The last time my wife was exiting Ukraine, she was stopped by passport control. The man didn't like that her passport and green card were in different names. He told my wife that the law had changed, and that she needed to change her passport to reflect her married name. While my wife had our marriage certificate, it didn't seem to matter much to the passport control agent. Luckily, he let my wife through and she was able to come home.
My questions are the following:
1) Does my wife need to change her passport to reflect her new last name? Since she is living in the US now, does she need a different type of passport?
2)If she does, how do we go about changing out her passport to show her new last name? What forms do we need to fill out? What are the costs? What do we need to provide with the paperwork?
3) Does this affect her status in Ukraine in any way? Currently, she and her mother jointly own an apartment in Ukraine. By changing her passport, does this affect her property rights back in Ukraine?
4) Does anyone know how long it takes for the process to get done? The missus will be spending 3 months at home in the spring, but we have the option of extending, if she needs to do so. I am hoping that she can do all her paperwork at the Ukrainian Consulate, but they haven't been terribly helpful so far.
Any information anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated. If nothing else, Marina and I plan a road trip to Chicago to talk to a Ukrainian Consulate worker face to face. If we do this, I'll let you know what we find out.
BTW, Marina has decided the best homecoming gift this year would be bathtowels. They don't seem to have very good quality towels over there, so she thinks that her mother and grandmother will love them....
