Buyer's mail arriving - not even exchanged contracts yet!

Margot123

I'm contacting the council in the morning to let them know the buyers haven't signed anything yet.

I've had Land Registry alerts set up for months now so hopefully they would flag anything up.

I know it could be something perfectly innocent such as calling to check how much CT they'd be paying and then the council sending mail to their 'future address' but I'm erring on the side of caution with this.

spendinglikemad

We had the same - not as much delay but received a letter to our address with new owners name setting up their energy account so I called to say we hadn't exchanged so it needed to be declined. Then we received a letter from our supplier saying we were going to switch so I had to make sure that was cancelled too - I told my solicitor and she is making the vendors solicitor aware not to make any further arrangements until exchange date agreed.

I was concerned about fraud so I opened the letter - hubby says I shouldn't but I did anyway!!

SLM

ValiantSon

aneary wrote: »

It can take months to get on the register, so I would be wary but don't panic.

I moved in July and only got on the register in Dec when they did their yearly update.

Electoral registers are updated every month. If you informed the local authority in July then the latest that you would have been added to the register is the end of August.

silvercar

I once received mail from a buyer that had pulled out. On reading the letter it turned out they had used my address to get their child into a nearby school, when they didn't gain a place they pulled.

Gave me great pleasure to send the letter back to the school with a note that they had never lived at the address and I suspected fraud. That was their place on the waiting list lost.

Pure karma!

marlasinger

need_an_answer wrote: »

In the past we had some mail arrive for a potential buyer,it looked to be as a result of a possible home insurance quote they did on the property,and then managed to get on a few mailing lists.

This happened to us, when we bought our house. Our home insurance documents went to the house we were buying, even though I don't think we had exchanged at that point either. I didn't think to make sure the insurance company sent it to the address we were currently living at. Our seller ended up just returning them to the sender.

aneary

Electoral rolls are not updated monthly there is a four month period when they do their annual update if you apply during this period it takes months.

ValiantSon

aneary wrote: »

Electoral rolls are not updated monthly there is a four month period when they do their annual update if you apply during this period it takes months.

Not true. Electoral registers are updated monthly. This is a requirement to ensure that nobody can be left off the register due to movement should an election be called outside of the normal timeframe. The annual register is different form the register of electors that is maintained for the purposes of issuing ballots. The local authorities do not publish a new monthly register in the period you outline, but they do update the register with new electors.

Margot123

If it is true that the electoral role can be updated so quickly, what was to prevent the buyers (or anyone for that matter) registering at the address months ago when the property went on the market.

The mail is checked almost daily, and I'm sure something would have arrived by now.

aneary

ValiantSon wrote: »

Not true. Electoral registers are updated monthly. This is a requirement to ensure that nobody can be left off the register due to movement should an election be called outside of the normal timeframe. The annual register is different form the register of electors that is maintained for the purposes of issuing ballots. The local authorities do not publish a new monthly register in the period you outline, but they do update the register with new electors.

I applied during this period and got a letter saying that due to the annual update I would not be added until December! It has only now appeared that I am registered on my credit files!!!

shortcrust

I think different places handle their electoral roll in wildly different ways, in terms of efficiency if nothing else.

Every bit of post that comes to my house gets opened. I want to know what my address is being used for.