Problem with renewal of Polish children's passports due to separation, advice needed.

Hi this is my first time posting here if anyone can give me some advice about our problem it would be appreciated as we have no idea what to do.

I am British my girlfriend is Polish. She is still married but has been separated for well over a year.

She has 3 beautiful children from her marriage ( the oldest is adopted but she has sole custody).

The problem is that all her children have polish passports that are due to end in December and her husband doesn't want anything to do with her or her children, I.e he will not agree to sign any documents regarding their renewal application.

I won't go into what kind of person he is, suffice to say he exists just to cause as much hurt and trouble for his ex wife as he possibly can.

Is the only option we have, to wait until they come of age so they can apply themselves?

The youngest is only 8, the middle one is 12 the adopted one is 14.

Any help would be great thank you so much.

Where are the kids and did they get there legally?


No, you can petition the family court to issue passports without his signature being needed. The process is basically that you send a letter to him via registered post asking him to sign the enclosed applications for passports and to have his signatures witnessed by a notary (you should offer to pay for that, ask him to say which notary he wants to use and that you will then pay in advance the fees for witnessing his signature). Then you wait three weeks (two weeks for him to get the registered letter and one week for his reply to get to you), then you send the same letter again and wait another three weeks. After that you can apply to the court for them to waive the need for his signature.

However, doing that might stir him up and make him realise that by stopping the kids from getting passports, he can make life uncomfortable / inconvenient for the mother.


Unfortunately the Polish family court will give him ample opportunity to do that.

How did you go if I may ask?