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Changing Your Name - Statutory Declaration

Old Name
(e.g. Margaret Hilda)
(e.g. Thatcher)
New Name
(e.g. Anthony Charles Lynton)
(e.g. Blair)
Where you live
(e.g. 10 Downing Street, London SW1 2AA)

Once you have chosen your new name, the first thing to do is to prepare a statutory declaration of name change.

A solicitor will charge you a fee (usually betwen £20 and £50) for drafting your statutory declaration. However, you can type your own statutory declaration, and then pay a much smaller fee to have it sworn (or “notarised”).

Preparing your Statutory Declaration

This form will create a Statutory Declaration to give legal effect to your change of name.

Just enter your old names and your new names, and your full address, and your Statutory Declaration will open in a new window for you to print off. We recommend you turn off printing of headers and footers to produce a clean document.

Please take care to type the letters in uppercase and lowercase as appropriate: e.g. John rather than john or JOHN.

None of the details you enter will be stored or logged in any way.

Notarised copies

Once you have chosen your name and prepared your Statutory Declaration you need to swear it in front of someone who is authorised to notarise it.

It is then a very good idea to get several notarised copies of your statutory declaration. That way, you will rarely have to use the original copy, which you can keep safely at home.

You will usually have to pay a small fee for each copy.

Who can notarise my Statutory Declaration?

There are two sets of people who can do this:

  • clerks to magistrates courts
  • solicitors who are commissioners for oaths

Clerks to magistrates courts

A magistrate’s clerk can notarise your Statutory Declaration for a fixed fee of under £10.

You can find your local magistrates court in your telephone book, or the Court Service website includes an list of addresses of all the magistrates courts

You may need to make an appointment.

Solicitors

To notarise a Statutory Declaration, a solicitor must be a registered “notary”. Nowadays, nearly all solicitors are notaries, and a quick phone call to any solicitor’s office will tell you who the notary is in that office, and how much they will charge.

Fees can vary widely, so it is advisable to shop around. In one town, a trans person recently obtained three quotes for swearing a statutory declaration : £5, £30 and £60!


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