Relation with the Referees

[deep25212004]

Hi

I have filed for British Citizenship for my wife and son. Now unfortunately, the relationship with both the referees i have given in the application have gone bad with us after the application has been submitted.

Please can someone let me know the below

Is there a way i can now change my referees?
are the referees under a legal obligation to provide a reference as they have signed for with all their details and the application has been submitted?
can the referees give bad reference?
If the referees do not give reference or give false reference, can i take a legal action against them.

What are my options.

Thanks

[noajthan]

References are taken up infrequently.
Referees could give a negative reference.
Legal action would depend on questions of accuracy and truth.

Unclear why you chose such poor referees.

[rotor]

I have applied for (and received) Naturalisation for myself, and Registration for my two children, and in both cases the referees were never consulted.

However, when I subsequently applied for my children's passports, my referee (there is only one for passports) was sent a letter asking him to confirm that he had, in fact, completed and signed the referee form himself (i.e. that I didn't falsify it myself).

So I suspect for citizenship it is pretty unlikely, but for passport it may be more probable.