I have lost my deed poll

What stays exactly as it is#

Everything already done in your new name. Your passport and driving licence are still valid. Your bank, mortgage and pension records stay updated. Your employer, your GP and HMRC need telling nothing. Your legal name has been yours since the day you signed the deed, and it still is: a deed poll records a change, and losing the record does not reverse the change (why an unenrolled deed poll is legally binding).

What you have lost is the evidence, for the next organisation that asks to see it.

Where to look first#

A deed that seems gone is usually filed somewhere sensible.

• The folder with the important papers. Birth certificate, exam certificates, mortgage paperwork. A deed tends to be filed with those rather than lost.
• Your email, searched properly. Try "deed poll", "change of name" and your old surname. An order confirmation will at least tell you who drafted it.
• Whoever witnessed it. A solicitor or notary who witnessed it may have kept a copy on file, and a friend who witnessed it may have been given one.
• An employer's HR file. If you handed a copy over when you changed your name, it is probably still there.
• Whatever you last moved house with. A deed that survived the move but not the unpacking is a common story.

Can I get a copy of my deed poll?#

Not from any official body, unless the deed was enrolled. No government department issues unenrolled deed polls, and there is no register of them. The National Archives, which holds the historical enrolment books, puts it plainly: where a deed poll was drawn up without a solicitor, there may never have been any record of it other than the document itself, and fewer than 1% of changes of name by deed poll were enrolled. The Deed Poll Office at the Royal Courts of Justice deals only with deeds that were enrolled.

Organisations you sent certified copies to may still have one in your file. Asking is reasonable, but expect most to decline: they hold it as part of your record, not on your behalf.

If your deed was enrolled, that is different. The change of name was published in The Gazette, which is searchable online, and The National Archives holds enrolment books up to 2003, with later ones held by the Royal Courts of Justice; a certified copy can be requested.

To trace an enrolled deed from any year, how to find a record of a name change explains where each period's records are kept.

Two ways forward#

Ask whoever drafted it. If you know which service produced the original and it is still trading, ask them first. Some keep records and will reissue, sometimes for a fee; a solicitor will normally charge for the time it takes to find and reprint it. Many small services have closed, and a website can stay up long after the company behind it stops answering. A bank or card statement from around the time will usually name them.

Order a replacement. A replacement deed poll is a new deed recording the change of name you already made and the date you made it. It does not matter who drafted the original or how long ago, and you do not need to produce the old one. Ours costs the same as a new deed, £18.50, and is posted the same working day. If you cannot remember the exact date, two dates you can find will narrow it down: the date of the first document issued in the new name, such as a passport or a bank letter, and the date of the last one in the old name.

If you drafted it yourself#

Then there is no provider to go back to, and the search is your own filing and your sent email. A home-made deed, such as one written from GOV.UK's free wording, is replaced in the same way as any other: a new deed recording the same change.

Enrolling is not a way of finding it#

Enrolment records a new deed with the High Court, for £53.05, and can take several months. It is not a search, and it will not find a deed that was never enrolled, which is almost all of them.

So it does not happen twice#

• Send certified copies, never the original. Organisations that keep what they are sent keep a copy instead (how many you need); ours are £6 for 2 up to £25 for 20.
• Give a witness a copy, so there is one outside your house.
• Keep it flat and dry. A deed nobody can read is refused as readily as one that is missing.
• Note the date somewhere else. The one detail a replacement needs is the date the original was signed.