Tax credits claimed by others from property I own

matttye

Gaz83 wrote: »

The Citizen's Advice website has a similar description - that you need 'reasonable excuse' to open someone else's mail - but also includes this nugget:

"Opening someone else’s mail is allowed in certain circumstances under the Postal Services Act 2000. It is only an offence if you open someone else’s mail ‘without reasonable excuse’ or if you ‘intend to act to another’s detriment'. For example, if you are receiving bank statements/cards in someone else’s name then you should act on that immediately. You should tell the sender, either by returning it marked “not known at this address” or by opening the mail and calling any number provided within. The “reasonable excuse” for opening such items would then be that you were helping to prevent fraud against the companies involved."

Here, the OP would be helping to prevent what he believes to be fraud against HMRC. Ergo, a reasonable excuse.

The law is worded in such a way that you would have to have an intention to act to someone's detriment at the time of opening their post. If the post is in someone's name that you don't know then it's difficult to see how you could have such an intention at the time of opening.

It seems that if you were opening post simply out of curiosity at it having been delivered to you in error, and only after that formed the intention to act to the intended recipient's detriment, then no offence has been committed because that intention wasn't there at the time of opening.

I think this law is meant to solve the mischief of having mail intended for ex-partners, family members etc. who are no longer living with you delivered to you and intending to meddle in their affairs.

Likewise, the reporting of potential fraud would only amount to a reasonable excuse if you had the intention of reporting potential fraud at the time of opening the mail - i.e. before you knew what was in it. If there is a HMRC logo/stamp/return address on the envelope then it's entirely possible that you could form such an intention before opening the mail.