Opening ex tenants mail.

clutton_2

""An example of a potential conflict is if a landlord opens a previous tenant's post in order to trace them."

i cannot imagine any circumstances in which this could be proved in a court of law.....

satchmeister

clutton wrote: »

""An example of a potential conflict is if a landlord opens a previous tenant's post in order to trace them."

i cannot imagine any circumstances in which this could be proved in a court of law.....

If the LL had been harassing or racially abusing the tenant who left after reporting the incident to the police and was traced by the LL after opening the tenant's mail?

In any case it is in the opinion of the court and dependent on the case and if you have been involved with any legal situations you will be aware that almost anything can happen.

DVardysShadow

satchmeister wrote: »

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Covered many times before on the site.

'Belongs to the Queen' pah! but illegal to open in transit.

Only illegal to open once delivered if it is intended to act to the detriment of the recipient.

Legal case link please.

satchmeister wrote: »

Mail in transit belongs to the Queen and it is illegal to open it unless you are the intended recipient.

Legal case link please. No, don't bother.

This one has been covered on this site enough times that I am well fed up with it. There are no cases, it is statute law, and people have actually quoted it to substantiate your position, but at least once, it has been deconstructed to extract the correct meaning.

edit: on the site today -

peachyprice wrote: »

Not this old chestnut, again. ... this must be the most mis-advised subject on the entire forum

Opinion

I bought from a guy that was up to his eyeballs in personal/business debt. I started opening his post when someone came to repossess 'my' BMW and 'my' boat. I ended up having people from the County Court knocking at my door, and I showed them masses of post I had--opened and unopened--and referred them to the estate agent. None of them seem to care... I showed ID to prove I wasn't him- if whoever it was decides to do a runner, f**k them..???

satchmeister

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Legal case link please. No, don't bother.

This one has been covered on this site enough times that I am well fed up with it. There are no cases, it is statute law, and people have actually quoted it to substantiate your position, but at least once, it has been deconstructed to extract the correct meaning.

Forget the Queen (joke really!) So can you open somebody else's mail with no potential repocussions? Or should you just give it back to the Post Office. Simple yes or no for the OP.

DVardysShadow

satchmeister wrote: »

Forget the Queen (joke really!) So can you open somebody else's mail with no potential repocussions? Or should you just give it back to the Post Office. Simple yes or no for the OP.

Depends [OK, this starts the wrong way for what you want] on whether it is being done with intent which is to the detriment of the addressee.

Probably the most general view here is that if the unopened mail indicates that the old tenant's problems are going to give grief to the new tenant, then there is every good reason to open it to attempt to deal with matters.

quantic

I was in a similar boat while renting, the woman who was previously renting our property did a runner and left all of the services to the property open, meaning that when I was trying to cancel SKY, gas/electric, telephone etc I couldn't because she was in the middle of a contract and they wouldn't speak to me because of privacy. In the end we had to open the mail in order to get account and reference numbers for cancelling services so was unavoidable.

p00hsticks

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Depends [OK, this starts the wrong way for what you want] on whether it is being done with intent which is to the detriment of the addressee.

Probably the most general view here is that if the unopened mail indicates that the old tenant's problems are going to give grief to the new tenant, then there is every good reason to open it to attempt to deal with matters.

Personally in these circumstances if I were the landlord / new tenant I wouldn't 'attempt to deal with matters' any further than notifying the companies involved that the person in question no longer lives at that address. You can do that just as easily by marking th letter as 'no longer living at this adddress - return to sender' as you can by opening the mail and contacting the sender directly, which runs the risk of seeing you sucked into things that aren't your responsibility or your business. Stay well clear and don't open any lines of communication with these people.

DVardysShadow

p00hsticks wrote: »

Personally in these circumstances if I were the landlord / new tenant I wouldn't 'attempt to deal with matters' any further than notifying the companies involved that the person in question no longer lives at that address. You can do that just as easily by marking th letter as 'no longer living at this adddress - return to sender' as you can by opening the mail and contacting the sender directly, which runs the risk of seeing you sucked into things that aren't your responsibility or your business. Stay well clear and don't open any lines of communication with these people.

We have had this when we moved in, a small trail of debt left behind. The only resolution I have wanted is to be sure that all debt collection activity against my address is ceased. 'Return to sender' did not work and I could see it escalating. Returning letters opened with a firm accompanying letter has been totally effective.

In the case of more persistent debt collecting activity, evidence of such a letter being sent is a good start for taking action on harassment.

Soupersaver_2

Definitely illegal as it's technically theft!