Deed Poll

(asked on 11th February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which organisation has oversight of deed poll name changes; and whether records are stored of enrolled and non-enrolled deed poll name changes.


Answered by
Chris Philp Portrait
Chris Philp
Minister of State (Home Office)
This question was answered on 22nd February 2021

The Ministry of Justice is the department which oversees the Regulations governing changes of name by enrolled deed and the law on non-enrolled deeds, commonly referred to as deed polls.

Applications for an enrolled deed confirming a person’s change of name are submitted to the Queen’s Bench Division of the Royal Courts of Justice. Upon being issued, the name change is published as a notice in the London Gazette and a record is stored at the Royal Courts of Justice, before being transferred to the National Archives after a period of 5 years.

Name changes made by an unenrolled deed are executed privately; no record of their occurrence is publicly available, or held by the Government, unless the person is required by law to notify the police of such a change.

Reticulating Splines