Can a deed poll be backdated?

What does the date on a deed poll record?#

The day you sign it as a deed. The wording GOV.UK publishes ends with the line "Signed as a deed on [date] as [old name] and [new name] in the presence of" your two witnesses, followed by your signatures and theirs. The date, the signatures and the witnesses describe one occasion: you signing in both names while they watch.

The law is about that occasion too. Section 1 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 says a document is validly executed as a deed by an individual if it is signed by them in the presence of a witness who attests the signature, and it is delivered as a deed. The section does not itself mention a date. The date is where the deed states when the signing happened, and it is one of the things HM Passport Office checks.

Why should the date be the day it is signed?#

Because that is what the deed says it is. A deed dated earlier than the day it was signed states, over your witnesses' signatures, that they watched you sign on a day they did not. Writing an earlier date does not change when the deed was made; it only puts a statement on it that is not true.

It also matters to anyone checking it. HM Passport Office's guidance tells its staff to accept an unenrolled deed poll if, among other things, it is dated and it is "a contemporaneous document", and to ask for a new deed where they doubt how genuine it is. Its guidance on documents defines a contemporaneous document as one "issued as close as possible to the time when the event took place". A deed poll made this year but dated years ago is, by that definition, not one.

I used the name for years before making a deed. What now?#

Sign the deed and date it with the day you sign it, then show the earlier years another way. Having used the name first is not a problem in itself: The National Archives points out that it has always been possible to change a name without registering the change with any official body, and that anyone over 16 may take up a new name whenever they choose, so long as the purpose is not fraudulent or illegal.

GOV.UK's wording does not ask when you started using the name. It says you "have given up" the old one and "have adopted for all purposes" the new one, which describes someone who has used a name for years as well as someone starting today.

What organisations then want is evidence of use, and years of use make that easy. HM Passport Office asks for the deed poll as evidence of the change, plus one document from the last 12 months showing you use the name: a bank statement, say, or an official letter from your employer, the council or HMRC. It counts a driving licence, a foreign passport or a national identity card only if it is still valid and was issued after the change of name document, and GOV.UK sets the same condition for the passport, identity card or non-GB licence that DVLA accepts with a deed poll. If your licence in the new name is older than your deed, send one of the other documents instead.

Where the history has gaps, for example several names over the years with nothing linking one to the next, HM Passport Office asks for a statutory declaration covering every name you have used, when you used each one and, where known, why it changed. That is the document that puts dates on the past, and it is declared true before someone such as a solicitor, a notary public, a justice of the peace or a commissioner for oaths. Statutory declarations explains them, and I changed my name years ago without a deed poll covers the whole situation.

Isn't a replacement deed poll backdated?#

No, and the difference is exact. A replacement is for someone who did make a deed poll that is now lost or unusable. It is a new deed, signed and witnessed like the first and dated the day it is signed. The earlier date appears inside it as a statement of fact: ours states that you executed a change of name deed on or about the date of the original.

So nothing in a replacement claims to have been signed before it was. A backdated deed does exactly that: the date on its signing line is earlier than the day it was signed.

The difference also decides who can use one. A replacement says that an earlier deed existed, so it is only for someone who made one. If you never did, the right document is a new deed poll dated the day you sign it, with evidence of the years before, as above. Replacement deed poll explains ours.