Immigration Law – British Passport
There can be many requirements before you can apply for a British passport according to the UK Immigration Law. Before a passport can be issued to you, you need several stages of processing including interviews. Getting a passport relatively takes more time unlike the passport renewal; it is an easier process and takes a little waiting time. So it is wise to make travel arrangements after acquiring a passport and allow at least six to seven weeks time just to be sure there is no hold up. Then applicants who wish to renew their passport or apply for a lost passport replacement should process their documents before the passport expires.
After all your requirements are met in accordance with the UK Immigration Law, the application for British passport is made to the Home Office, or more specifically, the Identity and Passport Service or IPS. If you are abroad and wishes to apply for the same purpose, you may do so in the embassies or consulates in your country. Better yet, before you make your travel arrangements to the destination of your choice you must keep the embassies contact information numbers listed in your diary in case you need a replacement passport.
If you have children over sixteen years old who have been previously included in your passport, you may be surprised to find out that they need British passports of their own because the UK immigration law recently made changes to the process. The children's rules on passport say that the child can have a passport for five years, and can continue using it until the age of sixteen.
If you want copies or an application form for a British passport, you can obtain them from any recognized post office, you can also call the Home office and ask how to get one or you can log on to IPS website to access the forms. In the past five years, downloading the forms were the trend, however, these printed forms may lack the resolution for the IPS document scanner needed to read them. There are exposures to risk when the applications are done online as hackers are prevalent these days. Make sure that the forms are accepted by the IPS because only reliable forms are allowed to be read by the IPS scanning equipment. There are strict guidelines on how to fill out the form like using a black pen and leaving the other fields blank if they are not applicable.
The forms will then need a countersignature from a person who has known the applicant for a period of at least two years, but not a neighbor or a relative. That person will also sign the photo confirming that the applicable is the one in the photo. In case you might wonder who can countersign your application from, the IPS has a website with web pages containing the list of the persons who may sign the forms.
Under the UK immigration Law, applicants over the age of sixteen will be required to attend a British passport interview. This interview is designed to limit the fraudulent entry to the UK and to verify the identity of the applicable. After the interview, they will be sent a notice for another interview. Again this is to establish identity of the applicant and these interviews are held in many offices in the entire UK. The waiting time for the processing is about six weeks as explained on the sunset. The fee for a British passport is seventy two pounds but if you want to expedite the process, you can pay about ninety two pounds. For the same day delivery of the passport you have to pay one hundred fourteen pounds.