UK Embassy issued birth certificates - not accepted in UK?

[Lunde]

When I had DD1 abroad 20+ years ago UK - expat passports were issued by the British Embassy.

I therefore went to the British Embassy and paid £200 to have her added to my passport and Registered in the UK. I was sent a Birth Certificate for an overseas birth by the Embassy.

As a result of Brexit DD has applied for her first adult passports but these are now processed in the UK. However the passport office is saying that the Embassy Birth Certificate that the British Government charged me for is not recognised - even though it was recognised when she was a child.

Does anyone have any experience of this?

Sounds very odd to me.

Our DC were born abroad and the certificates issued by the Embassy are no different to ones issued in UK. Parents names, occupations, claim to citizenship and child’s name and claim to citizenship. Are yours a short version without the claim to citizenship on?

It is now usual for the passport office to interview applicants for a first passport to avoid identity fraud.

DD is applying from abroad so I'm not sure that there will be interviews.

The Birth certificate has parents names, occupations, citizenship etc - but the passport office are refusing to accept. The passport office say that they don't accept the Embassy certificates at all

Apparently she has to pay again for a copy of the registration from London. Yet this Birth Certificate was accepted twice when she was a child and placed on my passports - she has sent in the old passports as well

It's definitely changed recently. DC1 & 2 have different consular birth certificates than DC3 born in 2015. When I got DC1 & 2's first passports in 2010 and 2013 respectively, I could just sent the consular birth certificate. With DC3, I sent the consular certificate and it got rejected. I then had to send all our docs (DH and my long birth certificates and marriage certificate) as proof of DC3's citizenship....

Sorry I should also add that I also had to send DC3's local birth certificate. We're in another EU country, so I sent the local certificate plus an international version that we paid a few euros to get here, and didn't have to have it translated.

Oh, and also, I was always told that the consular birth certificate wasn't necessary. We just got it originally for DS1&2 so that we didn't have to send all our documents for the passport. Of course since they changed the procedure by the time DC3 was born, I was a bit miffed we'd paid for it!

When DS was born 4 years ago the embassy were very clear that the certificate they issue for registering the birth is not an official birth certificate. So we never bothered. We had to supply the local (Swedish) birth certificate along with an official English translation. Thankfully the Swedish authorities also provide it in English free of charge.

The British embassies do not issue birth certificates! It's called a CONSULAR BIRTH REGISTRATION CERTIFICATE. It's an important legal distinction. Only the country of birth can issue a BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

Indeed, only the county in which the child was born can issue a birth certificate - both my kids have birth certificates from the country in which they were born plus an official translation into English.

Just send the normal birth certificate. As pps have said, the consular birth cert isn't a legal document as such, it's a totally unnecessary piece of paper that the consulates are happy to take the money for without telling you that.

Is the consular certificate a short certificate? Think passports need a full long birth certificate now. My kids both have consular birth certificates but they are long full certificates.

Why don't you just send the official birth certificate from the country she was born, I've just done my daughters and had no problems at all

Twobluefish, as written above several timea , the consular document is not a birth certificate. It s not lo g or short nor particularly useful for 99%.

We just sent in the US birth certificate in with the UK passport application, and had no issue. The UK embassy in the US is very clear that it will not issue a UK birth certificate

No UK embassies anywhere in the world issue birth certificates. Only birth authorities of sovereign countries issue birth certificates.