Vendor is insistent on visiting after completion

Jeepers_Creepers

Wow, weird all right!

Sounds a bit like a lost soul, but one who clearly is unaware of boundaries.

What to do? Please don't dump/destroy his post - that would be churlish and quite possibly illegal. I think I'd be inclined to make it clear to him that it's inconvenient and unreasonable for him to turn up on this regular basis, and ask him to provide a forwarding address instead - he must have one! If he fails to do this for any reason including "Och, it's easier for me to just call round...", then explain the only other alternative is for you to mark them 'return to sender'.

Say this is a calm and friendly manner, but stick to that mantra; 'Happy to readdress them, or will return to sender. That's it'.

Absolutely, either block his phone number, or just don't answer it. If/when he comes to the door, inform him you are busy, it is not a good time and that you need to go. He no longer has any reason to come to your house.

And don't worry about the neighbs - they will surely have a good idea what he's like, and may well be breathing a sigh of relief that he's moved (tho' no far enough away...)

Don't fixate on what folk might be saying - you have no control over what folk are like, but will soon find out in any case as you settle in and get to know them. Don't you bring up this issue in conversations, don't comment on it - just take the opportunity to reply should anyone else do so.

(Or you could bring this up with a neighb, in terms of showing concern for his seeming plight; "Do you know his story? He seems very attached to the house and is struggling to let go. Why do you think that is, poor soul...?")

General_Grant

Irishpearce26 said:

Put the mail in the bin, perfectly legal as its your address. He will soon get the message and get a redirection.

Perhaps it's legal in Ireland.

But

The Postal Services Act 2000 states that it is not legal to open someone's post, or delay it reaching the owner.  Putting it in a bin would seriously delay its receipt.

The OP should cross through their address (but allowing it to be decipherable) and mark as "gone away" and put in a postbox.

General_Grant

Lover_of_Lycra said:

Josiea said:

Hi All,

We completed on the purchase of our first property at the end of April. Firstly, when we collected the keys from him, it felt as if he was reluctant to give us them and did a full tour of the house all over again and it took over an hour for him to hand our keys over and leave the property. The vendor left the shed and garage full of his rubbish upon completion, our solicitor held money back from him until he had moved his items. It took him two weeks and multiple visits to move his stuff and even still, he had left a number of small things laying around which we overlooked.

 He has not had his post redirected and constantly shows up at our house to collect it completely unexpectedly and then calls our numbers when we don't answer the door to ask where we are. We either have to arrange for him to collect his post or drop it off to him every week or so. This proves difficult as we are both working full time and barely get any time to ourselves as it is. He constantly shows up on our street and talks to neighbours etc, which is fine but its becoming strange. 

We had to tell him to get a redirection, which he still hasn't and he seems frosty with us now. I don't want him to gossip to our neighbours about us. 

Where do we stand legally if he continues to bother us? 

Thanks

Block his phone number so he can’t call you, don’t answer the door to him and put his post in the bin from now on. 

You can’t do much about him talking to his old neighbours but if he harasses you by showing up at your house uninvited report the matter to the police. 

See post above.

lookstraightahead

What is his situation? How long was he there? Fond memories?

pinkshoes

Just return mail to sender and deny any knowledge of there being any mail.

lookstraightahead

Lover_of_Lycra said:

Josiea said:

Hi All,

We completed on the purchase of our first property at the end of April. Firstly, when we collected the keys from him, it felt as if he was reluctant to give us them and did a full tour of the house all over again and it took over an hour for him to hand our keys over and leave the property. The vendor left the shed and garage full of his rubbish upon completion, our solicitor held money back from him until he had moved his items. It took him two weeks and multiple visits to move his stuff and even still, he had left a number of small things laying around which we overlooked.

 He has not had his post redirected and constantly shows up at our house to collect it completely unexpectedly and then calls our numbers when we don't answer the door to ask where we are. We either have to arrange for him to collect his post or drop it off to him every week or so. This proves difficult as we are both working full time and barely get any time to ourselves as it is. He constantly shows up on our street and talks to neighbours etc, which is fine but its becoming strange. 

We had to tell him to get a redirection, which he still hasn't and he seems frosty with us now. I don't want him to gossip to our neighbours about us. 

Where do we stand legally if he continues to bother us? 

Thanks

Block his phone number so he can’t call you, don’t answer the door to him and put his post in the bin from now on. 

You can’t do much about him talking to his old neighbours but if he harasses you by showing up at your house uninvited report the matter to the police. 

Or maybe h is struggling.

not saying he should be turning up but both sides need to be addressed.

Emmia

General_Grant said:

Irishpearce26 said:

Put the mail in the bin, perfectly legal as its your address. He will soon get the message and get a redirection.

Perhaps it's legal in Ireland.

But

The Postal Services Act 2000 states that it is not legal to open someone's post, or delay it reaching the owner.  Putting it in a bin would seriously delay its receipt.

The OP should cross through their address (but allowing it to be decipherable) and mark as "gone away" and put in a postbox.

Returning to sender usually stops the mail arriving pretty quickly so this is the approach I'd take.

It might take 6 months or so - as you can only return what you receive... but it is effective. 

At uni, a former resident of the shared house I lived in refused to redirect his contact lens subscription - after asking him to redirect it 3x I put the 4th one back in the post box with  return to sender message - he popped round to pick it up a few days later and was a bit narked that I'd gone through with this...no more contact lenses turned up though, and it was the last I saw of him.

user1977

General_Grant said:

Irishpearce26 said:

Put the mail in the bin, perfectly legal as its your address. He will soon get the message and get a redirection.

The Postal Services Act 2000 states that it is not legal to open someone's post, or delay it reaching the owner.

Not quite. That only applies if it's incorrectly delivered. Which it isn't in this case. I can't see the Act is relevant after the postie has put it through the correct letterbox.

GixerKate

Bit of an odd one, perhaps he is having difficulty letting go?

You don't need to do anything, personally I would definitely change the locks as you have no guarantee that he has given you all of the keys.  If you want to keep things polite next time he appears for his post let him know that this is the last time you will be holding onto his post and from then on you will be putting them back in the post with 'not known at address, return to sender'.  After that do not have any contact with him.

As unpleasant as the thought is, if he does gossip with the neighbours then there isn't much you can do, I would like to think your neighbours will form their opinion of you based on interaction with you not someone who has moved elsewhere.

MaryNB

General_Grant said:

Irishpearce26 said:

Put the mail in the bin, perfectly legal as its your address. He will soon get the message and get a redirection.

Perhaps it's legal in Ireland.

But

The Postal Services Act 2000 states that it is not legal to open someone's post, or delay it reaching the owner.  Putting it in a bin would seriously delay its receipt.

The OP should cross through their address (but allowing it to be decipherable) and mark as "gone away" and put in a postbox.

Only if "intending to act to a person’s detriment and without reasonable excuse, he opens a postal packet which he knows or reasonably suspects has been incorrectly delivered to him" after receiving it or "without reasonable excuse, he- (a)intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post". If the OP has received the letter it already has been transmitted by post, they're not stopping it being posted any further than it was intended. It's the vendor's fault for not providing a correct address.

In OP's case it would be hard to give a reasonable excuse; however in a former rental we had loads of letters for a former tenant. She refused to give a forwarding address and eventually blocked all our numbers. After receiving a enormous amount of letters that were from debt collectors (we checked the postcode on the return addresses) and after "returning to sender" had no impact we opened the letters and started calling companies to tell them she wasn't living there because we were worried about bailiffs. We had tried to get her forwarding address and even contacted the letting agency for a forwarding address but they couldn't get one either, she was acting in her own detriment, we weren't because we had tried to forward them to her.