It only serves to regulate how those deed polls are registered at the RCJ. Para 1 (2) of the regulations state These Regulations shall govern the enrolment in the Central Office of the Supreme Court of deeds evidencing change of name (referred to in these Regulations as “deeds poll”).

Therefore every part of those regulations deals only with the procedure for registration of a deed poll.

Going back to the D v B case, the question of whether an unenrolled deed poll is just as effective as an enrolled one has not, to my knowledge, ever had to be considered by a court in a reported judgement since. However I have found a case of RE C (CHANGE OF SURNAME) - [1998] 2 FLR 656 In that case a father applied for an order to change a child's name back to the original after the mother had changed the name by deed poll. The court refers to the date of execution of the deed poll and does not, at any stage, refer to its enrolment. It is therefore safe to assume that this deed poll was not enrolled and at no stage did the court, in 1998 (ie after the date of the 1994 regulation), question the validity of an unenrolled deed poll changing the name of a minor.

I have also come across this guidance from the Home Office, which contains this guidance for the issuing of passports:
If a deed poll for a child’s change of name has been enrolled by the Supreme Court, it can be accepted without the need to request further consent. This is because the Enrolment of Deeds (change of name) Regulations 1994 require the application to be supported either by the consent of every person with parental responsibility, or if not, require reasons to be given why the consents cannot be obtained. The Judge has to take into account any lack of parental consent in making a decision to proceed with the change of name.

This guidance was published on 12 June 2017, and the guidance in general was last updated 22 March 2018 (see here www.gov.uk/government/collections/ips-passports-policy ). Looks pretty clear cut to me that if a parent is applying for a new passport with a change of name where there is no enrolled deed poll the passport agency will have to make enquiry as to who has parental responsibility and whether they have consented. Whenever I have done such CON deeds I have always included a statement about who has parental responsibility and ensured that all those who have PR are signatories to the deed.

Hands Collaborate a large coffee.
And some Valium.

Collaborate - in a nutshell you are saying that the guidelines are at odds with/not a clear statement of the situation at law.

Just out of interest do you know why the affidavit of best interest was introduced in relation to enrolled deeds?

I haven’t a clue.

@collaborate sorry it took me ages to reply, real life got in the way. Basically this is your area of law not mine, and I am on maternity in France and have no access to Halsburys Laws or case citators (not that I have used one since being a trainee which was a while ago...) so I am happy to take what you say about how the 1994 regs and the 1970s case are interpreted at face value. I personally think that how and when names of children are changed is an issue which is worthy of being looked into, more so now, in fact, given that the position re the guidelines and the passport office requirements seems shambolic (imo).

Re adoption, your post above was deleted - I think if you want to post your advice to people like me publicly so that you help others that is fine, but you need to ask the questions online, not just post what has been said to you on a PM - the PM facility is really helpful on mumsnet and people will be put off using it if they think that what they post in a PM will end up online.

What I was saying (well, the bits I am happy to have online at least) was that I was adopted and like many adoptees (not all, but there is a significant number of us) I am naffed off that my name was changed on my birth certificate - sometimes there are good reasons, but I think that there should be more checks and balances. Debating this online often becomes a bit of a bloodbath because some people feel very strongly that it should be up to the parents if they agree, and others feel the opposite, which was why I didn't mention it in the OP.

Thank you for the information you provided about deed polls, and I have now tracked down the people I need to contact.