Information about Deed Polls

I recently saw a post on Facebook asking how to do a deed poll and 75% of people pointed towards paid sites, whilst I think most people here know it’s free, I felt like it was worth a friendly reminder.

Paid deed polls services are the same as fast track dvla applications, a business with no value.

A business can NOT refuse your deed poll as long as it has been signed by your old / new name and 2 witnesses who are not related to you or living at the same address - if they refuse it is in breach of GDPR the right to rectification.

The ONLY time you pay is if you have special circumstances requiring it to be enrolled, you can do this via the govt site for around £40. It’s worth noting you do not need this to update identity documents, nor banks, insurance companies, HMRC, DWP etc.

An enrolled deed poll will create a permanent link between your former and current name, and address. For obvious reasons this is a privacy problem, even more so in the case of transgender people (a large majority of the deed poll system users) - yet they are ultimately able to update all documents without ENROLLING.

If you are getting married a deed poll is not the correct document. When you are married you can use your former and current name. For a deed poll you give up the rights to your former name.

Information on the govt site about deed polls, note no indication to pay: https://www.gov.uk/change-name-deed-poll

More information about deed polls: https://genderkit.org.uk/article/name-change-by-deed-poll/

Article where a deed poll company admits a paid one has NO MORE authority than a free self made one: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/jun/29/deed-poll-websites-avoid

Further explanation about the issues of paid deed polls: https://danq.me/projects/freedeedpoll/

Here are 2 free sites to make a deed poll:

https://freedeedpoll.org

https://freedeedpoll.org.uk