My legal rights - mail to my address not mine!

arcon5

vikingaero wrote: »

Once a postie puts letters addressed to your address through your letterbox they become your property.

Okay so...

the lovely Ms Maple is living in a 2 bedroom house as she has been for the last 25 years. She decides to earn some extra cash to pay for her gambling addiction (which she developed after seeing a TV ad for Foxy Bingo) by renting one of her rooms out to me. I contact my bank to tell them about my new address who subsequently sends me a bank statement with private and confidential details of my financial standing...

are you seriously telling me the lovely Ms Maple now has a legal right to my mail since it has her address on it?

That just doesn't add up............................

And does this apply to parcels a courier delivers also? Or just regular mail?

peachyprice

Deja vu arcon?

arcon5

peachyprice wrote: »

Deja vu arcon?

:rotfl::rotfl:

ridethelightning

We keep getting mail for the previous tenant (2 years after we moved in). For the first 8 months or so we returned to sender, then started binning them. I found the best way of stopping them tho is to put all your junk mail in an envelope with a wee note saying along the lines of "This person does not live at this address. I have been returning his mail for over a year but you continue to send it. I am returning this letter with all my junk mail and no stamp and will do so with any further mail". Write the return address on an envelope and post it. Our mail for him have greatly reduced now!

Dave101t

i got regular letters like that, some i opened, some i returned. eventually i wrote on it "all future letters will be shredded not posted back to sender as you obviously havent read the last 5 returnded letters stating not at this address".

no more now....i miss the '50% discount if paid by such and such' offers. glad it wasnt mine!

vikingaero

arcon5 wrote: »

Okay so...

the lovely Ms Maple is living in a 2 bedroom house as she has been for the last 25 years. She decides to earn some extra cash to pay for her gambling addiction (which she developed after seeing a TV ad for Foxy Bingo) by renting one of her rooms out to me. I contact my bank to tell them about my new address who subsequently sends me a bank statement with private and confidential details of my financial standing...

are you seriously telling me the lovely Ms Maple now has a legal right to my mail since it has her address on it?

That just doesn't add up............................

And does this apply to parcels a courier delivers also? Or just regular mail?

That's bit different arcon. You are genuinely living there. The OP's case is someone dishonestly using their address to evade debt.

Sending mail Return to Sender doesn't work most of the time. Most Debt Collection Agencies know that a shedload of debtors use this trick. So even if mail is returned they still churn out the letters to the same address.

arcon5

vikingaero wrote: »

That's bit different arcon. You are genuinely living there. The OP's case is someone dishonestly using their address to evade debt.

Sending mail Return to Sender doesn't work most of the time. Most Debt Collection Agencies know that a shedload of debtors use this trick. So even if mail is returned they still churn out the letters to the same address.

But the letter is still not intended for op. They are simply using the incorrectly provided address to attempt to contact their debtor.

Where anywhere does it say if a letter that comes through your letter box now belongs to you?

vuvuzela

The legalities : Postal Services Act, Part V. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/part/V
"A person commits an offence if, intending to act to a person’s detriment and without reasonable excuse, he opens a postal packet which he knows or reasonably suspects has been incorrectly delivered to him."

Therefore if I was getting bombarded with letters for someone else, I would have reasonable excuse to open them to find the sender and attempt to stop them sending to my address, where the addressee does not reside. I would also not be acting to the detriment of the other party to which the letters were addressed, so no offence would be committed.

badgerboots

I would get a credit report from a credit agency such as experian http://www.experian.co.uk and you can then put a notice of disassociation on it to make it very clear that whoever has been using your address, has never lived there and has no connection to anyone currently living at your house.

vuvuzela

badgerboots wrote: »

I would get a credit report from a credit agency such as experian http://www.experian.co.uk and you can then put a notice of disassociation on it to make it very clear that whoever has been using your address, has never lived there and has no connection to anyone currently living at your house.

I wouldn't bother. Credit histories are only linked to people you have had actual financial associations with (eg joint account or mortgage), not just shared (legitimately or otherwise) a property with.