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Renew of Child British Passport from India or UK ?

We have British citizenship from year 2011. My son at that time 3 year old got a British passport for 5 year. Last year Sept 2015 my family moved to India however I am still working in UK and living in shared accommodation at friends place and I don’t have council tax or utility bills on my name.

My son passport is due for renewal in Dec 2016 and very recently realised that we were taking child benefit even our circumstance are changed ( I was in impression that I am paying NI so it does not matter).
My family is visiting me this Sept for 1 month and I decided to renew his passport in UK itself when he will be here.

My queries are
1. Can we able to renew his passport in 1 month time even though he is permanently not residing in this country? How passport offices figure it out that he is not living in this country? Do they check entry exit stamp on passport?
2. Do they ask for Council tax bill for renewal or any school documents? As per passport application form they need old passport and birth certificate only.
3. If we renewed it from India then my worry is they can find out from HMRC that we got Child benefit and unnecessary in trouble of benefit fraud.
4. How easy to renew it from India and roughly how much time will it take to renew.
5. How can we inform the HMRC that it’s ignorance from our part to not inform changed address and pay back the child benefit.

Any expert advice, pls. help?

Regards
Rajesh

1. You can renew using the fast track (1 week) or same day service. No, they don't check, he is entitled to renew his passport regardless of where he lives.

2. No they don't ask for such documents.

3. You should not be claiming benefits if your child is not living in the UK. You are already committing benefit fraud. If a child is out of the UK for 12 weeks or more, you are legally obliged to inform HMRC/Child Benefit and the benefit will be stopped. You paying NI does not mean you can just claim for a child who does not live in the UK. So yes, it DOES matter that you have been claiming and not informing the benefit office of the change in circumstances.

4. All passports are processed in the UK and can take 6-12 months from India.

5. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Contact them and inform them by phone/letter.

Hi Char,

Thanks for quick reply.

From your reply to question 1: If i applied for my son passport renewal in Sept when he will visit me for 1 month, in application form we need to write last 3 year address history:
Is it ok to write my current UK address or do I need to write his india address? I fear writing india address may delay the application OR writing UK address as his residence for last 10 month may not be factually correct because i don't have any evidence that he is staying here ? And they may figure out from passport stamps that he is in India.

From your reply to question 4: I know that Ignorance of the law is no excuse but if I tell them up front I didn't knew , will it be any problem Or should I tell them recently they left the country?

Regards
Rajesh

You need to answer any questions in the form honestly and truthfully. You should not fabricate details.

Write the address as they are, UK for x to y and India from y to z. Why do you want to lie? It is a passport renewal, which the child is entitled to.

From your reply to question 4: I know that Ignorance of the law is no excuse but if I tell them up front I didn't knew , will it be any problem Or should I tell them recently they left the country?

Do you really want to compound your situation with yet another lie about when they left? Be honest for goodness sake. The information about benefits and change in circumstances is freely available online and contained in benefit award letters. There is no excuse.