HM Passport office

Participant said:
If it's a standard application it's easy. As soon as you throw in any complications like a change of name it's a lottery.
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That does seem the case. It's been a month now for one of my children's passport. Because of dual nationality they want a copy of the other passport (they actually say send the foreign passport - but having checked with the embassy that's not acceptable). Even though this is just a renewal and the child is on the system, the photo has been verified, and all that stuff it does seem to take an inordinate amount of time.

We're very lucky that we do have multiple passports so we can still travel - it does feel it could be slicker considering they have all the information and nothing has changed since last time. I.e. name, address, DOB, parents etc....
 
Freefaller said:
That does seem the case. It's been a month now for one of my children's passport. Because of dual nationality they want a copy of the other passport (they actually say send the foreign passport - but having checked with the embassy that's not acceptable). Even though this is just a renewal and the child is on the system, the photo has been verified, and all that stuff it does seem to take an inordinate amount of time.

We're very lucky that we do have multiple passports so we can still travel - it does feel it could be slicker considering they have all the information and nothing has changed since last time. I.e. name, address, DOB, parents etc....
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heres ours timetiline

wife and daughter submitted renewal requests on 29th May. we have no holiday booked, but at the same time said if they come back in time, we go abroad.

wifes timesline - bear in mind she has also submitted a change of name request at the same time to her married name.

submitted application online - 29th May
marriage cert and old passport sent via special delivery and delivered 30th
acknowledged as received by HMPO - 7th June
Approved 15th June
Printed 15th June
Delivered via TNT on 16th June

not so bad, less than 3 weeks.

however..

daughters application, straight forward renewal
submitted 29th May
old passport sent via special delivery 30th may
acknowledged as received by HMPO 2nd June
email sent to me by HPMO on 10th May - they want a copy of marriage certificate to proves wifes name change

telephone call made to enquiry line, totally hopeless, promised call backs endless times, advised to send a cover letter with both application references so they can "link" them to share documents. this was sent and delivered 13 June. no response. online enquiry submitted

call back finally received on 15th June - explained situation, put on hold for 48 Mins finally put through to someone helpful - took all details of daughters application ad wifes application and assured me not to panic as this is common occurrence. has now apparently "linked" so should go through.

as of today, no further update received.
 
Strangely I've heard a couple of complaining about kids passport delays.

I ordered mines at the beginning of May and got it within 2 weeks, my other half is still waiting on hers, I guess it's just your luck.
 
shifty_uk said:
Strangely I've heard a couple of complaining about kids passport delays.

I ordered mines at the beginning of May and got it within 2 weeks, my other half is still waiting on hers, I guess it's just your luck.
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well strangely, as soon as i pressed submit on my last post, I received a text saying my daughters has been approved, so just awaiting print and delivery. so guess we will be going to morocco after all this summer.

happy days.

that brings the timeline to 2.5 weeks for adult renewal and name change
exactly 3 weeks for child renewal and that's with the saga of them asking for a marriage cert they already had.
 
Hi there

I'm seeing quite a few people sharing their experiences (good and bad) on line here and thought I would also share mine:

At the start of June I realised my passport had ran out of date in April which was no big issue given the furthest I planned to travel was to London from here in Scotland in late September:

10.06.2022 - Mugshot taken / £75.00 paid and everything applied for on-line / everything posted off (recorded to be signed for) / Signed up for email and text updates.
11.06.2022 - Post office confirms receipt with a screenshot of signed for delivery.
16.06.2022 - Passport office confirms receipt.
23.06.2022 - Passport office confirms approval.
25.06.2022 - Passport office confirms new passport has been printed.
27.06.2022 - Today - new passport arrives.

All in all it was a very smooth transaction and if I had to pick fault it would be with receiving updates at silly O' Clock in morning. Granted I am still waiting on my old passport being returned but that's by the by as it's out of date and being kept purely for nostalgic reasons.
 
siezar said:
If anyone has a holiday abroad planned for this year and are looking to renew or get a new passport do it right now because the passport office's thoughout the country are in complete disarry. I'm currently waiting on two of my daughters passports that I applied for at the start of april and I am supposed to be going on my honeymoon(with the kids) in 13 days.

The whole process has been a joke. I initially applied for four passports, one for my wife(for her change of name) and one for each of my daughters. i applied online and was told two days later to send in the supporting documents, so i put them all in individual envelopes inside one big envelope and posted it recorded delivery. Two weeks later my wifes and one of my daughters was approved(dont ask me how my daughters was approved). I then got a notification to send in proof of my wifes name change for my other two daughters applications. Because they already had the marriage cert to prove the name change, I gave them a call thinkign it would be a straight forward process but how wrong could I be?! Whenever I spoke to someone from the passport office I got conflicting info: one person would say that the marriage cert would be linked to the other applications, and that it would just take time, and the next person would say that we had to send it back in with a covering letter giving them permission to link the accounts. Fast forward umpteen phone calls and my marriage cert was posted back to me 4 weeks later without it being linked to my daughters applications. So I then sent it back in with the cover letter and it's now been sitting in their office for 3 weeks. The people on the end of the phone tell me that they know they have the cert but that they're waiting for it to be scanned in!!

Last weekend, to rub salt in the wound, I got an automated email to say if I dont send in the docs for my eldest daughters application that it would be cancelled by the thursday. I couldn't believe it! My wifes mum suggested contacting our local MP so we emailed him and he managed to stop the application from being cancelled, thankfully. They, apparently, have made it a priority but we've still not had the cert scanned and when my wife phoned 2 days ago they told her that the applications had been moved to their peterbough office from bootle.

I zero confidence that they will sort the passports out in time. There are no appointments available for the fast track and, even if there were, I can't usew the service because I've already started the onling application. I've read online of people just turning up to the passport offices with proof of their departure date and being seen. I believe it has to be within 48 hours of the flight though.

My wife and I are beyond stressed at this point. As you can imagine, with it being a honeymoon, we pushed the boat out for this holiday and now it looks like we are going to loose the lot. What's even worse is that almost half of the holiday was paid for by our wedding guests...

Anyway, please, if you need a new passport for a holiday, apply now.
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This post is complete and utter toss and full of inaccuracy. I applied for two child renewal passports at the end of May, and had the replacements through with two weeks.

Next you'll be telling everyone that 100 flights a day have been cancelled because you heard it on the news.
 
Django x2 said:
This post is complete and utter toss and full of inaccuracy. I applied for two child renewal passports at the end of May, and had the replacements through with two weeks.

Next you'll be telling everyone that 100 flights a day have been cancelled because you heard it on the news.
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But it says it's true in The Guardian?
 
shifty_uk said:
Strangely I've heard a couple of complaining about kids passport delays.

I ordered mines at the beginning of May and got it within 2 weeks, my other half is still waiting on hers, I guess it's just your luck.
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Other half is still waiting, that's been 10 weeks but can't get through to anyone on the phone or book an urgent appointment at a local office because the application is technically still in progress.

How's everyone else getting on?
 
I have just applied online for passport renewals for my wife and I, after completing both of the applications we rushed out to post them packed together recorded to the address at the end of the application process which was Hemel Hempstead
Later in the day I had 2 emails, one for each application to remind me to post the old passports to them, I then noticed that on mine it said to retuurn it to Hemel Hempstead and my wifes to Corby.
Do they give different addresses to spread out the work of online appplications and they just access the details from their central database or do you think I ought to contact them
Thanks
 
phil-k said:
I have just applied online for passport renewals for my wife and I, after completing both of the applications we rushed out to post them packed together recorded to the address at the end of the application process which was Hemel Hempstead
Later in the day I had 2 emails, one for each application to remind me to post the old passports to them, I then noticed that on mine it said to retuurn it to Hemel Hempstead and my wifes to Corby.
Do they give different addresses to spread out the work of online appplications and they just access the details from their central database or do you think I ought to contact them
Thanks
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Send them to the addresses specified. I made the mistake of sending them to the same address and it slowed down my application.
 
Just in case anyone else has concerns about this situation, I contacted the Passport Office and as long as you put a list of all the Names and Reference Numbers in with the passports there should not be a problem as it doesn't really matter which Passport Office you send them to.
I sent mine recorded, got there in a week with the Royal Mail strikes and were processed the day after they were received and the day after that the new ones were printed and are waiting to be sent to me.
Excellent Service
 
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I renewed my expired passport last month, I did it all online and had my new passport within 10 days of completing the form, plus I had to return my old passport during that time. Great service.
 
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Just to comment on the last few posts.... if you submit an application in winter, they generally get done within a few days no problems at all.

The issues generally tend to occur when 90% of the population all send their applications in at the same time a few weeks before the summer holidays when things turn into a nightmare.
 
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