To not be wanting to be bothered by past owner's mail

[redoneslast]

Three years on.
Its getting irritating.

[Tramadol]

Why do you let it irritate you? I just bin it!

[redoneslast]

I think thats illegal

[belgo]

Leave it out for the postman to collect?

And as you say, you cannot just bin it.

[Gleekfreak]

You're right, it is illegal! Have the same prob here, but only 18months of return to senescing here:o

[Gleekfreak]

Sendering! :o

[TrinityMotherOfRhinos]

YANBU

I still get fils, dss1's, bils and deceased dhs

[WorzselMummage]

We still get post for the people that used to be here. We've been here 5 years!

I open it, have a nose and then recycle it.

[Katiekatiekatekate]

It's illegal?!?!!? OOOPS!

[mousesma]

Anything thats still coming 3 years on is unlikely to be important. They are probably just circulars from some mailing list they are on. Bin them!

[cocoachannel]

Oops, I've always just chucked it on the recycling...

What are you meant to do with it if no return address?

[redoneslast]

I keep getting their child's health clinic appointments etc and invoices for his business.

[23balloons]

sounds like us. for the first 2 years the previous owners didn't even change their address just continued to use ours & got a redirection from the post office. Last year I got a tax disc letter from DVLA and reported them for still using our address. One day we had a sign for delivery of x-rays (for them), they got their xrays delivered here! I find it quite annoying as they sold the house and have no business using our address for their mail. don't get too much now, but did get a lot of their Christmas cards this year - with no return address. i binned them

[EauRouge]

I didn't realise it was illegal to bin them either We sometimes get ones marked 'important'. Clearly the letters are so important that the company doesn't know that the previous occupants moved 8 years ago.

[hester]

I moved recently, and paid the Royal Mail for redirection, which hasn't worked properly from the start. The new owner hasn't forwarded on one thing, despite me having left my address.

According to my code, that's mean. But you're not. I reckon the deal is: you forward on for one month. After that, they should have got themselves sorted out and you are under no moral responsibility to keep forwarding.

You shouldn't open someone else's mail, though; that is illegal, isn't it?

[redoneslast]

Who's opening it?

[mizu]

We still get mail for people who used to live here 3 and a half years ago. Sometimes i put them in the recycling or write not known at this address and put back in the postbox. Annoying .though having to do that

[Fernie3]

We get loads for our landlord - haven't opened them but creative holding up to the light has revealed things like court dates ( landlord was in prison we found out after we moved I'm but obviously can only see the first line without opening). Anyway we have started taking them round to the agency each morning on the way tp school. We get between 2 and 6 most days they obviously haven't changed anything. We are hoping the agency will get bored of me clogging uo the office with a double buggy and twp older children each day and get the landlord yo change them.

After three years if your houses previous owner hasn't been arsed changing the address it really cannot be that important. It may be illegal to get rid of mail ( really?) but it's what i and most other people would do.

[hester]

Not you, OP. WorzelMummage is the guilty woman!

[Ripeberry]

Previous owners moved out 10yrs ago. They never gave a forwarding address but came round everyweek for a year to pick up post.

Still getting post now, but it's all from companies trying to trace them for outstanding debts.

No wonder they never told us!

[StataLover]

YANBU

Previous owners of our house didn't leave forwarding address. For a year we traipsed to estate agent every now and then to deliver their mail.

Turns out they're in shit loads of debt so thought it would be nice for bailiffs to turn up at our house instead of theirs. I have since opened mail and phoned debt collection agencies to inform them that the previous owners no longer at this address.

You're allowed to open mail that's not yours if you have a reasonable excuse - and I think that avoiding having bailiffs turn up is a pretty good one.

[WorzselMummage]

Naughty moi!

[tribpot]

I still get DVLA letters for the previous owners, have lived here for 4 years. I don't bin them, but make no attempt to contact the previous owners even though I could quite easily, in the hopes that this year they'll consider actually updating DVLA. They never had a redirection - at some points in my life I've had two going on simultaneously, often for years at a time.

Mostly I return stuff as 'not known at this address' (important to do this for screening letters from the NHS, for example, so GPs aren't being paid for patients who've moved away without telling them). In a previous rented house, the landlords used to supply me with stamped addressed envelopes to forward on any post that arrived for them - that seemed perfectly reasonable to me and I happily did it.

[hugglymugly]

We get sundry mail for people who've never lived here. When it's obvious that it's just a mailshot, e.g. catalogues incorrectly addressed, they go straight in the bin (unless I want to have a browse first ).

For what appears to be legitimate mail, I'd suggest using a thick marker pen and scribbling over the address; then once a month bundle them all up with an elastic band and post them in the most convenient mail box. There's a specific department in Royal Mail for undelivered post, so at least a months-worth would possibly be interesting for the poor soul who has to deal with it.

Sure, there is a requirement for dealing with other people's post in a responsible fashion, but not to have to go out of your way on a frequent basis because they haven't sorted themselves out appropriately.

[exexpat]

I'm still getting stuff for the previous owners three and a half years on - they had post office redirection for a year, but obviously hadn't told a lot of people after that as I was still getting stuff from the inland revenue for them a few months ago, and car tax at least two years after they had moved. I sent official-looking things on to them (only had an office address) with bigger and bigger messages scrawled on the front saying 'please tell the tax office you have moved.'

There was also a spate of letters from one particular law firm over several weeks - not sure what about, but I didn't fancy getting bailiffs or whatever round here looking for people, so I emailed the firm to give them the previous owner's office address.

I have now decided that enough is enough and I'm marking them all return to sender and putting them back in the post. I can see it carrying on for years though...

[Jux]

We thought we'd got the end of ex-inhabitants' post coming to us - after all we've only been here 5 years. However, in the last few weeks we're getting new ex-inhabitants' post - someone we have never heard of before, and didn't live here with the last family. He's persistent too, 5 in the last week.