Old owner's post

arciere

I'm sure this has been discussed before but I couldn't find anything relevant.
I purchased my flat 5 months ago, during this time we received (and keep receiving) tons of letters addressed to the previous owners. Some of these letters are clearly important and confidential (from DVLA, bank, university...), however during these months none of the old owners has ever called or visited or showed any interest at all. We don't have any contact details for them and the estate agency cannot reach them.

Now, I understand all the 'guidelines' and rules for these kind of situations, such as crossing the address, "no longer at this address" and re-posting it, but surely if the old owners aren't so interested or worried, I don't see why I should be offering them a free (and time consuming) re-delivery service?
They had been living at the property for 10 years or so, so the amount of mail we receive is considerable.
At what stage do I have the right to discard/destroy/light-my-BBQ?

cherryx3x3

We moved into our house in July last year and are still receiving post to this day.


We got sick of the amount coming through so decided that after the New Year we would destroy anything that came for them.


If they can't be bothered to re-direct or inform people of the address change why should you waste your time?

arciere

Exactly my thoughts. One week before moving in, I set up mail redirection with Royal Mail, plus I text my ex-landlord every now and again to make sure there is nothing that is still being sent there.

ReadingTim

Writing "no longer at this address" and sticking something back in a post box is hardly time consuming, nor is it a "free re-delivery service", so your first course of action is to wind in your exaggeration. Next, realise some mailing systems take time to update, or may need a couple of returned items before mailing ceases, so you're probably looking at the best part of a year or two before the important/official/confidential stuff to stop coming. Marketing stuff may take longer, depending on how reputable the organisation is with regard to personal data, even post-GDPR.

But the stuff is going to keep coming unless you send it back, so simply binning it ain't going to prevent the problem - you're probably going to have to suck it up for the next 12-18 months I think. However, given all mail should have a return address on the back, you could start to only return the important/official ones, and start to bin what's obviously junk/marketing stuff - I can't imagine that's going to matter, especially when you have no forwarding address.

macman

Forward it all to the estate agent-they must surely have a forwarding address for the vendors, for billing purposes, but they're not allowed to give it to you.

sal_III

Scribbling "RTS, moved" and dropping them in a mailbox on your way to work, super market etc once or twice a month is hardly time consuming or costly.

Remember that you re not doing it for the benefit of the previous owner, you are doing it for your own benefit to reduce the spam you receive. As with each RTS the sender will likely update their database and stop sending to your address.

Jane_B

Writing doesn't live at this address and putting the letters back in the post box is hardly an arduous task, and its not a personal re-delivery service.

It takes time for some companies to update their records, by binning or burning the post you're not going to stop the letters coming, which in the long run will be more time consuming than just continuing to write on the letters and posting them back.

Do you not have the address of their solicitors or estate agent who managed the sale? if you do you can ask them to pass on the mail.

davidmcn

If the sellers can't be bothered changing their address then sending the mail on to them via estate agents etc probably won't help to stop it coming to you - you'd be better to return to sender (assuming you haven't already tried that).

Comms69

or just bin it, not your problem

arciere

ReadingTim wrote: »

Writing "no longer at this address" and sticking something back in a post box is hardly time consuming, nor is it a "free re-delivery service", so your first course of action is to wind in your exaggeration. Next, realise some mailing systems take time to update, or may need a couple of returned items before mailing ceases

"...is hardly time consuming": you're right, but do it on hundreds of letters, then let me know if it really is. Plus, no post box nearby, I would need to go to the nearest post office. Plus, as I said before, I applied for mail redirection so that the new tenants at my old flat wouldn't be annoyed by my post and I would be less worried about missing important stuff.
But that's not really the point, if the old owners aren't interested AT ALL in their own post, why should I waste my time doing this, be it 1 minute or 1 hour a day? One of the guys that used to live here apparently has/had a company and guess what the registered address was? So apart from personal/individual letters, we are also receiving business correspondence addressed to the company.

When I moved in my old flat, I did receive post for the previous tenants, but the landlord did use to check or visit every now and again, we never got to a point where we didn't know what to do with all those letters.

ReadingTim

arciere wrote: »

"...is hardly time consuming": you're right, but do it on hundreds of letters, then let me know if it really is. Plus, no post box nearby, I would need to go to the nearest post office. Plus, as I said before, I applied for mail redirection so that the new tenants at my old flat wouldn't be annoyed by my post and I would be less worried about missing important stuff.
But that's not really the point, if the old owners aren't interested AT ALL in their own post, why should I waste my time doing this, be it 1 minute or 1 hour a day?
When I moved in my old flat, I did receive post for the previous tenants, but the landlord did use to check or visit every now and again, we never got to a point where we didn't know what to do with all those letters.

Oh get over yourself. No-one's going to stop sending the mail if you don't tell them to, are they? So you're not doing it for the ex-owners, you're doing it for yourself. But if you don't want to do that, you know who to blame when the letters keep coming. Your call.