Durban North woman discovers Home Affairs marital slip-up
It was only by chance that the 53-year-old discovered she was still 'married' when she was renewing her passport.
FOR the last year and a half, Anel Durand, has been trying to get the Home Affairs Department to help fix her marital status.
The Middlebrook Avenue resident recently discovered her marital status on the department’s system was listed as ‘married’ despite her late husband, Jocelyn’s passing in September 2009.
It was only by chance that the 53-year-old discovered she was still ‘married’ when she was renewing her passport.
According to Durand, despite her husband being listed as ‘deceased’ on the department’s system, she was still listed as legally married to Jocelyn.
“When my fiancé, Esplin and I went in to renew our passports the lady helping us asked ‘when did I get married?’. I remember saying to her I was a widow and didn’t think anything of it until we were driving home. I remarked to Esplin that I hope I wasn’t still listed as married on the Home Affairs system. I put the thought out of my head and it was only when we collected our passports a few weeks later I learnt that their system had in fact gotten it wrong. Even though I had filed the death certificate after my late husband’s passing, the system still reflected the incorrect information,” she said.
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Her fiancé, Esplin Hoareau said they had tried to get the department to rectify the error but to no avail. It was only in passing the couple mentioned it to their friend and ward councillor, Pete Graham in a casual conversation.
“I think Pete is a romantic at heart and when he heard about our story he decided to intervene. Within a month he received an email from the department saying the error had been rectified. It was a huge relief for me and Anel because if we had made arrangements to get married we would have been in trouble. I feel this would not have been resolved as quickly if it wasn’t for his intervention,” he explained.
While Hoareau explained a wedding date had not been set as yet, the rectification of the error now meant they could go forward with plans without falling foul of the law.
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