Still getting previous owner's mail - very annoying!

KateLiana27

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Depends. If former resident says "You can give it to X, who will pass it to me", then that is sufficient.

The problem is if you do this, the company sending it will never find out that the person has moved, unless they tell them.

We happily passed on all letters to the old tenant, thinking we were being lovely and helpful, until we realised they were overdue bills that he was just quietly slipping in the bin. We almost had the bailiffs out before we wised up to what he was doing.

I didn't mean to imply that passing on or binning mail was illegal - I couldn't really have cared less about that. It just leaves you as the new tenant open to a whole lot of hassle.

KateLiana27

Cheeky_Monkey wrote: »

Why not? What could/will happen?

See above. Bailiffs coming round because the debt collection agencies still think the previous tenant lives there. They served him a final written warning, didn't they?

True, the bailiffs can't touch your stuff, but it's not what anyone wants of a Friday afternoon.

DVardysShadow

KateLiana27 wrote: »

The problem is if you do this, the company sending it will never find out that the person has moved, unless they tell them.

We happily passed on all letters to the old tenant, thinking we were being lovely and helpful, until we realised they were overdue bills that he was just quietly slipping in the bin. We almost had the bailiffs out before we wised up to what he was doing.

I didn't mean to imply that passing on or binning mail was illegal - I couldn't really have cared less about that. It just leaves you as the new tenant open to a whole lot of hassle.

Yes, this is why I am minded to open mail for previous residents. Sending the mail back to the sender does not deal stop debt recovery action against the address. At least if you open it, you are less on the back foot if a debt collector comes around. And you are far more able to head off a real bailiff at the pass [who will be more scary than a plain debt collector] if you open mail and find court papers.

pimento

Reminds me of my neighbours. We live at No. 123, they live at No. 132. Since they moved in we have been getting their post because they put our door number instead of their own. Next Directory, British Gas, we've even had a bailiff. Anyway, I went and spoke to them and they apologised profusely and said they'd sort it out.

All was quiet for about six months and then last week, we started getting a series of pre-printed envelopes with their names and our address. When I opened one, it was the RSVP's for their wedding!

You think they'd have proof read the invites before sending them out...

I wonder if we'll get an invite?

sonastin

pimento wrote: »

All was quiet for about six months and then last week, we started getting a series of pre-printed envelopes with their names and our address. When I opened one, it was the RSVP's for their wedding!

You think they'd have proof read the invites before sending them out...

I wonder if we'll get an invite?

How long are you planning to keep hold of them before you put 'em out of their misery and let them know that people are actually coming to their wedding?!:D

Callie22

We're having the same problem at the moment in our current rental - turns out the previous owner was a naughty boy who ran up debts with everyone possible. I'd say we get three to four items of post a day for him, most of it bills, and it's still going on after six months of marking everything 'return to sender'. It's fairly obvious what the bills are and at the moment, we're getting lots of offical looking court and 'recovery service' stuff. We're also having increasingly frequent visit from bailiffs and that's not nice at all - my OH works away a lot and some of the bailiffs can be very threatening. They're ok once they're told that I'm not who they're after, but until that point it's really not fun.

What's really annoying is that the previous owner apparently allowed all of his mates to use his address for 'official' purposes, and they're still doing it despite admitting that they know that the previous owner has moved. I recently sent some stuff back to the DVLA only to have one of the previous owner's mates turn up and start effing and blinding at me because I hadn't kept hold of his post. He then arranged for his stuff to be redelivered to my address, and sat outside my house every evening, watching for me to get home from work so that he could follow me to my door and demand his post. He got told, very politely, that I would bin anything else that turned up for him, he should foxtrot oscar and if he turned up again I'd call the police. That's stopped one lot of post ...

pimento

sonastin wrote: »

How long are you planning to keep hold of them before you put 'em out of their misery and let them know that people are actually coming to their wedding?!:D

Oh, I'm not that mean..

I called her straight away. She couldn't believe it. "I thought nobody liked me!"

thriftymanc

The problem with returning letters with "not known at this address" is that it depends who actually sorts the letters at the other end. Half the time it's probably some 'office junior'/photocopier monkey who doesn't give a toss and puts them straight in the bin. That's how it was at one office I worked at! I had this problem at my last address where I was receiving the previous occupant's post for years right up until the day I moved out. I sent everything back for months. A few companies stopped right away, others had to be phoned, some companies didn't seem to care at all and carried on sending stuff. I managed to get hold of a forwarding address eventually. My letting agency didn't want to pass it on, until I took one month's worth of post (about 50 letters!) to their office and dumped it on their desk and said I'd be giving all this post to them weekly unless they gave me a forwarding address. Sadly though, the girl proved to be thick as pigshit and forwarding her post on didn't seem to get the message through either! Until I started forwarding it with 'disturbing' messages written on the backs in multicoloured felt tip, and strange looking brown smears across the envelopes(*)... and after all that palaver I moved out anyway. I should have kept it all and made myself a nice little moneysaving fire every winter instead.


*it was just chocolate... but she didn't necessarily know that...

Cheeky_Monkey

KateLiana27 wrote: »

See above. Bailiffs coming round because the debt collection agencies still think the previous tenant lives there. They served him a final written warning, didn't they?

True, the bailiffs can't touch your stuff, but it's not what anyone wants of a Friday afternoon.

Fair point. It doesn't actually apply in my case though as I don't live there, no-one does as it's being sold.

creditcard123

I understand completely how frustrating this is

We bought our house in Dec 08 the previous owner was in a nursing home and had been for over a year when we bought the property, his son and daughter in law dealt with the sale but not the redirection of mail.
We received all his mail, eventually after about a year and a sackful of letters I took them to our conveyancing solicitor who passed them on and asked for a redirection to be put in place. Everything I recieved after that I either returned to sender or binned it if it was junk mail. The previous owner died about 18 months after we purchased house so if I got any letters after that I put on it he is deceased and return them.
Nearly 3 years later we still get a christmas card and the occassional piece of mail.

Not sure when it will ever stop