Why would someone not redirect their post?

badmemory

I've been here over 30 years now & every Christmas I still get a card for, not the people who lived here before me, but the one before them so the early 80s.

The one who lived here before me didn't redirect but the reason became obvious when the bailiffs came calling.

Ramouth

We have moved twice this year.  The first time we used redirection, the second we didn’t as we thought it would be quick to change all the addresses as we had done it recently.  However, there are probably some we haven’t changed from the first time.  The list was extremely long and includes things we don’t seem to have the correct login for.  Each one of these can take over an hour to sort out on the phone - some then require us to write a letter and post it to them.  We work full time and some companies are only available in working hours.

There is also I suspect a big chunk of laziness in my case!  So apologies to those of you irritated by other people’s mail, some of us just find it hard.

Abbafan1972

This thread makes me think of the one where the previous occupant of the OP's house kept turning up for his post unannounced and I think he let himself into the garage as well!

user1977

Drawingaline said:

We keep getting NHS letters for the previous occupiers child. They moved abroad. I have been returning them but won't be for much longer, they will be going in the bin.

Got several vaccination letters here for previous foreign student residents (including one who I've never seen any other mail for, so must be long gone), so presume they're still on local GP lists. Wonder at what stage (if ever) they're presumed to have moved on, rather than just so healthy they never use the NHS.

lookstraightahead

Nine of us actually know for sure if all our post is being redirected. How would we?

Some people have maybe died, be one unwell, had personal issues. The very least we can do is see it for what it is. 

TripleH

I had it with a recently rented property that paperwork was coming through including legal paperwork for the previous tenant 'buying a flat' again not inconsequential.

I contacted the solicitors and told them their client didn't live here anymore and destroyed the paperwork.

After 2 months of receiving bank statements I walked into a bank branch (same 1 I used) and handed the paperwork over telling them the account holder didn't live there andI was concerned about their exposure to fraud.

The statements stopped coming.

TBagpuss

I also find it odd - but it does seem to be very common.  I've owned three houses in my life and none of the people I bought from got their post redirected. 
The first one I could understand, as it was a couple who bought it panning to move in together then split up, so I don't think they ever actually lived there.
My second house, the people I bought from were horrible people and didn't leave a forwarding address - I marked stuff return to sender for the first few months then after that everything went straight into the recycling - if they don't care, why should I? 
I did once receive a letter from the council for the resident before them, she was an elderly lady who had moved into sheltered accommodation, and in that case it was the council's error - she'd sent them ID to claim a free bus pass or something of that kind, and provided her current address, but they'd used the old one . So that I sent on to her with a note explaining what had happened, and it was handy as it meant I could also forward the occasional Christmas card which arrived for her! 

Current house the owners didn't set up forwarding. When I got the keys the seller said to me that he would 'pop by' every so often to pick yup post. I told him that didn't work for me, but that I was happy to forward things if he gave me a forwarding address, for a few weeks until he had got royal mail forwarding set up. He didn't provide a forwarding address and obviously didn't set up forwarding either. I took a big envelope of post down to the agents who dealt with the sale about two weeks later, and then after that just mark stuff RTS and put it back in the post. I've been there 7 years and still get post for them but these days I mostly just bin it.

I did discover just over a year after I moved in that one of them was trying to use my address for their car insurance . 

Nifty_Purse

Just adding this:

Postal Services Act 2000:

"Interfering with the mail: general.

(1)A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, he—

(a)intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post,

and

(3)A person commits an offence 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."

Postal Services Act 2000:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/section/84

user1977

Nifty_Purse said:

Just adding this:

Postal Services Act 2000:

"Interfering with the mail: general.

(1)A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, he—

(a)intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post,

and

(3)A person commits an offence 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."

Postal Services Act 2000:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/section/84

None of that is relevant to what we're talking about. The mail ceases to be "in the course of transmission by post" as soon as the postie has delivered it. And if it's addressed to your address, it isn't "incorrectly delivered" - the postie has correctly delivered it to your address (even if the addressee doesn't live there).

Section62

user1977 said:

Nifty_Purse said:

Just adding this:

Postal Services Act 2000:

"Interfering with the mail: general.

(1)A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, he—

(a)intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post,

and

(3)A person commits an offence 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."

Postal Services Act 2000:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/section/84

None of that is relevant to what we're talking about. The mail ceases to be "in the course of transmission by post" as soon as the postie has delivered it. And if it's addressed to your address, it isn't "incorrectly delivered" - the postie has correctly delivered it to your address (even if the addressee doesn't live there).

This ought to be a sticky... the same thing comes up so regularly.