Address dispute

J8ck

Hi

Who is the definitive authority to absolutely confirm your EXACT postal address? The Post Office, Land Registry or Council Building Control? We are in dispute with our neighbours over our address which they claim is theirs. We have recently moved to a tiny village of only 6 addresses and none of us have house numbers or street names...simply a house/property name, the village, the nearest town, and the county.

To clarify:

*the original property (let's call it South Fork) in its entirety dated back to the late 18th century and comprised just over 4 acres of land, a farmhouse and barns

*about 5 years ago the then owners split up the property into:

1st property - the farmhouse and a modest garden
2nd property - the barns and the rest of the 4 acres

The address of the 1st property was at the time registered as: The Farmhouse, South Fork, London, England, AB12 34CD.

The address of the 2nd property was at the time registered simply as South Fork, London, England, AB12 34CD. The logic we gather was because the majority of the land went with this second property and in fact the 1st property is pretty much enfolded by the land of the 2nd property.

The current owners of the 1st property have recently dropped the prefix "The Farmhouse" and refer to themselves as South Fork, and are insisting that our address is in fact South Fork Barns, London, England, AB12 34CD as this is what the previous owners were using.

They feel they are entitled to use the "South Fork" address without reference to The Farmhouse as they are in the original residential building of the former entire property, and well, we are only in the lowly barns. OK-Yah.

I simpy want to enforce the registered addresses as they stand and have whatever authority send a clear reminder to both of us what in fact our registered addresses are to end this waste of time. What I am most sensitive about is that the credit authorities could be getting mixed message of who is living in which address and expose our financial details erroneously. The post man is also very confused and our post is ending up at the 1st property address now and they are deliberatley hanging on to it for a few days before coming over to have a go at us.

Thanks!

olly300

What !!!!!!.

Seriously regardless of how your address is finally sorted out people and companies will still address your letters wrong anyway.

Personally I would see if I could get all the buildings numbered including theirs.

I've just looked on the RM website and you need to contact the Highways or Engineers Department of your local council as they sort out numbering and naming of buildings.

So contact them on Monday to find the correct department and see if you can get them to give you something in writing confirming the names/numbers of all the properties. (Which will go missing for a few days.)

Alternatively if they won't then ask them to renumber all the buildings. New houses built in the last 20 years or so now tend to have both numbers and names. Then send letters addressed to them with the number on it only.

sooz

To add to Olly's answer, the 6 of you need to sit down & reach an amicable conclusion to this.
Letters will get wrongly addressed or delivered, regardless.
You don't want to end up in a dispute between the only 6 residents of a tiny village!

If you don't want numbers & all want to be the 'bigger' property, could you rename them south, east, north & west fork? (& the remaining two have a choice of north-east, south-east etc )

Or what's wrong with numbers? 1 south fork, 2 south fork etc...

BornAtTheRightTime

The local council is responsible for establishing addresses and they notify the Post Office of any changes. A quick call to them may sort out the confusion.

I believe (guessing) that it is your responsibility to notify the Land Registry although I also think that is voluntary.

The council will usually be keen to assign numbers but will want agreement of the residents - so Sooz is absolutely right. You do need to talk this over with your neighbours if you want to go this route.

theartfullodger

Sounds like you all need help from a counselling service rather than posting here.... Harsh I know, but...
.
Also there's 2 addresses here for each property....
a) The correct, council & Royal Mail approved, address.. "69 Acacia Avenue.."
b) What the owners chose to have...

Eh?? Well, we used to live in Maidenhead.. at (eg) 69 Acacia Avenue. Being barking we decided to re-christen the house "Seaview" (we were some 50 miles front sea & couldn't even see the river) and put up a sign to that effect. Neighbours thought we were mad but then they already did anyway.. Postman would deliver to both addresses... (he didn't have to..) & people would knock on the door looking for both addresses..

I agree if 2 properties have the same address it could be tricky... mind you, could be fun stealing someone's identity...