It usually surfaces at the worst moment. A pension provider finds the policy in your maiden name. A probate solicitor needs the deeds, and the deeds carry the surname you stopped using in 2009. A dormant account, a share certificate, an old qualification — records created either side of a marriage can carry different surnames, and the organisation in front of you wants the link between them stated plainly before it will act.
Start With the Rule: Your Marriage Certificate Usually IS the Link
Before you buy anything, know the rule. For most UK organisations — and expressly for HM Passport Office — a person who took their spouse’s surname proves the change with their marriage or civil partnership certificate. It shows your name before the marriage and identifies your spouse, which is the link most caseworkers need. If you have the certificate and the organisation hasn’t rejected it, produce it first. You probably do not need to pay anyone anything.
When the Certificate Isn’t Enough
The cases that genuinely need more are the ones the certificate cannot cover:
- The organisation has asked for more. Some banks, registrars and foreign authorities want the identity stated in a single sworn document rather than inferred from a chain of certificates — especially where several variants are in play (maiden name, married name, a hyphenated period, initials on a share register).
- The surname you use isn’t your spouse’s. A blended or double-barrelled surname, or a previous surname kept as a middle name, isn’t evidenced by the certificate alone.
- The certificate is foreign, lost, or doesn’t show the link.
- More than two versions exist. Records in Smith, Smith-Jones and S. Jones are three assertions about one person, and no single certificate ties all three together.
The Document That States It Plainly
The instrument organisations mean when they ask you to “prove you are the same person” is a statutory declaration under the Statutory Declarations Act 1835 — often called a “one and the same person” declaration. It lists each version of your name and the document it appears on, and declares on oath that every one of them refers to you. It does not change your name: nothing is renounced or adopted, which matters, because a name-change document is precisely the wrong answer when no change ever happened. (If you are weighing the two instruments, our guide to deed polls vs statutory declarations covers the difference.)
You sign it in front of a solicitor or commissioner for oaths, who charges the fee fixed by law — £5 per declaration, inclusive of VAT where payable. Some firms add a small admin charge of their own; the £5 itself is the same wherever you go.
What It Costs, All In
We prepare a Name Discrepancy Declaration from the exact spellings on your documents: £34.99 including VAT for two printed originals (one to swear and hand over, one to keep), posted free by Royal Mail Tracked 24. Add the £5 you pay the solicitor on the day and the realistic total is around £40. Full cost breakdown, including what solicitors charge to draft one from scratch, in our statutory declaration cost guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will my bank / pension provider / probate solicitor definitely accept it?
Each organisation decides for itself what satisfies it, and we won’t promise you otherwise. What we can say is that a sworn statutory declaration is the standard instrument for exactly this situation, and that many organisations name it in their own requirements.
Does it work for a British passport application?
Take care here. If the mismatch involves a foreign-issued document — a foreign birth certificate or passport — HM Passport Office asks for evidence from the authority that issued it (an embassy, consulate or government body), and a declaration will not resolve that. For UK-issued records, HMPO’s own guidance for married surname-takers is the certificate route above.
I never formally changed my name — is that a problem?
No — it is the point of the document. In England and Wales a marriage does not itself change your name; taking a spouse’s surname by use is entirely lawful, and the declaration records that both names refer to you without pretending a formal change happened.
What if I actually switched to a completely different name years ago?
Then your situation is a real change with no paperwork, not a discrepancy — a different document does that job: see changed your name years ago with no deed poll.