Do I have the right to open any mail which comes to my home?

chesky369

Just shows you how nasty I am - I'd have opened it and pretended I'd opened it by mistake. It's easily done if you have two or three envelopes all together and it could have been a genuine error.

poorandindenial

OP - make sure that your ex is no longer on the electoral register too - if you haven't already, this should reduce the likelihood of new ones 'finding' him at your place.

Gemsgalore

chesky369 wrote: »

Just shows you how nasty I am - I'd have opened it and pretended I'd opened it by mistake. It's easily done if you have two or three envelopes all together and it could have been a genuine error.

Yes it is easily done........the first couple of times. My neighbour does this all the time. Postie often puts our mail through wrong door, and she knocks my door with my mail, apologizing for opening letters that she just assumed were for her......happened at least a dozen times now so she isn't doing it 'by mistake' anymore.......she's just a nosy bu....r !!!

Pee

No. You should mark not known at this address and send it to the return address. If there is no return address, just put not known at this address and the post office will open it and send it back.

You could speak to the postman so that they do this with any post addressed to your ex.

vaio

As swan said it's only illegal is you do it with bad intent.

If your ex doesn't like it tell him to stop mail for him arriving by notifying the companies concerned of his new address.

If it bothers you then proceed as above and if it doesn't stop then you can tell the companies concerned his new address

Swan_2

Pee wrote: »

No.You should mark not known at this address and send it to the return address. If there is no return address, just put not known at this address and the post office will open it and send it back.

You could speak to the postman so that they do this with any post addressed to your ex.

you are wrong, & might unnecessarily worry the OP ... please read post no 12

treepotato1

superstylin wrote: »

Hi

I had no idea where to put this in the forum so if there's a more suitable place then let me know!

Simple one I suppose. Do I have the right to open any mail that comes to my address? I recently received a letter at my address with 'debt collection' written on it for the attention of my ex, who moved out 8 months ago. I could have simply passed it onto the ex, who I'm still in contact with, but because I feel like I should be aware of any debt that might be linked to my home (and I'm pretty sure the ex wouldn't let me know about it), I opened it.

I did let the ex know about the letter, at which point they blew up stating it was illegal to open other people's mail. I can understand that they would not want me to know anything about their finances (I wouldn't go opening bank statements for instance) but I feel like I have a right to know what's going on with my property and it's credit history. Right or wrong?

Wrong.It is an offence to interfere in any way with the delivery of the Royal Mail.

treepotato1

chesky369 wrote: »

Just shows you how nasty I am - I'd have opened it and pretended I'd opened it by mistake. It's easily done if you have two or three envelopes all together and it could have been a genuine error.

IMO, it isn't easily done at all. If you're nasty enough to open other people's mail, why even bother with two lame excuses?

vaio

treepotato1 wrote: »

Wrong.It is an offence to interfere in any way with the delivery of the Royal Mail.

Spot on, it is an offence to interfere with the delivery, but that is nothing to do with the OP.

More relevantly it is not an offence to open mail which has been delivered but is not addressed to you unless you have bad intentions (as stated in post 12)

treepotato1

vaio wrote: »

Spot on, it is an offence to interfere with the delivery, but that is nothing to do with the OP.

Of course it has! If you receive mail and open it, then you are preventing that mail from being sent to the correct recipient unless you make every effort, after you open it, to give it back to Royal Mail..