Post
by GRAC1ELA » Sat Mar 17, 2018 10:27 am
We now have a similar problem. My wife has dual Nationality, Argentina and UK. She has lived in England for 38 years, worked, and receives a full State pension. She was granted British Citizenship in 1989 under her previous married name, with her maiden name also stated on the Certificate of registration. Her Argentine passport also in her previous married name expired 30 years ago, but which is not cancelled. She has held a valid UK passport for the same amount of time, having renewed it twice, the last time including the change of her previous married name to her current married name. Her UK passport expires in June 2018, so we applied for renewal in February. We couldn't do it before, as we were abroad. The Passport Office insisted that we had to also send the expired Argentine passport. I even spoke to the PO while we were abroad asking what was the relevance as it expired 30 years ago, and it would be ignored anyway if my wife tried to renew it. I was not, at any time, informed that it had to be in the same name, and there is no reference to this in the online guidance notes. Hey ho, the renewal is refused. We have booked and paid for flights to BA 31st March, as her son is getting married there. I have had 5 long discussions with the PO, am £25 so far down on tracked and signed-for postage. We found that Argentina these days only issue passports in a woman's maiden name, which, by the way, I think is a good idea, so now we have to go to the Argentine Consulate in London, to get a new temporary Argentine passport, change the name on the flight ticket, all for around £300. They will also notify the PO, what good that will do, we don't know yet, because they can't even tell me that they have received my letter that was delivered a week ago, and anyway they have all probably drowned by now in this obstructive bureaucracy. They gave me reasons of security, or the world is upside down, I can't remember which.