Legally, am I responsible for bills in previous owners name?

Foggster

It would have been the solicitor who should have pointed out the maintenance charge on the property.

You are absolutely right that you didnt open the mail and simply carried on forwarding it. It it interesting that the previous owner didnt then contact the maintenance company that they had got their records wrong.

continualdiamond

I am assuming this is a leasehold property at which charges transfer from the seller to the buyer. I had this happen to me, sale went through Oct 06, got a letter addressed to previous owner in Dec 06 so returned to sender as had no fwd address for them. Got a letter Jan 07 from the leasehold company stating we were now severly over due with our buildings ins bill for the period sept 06 - sept 07 and thus had a penalty charge added.

Rang them up and told them i wasn't living here in Sept 06 and as the letter was addressed to previous owner in Dec thats why i had sent it back and shouldn't i just be liable from Oct 06.

Told no as the cost is on the building and responsibility is now mine.

Then realised why the seller was pushing for a exchange date of 1st Sep cos they knew this bill would arrive. So they just chose to ignore it and not inform solictors about it so mine didn't pick it up.

I had to pay for a mth of ins i wasn't living here for, but did get the penalty charge removed due to them addressing it to the wrong owner in Dec.