What if I need a court after all?

The kit turns an approved name change into the paperwork that follows it. If nothing has approved your new name yet, the first step is a petition to a court where you live, and that is a different process from start to finish. We do not prepare, review, advise on, or file petitions, and we do not offer any service relating to obtaining a court order.

The same holds where a divorce decree carries no restoration of a former name: without one, a court is still the route. Only you can read your own document to see whether it is in there. We never interpret one — the question we ask quotes your paperwork back at you, and “I’m not sure” is an answer it accepts and never quietly turns into a yes.

What we do have

• An informational page describing what a court petition generally involves, with the official place to start in each state.
• No route from it to checkout, by design and by test. Nobody who needs a court gets sold a kit.
• A place to leave your email address, if you would like to hear from us once your order is signed and the paperwork starts.

If you already bought and it turns out a court is what you need, we refund you in full. That is the case the refund policy was written for — buying while waiting on paperwork that did not come through, or did not say what you expected.

Waiting is different from needing a court. If your certificate or your signed order is simply still in the mail, the kit is for you and can be built today.