How long would you keep previous owners' post for

smifffy1989

Return to sender. Seems a bit strange that they pop round, wonder if they have any credit at your address

TBagpuss

I moved in April. When I was moving in the old owner turned up and said that they had left a folder and would be calling back from time to time to pick up post. I told them that I was not comfortable with that but that I would be happy to redirect if they gave me a forwarding address, to give them time to follow up with anyone they had not already notified, (he claimed they had told 'most people')

At the same time I asked him for the window lock keys which had not been left.

He didn't want to give a forwarding address so I told him I was willing to drop it off with their estate agents (I work just up the road from the agents) for a couple of couple of months, but suggested that they get it redirected with the post office.

It quickly became obvious that they hadn't told *anyone*.

After three months I started marking everything "return to Sender" , and putting it back in the letter box.

I have been getting everything from bank statements to letters from the DVLA (I did write to them asking them to note that no-one but me lives at, keeps any vehicles at, or has authority to register any vehicles at, my address)

When I moved, I arranged 12 months forwarding via the post office and also left a note for my buyers to say that I had done so, but asking them to forward anything which slipped through the net, and left them my work address as a forwarding address.

With my previous purchase I marked things as RTS for the first couple weeks then either did RTS or put it straight into the recycling without opening it, depending on my whim at the time it arrived. Those vendors left the place in a nightmare state (fridge full of rotting food dumped in the garden, for instance) and broke the contract costing me around £400, so I wasn't in the mood to do them any favours.

I always gave the bailiffs and debt collectors as much information as I could, of course!

For sellers who were reasonable people I would be happy to keep redirecting more pr less indefiniately. I used to get ocassional mail for the person before last, in my previous house. She was an elderly lady who had gone into sheltered accommodation (which I knew as the council once sent me her proofs of ID and address and her pensioners bus pass, having clearly sent them to the old address on their records, not the one shown on all her ID documents!) I forwarded her Christmas cards etc to her until I mislaid her address, which must have been 5 or 6 years after I moved in.

My parents were friendly with the previous owners of the house we lived in while I was growing up, and we used to forward their stuff for as long as it kept coming, but it was only small amounts, they did a proper redirect.

DRP

we were getting post from the previous but-one occupants of our old house even after 10 years!

The University of York Alumni and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation society were particularly persistent...

Grylls

Since purchasing my house 18 months ago I've received loads of stuff for the previous occupants too. Being a bit naïve at first I'd forward it all on (at my own expense for postage). Pretty quickly I realised that I was being stupid - if they wanted their mail then they should've set up a redirect.


Mostly I just send it back 'RTS' but I'll sometimes take a peek at the more interesting stuff! (It's amazing how poorly lots of envelopes are stuck down!!) There's lots of debt collecting letters (I've repeatedly told the debt collecting agency) and a letter from the previous occupant's university saying they'd discovered that they had plagiarised their entire coursework! Plus one time there was a cheque for tens of thousands of pounds from the post office - I did send this straight on to the vendor, again at my expense and inconvenience.


Anyway, I'm endlessly amazed and rather envious - they seem to get far more interesting post than me!!!

Argghhh

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

EDIT: I wouldn't advocate stealing any parcels/birthday cards they receive. Those definitely would be re-posted "Return to Sender", so it was clear no crime had been committed.

how can they be returned to sender? noone puts their address in cards for this type of mail. Do you not understand that the post office will pocket the money and bin the cards if no return address?? there is no magic box where they store all these cards just in case someone bothers turning up 6 months later asking for them:(

Becka38940

We still occasionally receive "Gardeners Club" mail for the previous occupant and we have lived here 18 years!!

moneyistooshorttomention

Argghhh wrote: »

how can they be returned to sender? noone puts their address in cards for this type of mail. Do you not understand that the post office will pocket the money and bin the cards if no return address?? there is no magic box where they store all these cards just in case someone bothers turning up 6 months later asking for them:(

That's not OP's problem.

However, OP will have made sure they "keep their own hands clean" and not risked getting into any sort of trouble themselves by RTS those too.

You never know what someone will write in a card. Personally, I've used the inside of Christmas cards for years for quick notes to far-flung friends I send them to and that has included change of address comments.

TBagpuss

it won't help with real mail but you can register with the Mailing Preference Service and one option is to register a former occupier of your house, so you can potentially cut down on some of the junk mail.

Lily-Rose_3

Something does sound a bit odd here. They really should have done a redirection. It costs £55 for the whole year, for all names with the same surname, so it covered all three of us in our family - £17 EACH for the whole year.

And contrary to what the poster in post 17 said, it doesn't take a month to get going, it starts immediately. You tell them that you leave 1 high street, on 15th June at midday, and move into 3 low street, that afternoon. All post for you will go to 3 low street from 16th June. All you need to do is make sure you give them a weeks notice.

But yes, as I said, it does sound odd that the mail still keeps coming, especially if some of it looks 'official.' We have lived in our bungalow now for 15 months, and have only had 3 or 4 letters for the previous lady, and they are spam. So it looks like she definitely had a redirection.

In our last property (private let, where we were for about 3 years, with a reluctant landlady who owned just that one house, as well as the one she lived in,) we kept getting rucks of mail for previous tenants, including debt letters and people coming to the door too. And oddly, we kept getting a lot of letters for the landlady! Some quite important stuff too, including her son's UCAS and student finance stuff, bank statements, mortgage information, and all kinds of stuff about her various insurances and from the DVLA and all sorts. I thought it was incredibly suspicious.

We gave it 4 or 5 months, and got peed off because she kept asking the agent to ask us to drop it off at the agent-7 miles away!!! Bloody cheek. So we started to pop it back in the postbox then, but even that was half a mile away, or we had to take it to the one in town! And then after about a year, we started to bin it. Not our responsibility: she should have told important 'bodies' her new address by then!

So if I were you, I would put all the post you have in the postbox, with 'return to sender' on it, and then bin anything else from now on.

hunters

Argghhh wrote: »

how can they be returned to sender? noone puts their address in cards for this type of mail. Do you not understand that the post office will pocket the money and bin the cards if no return address?? there is no magic box where they store all these cards just in case someone bothers turning up 6 months later asking for them:(

In fact there is a magic box located in Belfast where they try to locate the correct owner of mail.

http://www.royalmail.com/personal/help-and-support/what-happens-if-you-cant-deliver-something