Changing your name with Lloyds Bank

How do I change my name with Lloyds?#

Lloyds' help page on changing your details gives three routes.

• The app. Your name is among the details Lloyds lets you update in its app, and for a change of name it says you need your driving licence or a UK or EU passport. The service is still being rolled out and is not yet available on Android; if you cannot use it, Lloyds says to write to it or visit a branch.
• A branch. Take the printed change of name form and your documents to a Lloyds branch.
• Post. Send the form and your documents to Lloyds, The Green Building, Leeds, LS78 1LB.

For a branch or the post, the form comes first, and Lloyds' page does not offer it as a download. Log in to online banking, or register for it, and from the menu at the top of the page choose Your profile, Change your contact details, then Change name; print what it produces. Lloyds asks for your old signature and your new one.

What does Lloyds ask to see?#

One document from its list, chosen by the reason your name changed. A divorce needs more than one.

Lloyds' list does not separate a new surname from a new first name, so the deed poll rule applies to both. It notes that an enrolled deed poll is not available in Scotland. For a title it names no document: your title is on the list of details you can update in the app.

The deed poll rule, and the order it sets#

Lloyds accepts an unenrolled deed poll, the ordinary kind you sign in front of a witness and keep, only with a "valid driving licence or UK/EU passport in the new name", in its words. The deed poll cannot change your name at Lloyds by itself, so your passport or licence has to change first.

Each of those needs something of its own. HM Passport Office asks for the original deed poll and one document showing you already use the new name. DVLA, when your evidence is a deed poll, asks for one document in the new name issued in the last 12 months and after the deed, or your new UK passport number. Both accept a letter from HMRC, your employer or your council, a utility bill or a UK bank statement, so the order runs like this:

1. Sign the deed poll, then tell your employer, HMRC, your council or another bank, and keep the first letter or statement that arrives in the new name.
2. Apply for a new passport or a new driving licence with the original deed poll and that document. Lloyds needs only one of the two.
3. When it arrives, change your name at Lloyds: in the app, or with the form, the deed poll and the new passport or licence.

Enrolling the deed poll is the other way past the rule, since Lloyds lists an enrolled deed poll without the condition. GOV.UK says enrolment costs £53.05 and can take several months; enrolled and unenrolled deed polls sets out what it involves.

Posting your documents#

Lloyds takes originals or certified copies, and because it needs one or the other it recommends sending everything by recorded delivery. Once the change is made it returns any originals. Certified copies come back only if you ask for them.

A certified copy of the deed poll keeps the original at home, ready for the next organisation that insists on seeing it. We certify copies of the deed polls we draft.

Lloyds' app guide says most changes show the next time you log in and some take up to 48 hours. It gives no time for a change made by post or in a branch, and its change of details page says nothing about new cards, PINs or chequebooks after a change of name.

One change across the group#

Lloyds says that when you contact it, it updates your name on all your Lloyds Banking Group accounts, and it names Halifax, Bank of Scotland, MBNA and Lloyds Bank Private Banking. Its credit card help sends a change of name to the same guide. Changing your name with Halifax covers Halifax's own pages, including its mortgages.

Lloyds sets two things apart:

• Insurance. Lloyds does not manage every insurance policy it sold, and it will not update your name on those. It says to check the policy for who to contact, because the cover could be affected if you don't.
• A Lloyds mortgage. Lloyds' mortgage help gives its own route: a branch, or a letter to Lloyds Bank, PO Box 984, Leeds, LS1 9XP, with proof of the change such as a marriage certificate or change of name deed. Adding or removing someone named on the mortgage is a different request. Lloyds treats it as a remortgage, which may carry fees and means speaking to a solicitor.

Lloyds publishes nothing separate about a change of name on a joint account; taking a joint holder off an account is its own request, made in a branch. Its pages say nothing about changing the name on a child's account, so ask in a branch or through Lloyds' contact page. For every other bank, changing your name with your bank compares how they work.