Moving - Is postal redirection worth bothering with?

solentsusie

Hi All

I am moving house in June and just wondered what people's thoughts are on postal redirection these days.

All of my bank accounts and utilities are run online so I don't get postal statements or bills and the majority of my post is junk mail or supermarket coupons.

Is actually it worth the £29.99 for 3, or £39.99 for 6 months?

What are your thoughts?

Thanks

agrinnall

If you know who you definitely or might get mail from then as long as you ensure you change your address with each sender shortly after moving then you could probably get away without a redirection. Personally I include it as part of the cost of moving and do 6 months just to be sure.

davidmcn

I would say yes, it's easy to underestimate the number of people you need to change address with, and you can't always predict who's going to send you mail (e.g. I got a surprise insurance refund cheque sent to my old address).

Peter333

Yes, I would definitely get it. It's well worth £59.99 for a full year. We had a number of things sent to our old address. Including the cheque for the deposit that our son had paid on his halls in university. £450. The university had our new address, but for some reason, decided to send the cheque to the old one. We also got a birthday card for our son's 18th, that had been sent by his great aunt. We had forgotten to give her the new address, and so she sent his card to our old one, and she had put £50 in his card!

Very important IMO to have mail redirection. It cuts down identity theft and people fraudulently using your name too.

Torry_Quine

I would definitely have re-direction until at least Christmas time as there will always be someone who sends a card to your old address.

penguingirl

Going against the flow here, but I think it depends how long you were at your previous address for. We were at our last house for 5 years, are of the generation who don't do much by post (and not many Christmas cards!). We have redirection for 3 months and 6 weeks in we've only had some supermarket coupons and a couple of bits of junk mail. We made a very comprehensive list of people to contact before we moved and that has helped.

Fluffi

Yes definitely worth redirecting. Its amazing what mail you occasionally get, aka pension info only once a year and you've forgotten to change the address on.

Also comes in handy of HMRC send you any refund cheques

Hermia

Fluffi wrote: »

Also comes in handy of HMRC send you any refund cheques

That happened to me in that I got a tax refund. I thought I had changed address with them, but obviously something went wrong somewhere. A nice cheque for £950 turned up via redirection.

Given that redirection is not that expensive I think it is worth doing. I made a really comprehensive list of people and companies who I thought had my address, but I still forgot a few.

solentsusie

Thanks for the replies.

I think I am more along the lines of penguingirl in that friends and family pretty much never post anything to me, with the exception of my mother, who will definitely have my new address. I have a very small family so not a problem informing them of the change. My friends never post anything.

The only thing from the posts above I hadn't considered was my old pension from a previous employer and that is now on my list, so thanks for that one.

I can only dream of getting HMRC refunds...

t0rt0ise

If you do so I'd urge you to apply online using a bank card before you change your address with your bank. I didn't and I then found it impossible to show the right sort of proof of my old address. I just don't get letters from utilities, bank etc any more so in the end I couldn't apply for redirection at all.

staffie1

Yes, always have your mail redirected. Not least because the new residents of your old address should not have to be bothered with your mail. The people who I bought this house from clearly did not have their mail redirected, or informed anyone they had moved, and instead left me with their forwarding address - presumably expecting me to be their postman.