Skip to content
L'ÎLE-CADIEUX · EB-5 FIELD GUIDE

Should I change the name on old financial statements myself?

Sources checked:

THE DIRECT ANSWER

No. Preserve authentic historical records and provide appropriate evidence linking them to your current identity. Seek any needed correction through the issuer. Ask each issuer what it can produce and how long that takes before deciding what to request. A bank's archive, a registrar's office and a project administrator's subscription file each answer on a different schedule, and the slowest of them sets the date the package can be completed.

Explain rather than silently alter

An organized identity chronology can show why names differ. If the discrepancy concerns ownership rather than naming, investigate that issue directly instead of using a name explanation to attribute another person’s funds to you. Name the records by what each must show on its face.

A subscription agreement should carry the subscriber's name as it stood at signature, the amount and the date. A capital account statement should show movement rather than a closing balance. A civil registry extract or a court order should record the change of name together with its effective date, which is what links the two versions of the person.

Where an institution has since merged or been wound up, ask who holds the predecessor's records now and make that request early; a successor's confirmation on its own letterhead carries more weight than an explanation written by the person whose identity is in question.