Fraudulent use of my address

[namechangemyaddress123]

Posting here for traffic, have posted in legal too.

Looking for some advice on what I can do.
The previous owner of our house is using our address still, I kept getting letters for him and sending back not at this address but the sheer amount made me suspicious so I now open them to inform the sender by telephone he doesn't live here.
We've had sheriff officers at the door for him with court orders, dvla letters, fines etc and the latest is a letter from thameslink railway with a notice of prosecution. He gave this address out just 6 weeks ago! He hasn't lived here for 2 years.
Should I call the police and if so what will they do?

[MatildaTheCat]

We've had similar from previous owner after 14 years. Speeding fines from France last year. I told the dvla who couldn't do anything. Sorry, no use to you unless you do have an address to pass to the authorities.

[namechangemyaddress123]

No, unfortunately I don't know where he is. I think he is 'known' to the authorities. He's had several businesses and been bankrupted previously. Maybe they could trace him anyway? Just not sure if it's something the police would even be interested in.

[SpotTheDuck]

I'd contact the police as he's committing fraud and I think giving the wrong address to DVla is a criminal offence?

[harderandharder2breathe]

At this point where you know it's deliberate i would speak to the police about fraud

[CostaAddict]

No help sorry but we went through similar. For the past year we received letters from debt collections to our address but no idea who the named person was. I was returning them with not known at this address but they kept coming.

Eventually had enough two weeks before Christmas when I got court papers served but again in this guys name. I called the court and the lawyer firm and told them I'd had enough. This person couldn't ever have lived here either as it's a new build and I bought it from the planning stage!

They said they'd take my address off their system and apologised. Haven't heard anything else since so fingers crossed.

[harderandharder2breathe]

My employer uses a tracing company to find people who have been reported as not at the address we hold (we have a legal duty to make efforts to do this, as we hold their money in our accounts). I'm positive the police can do so even more effectively if they want to.

[Hadalifeonce]

If this were happening to me, and the police/authorities weren't interested; I would check in the paperwork from the house purchase to see if I had details of his solicitor's address; I would then forward all correspondence to them, I am sure they would then act. Good luck.

[namechangemyaddress123]

Good idea hadalife. I will contact police in first instance then go down that route if I have to.

[TheMerryWidow1]

I had this when someone used my address to get a mobile phone. When I contacted the mobile phone company they suggested contacting the police for a crime number just in case it went further. Hope that helps.

[scurryfunge]

You need to contact ActionFraud.

[FinnMcCool]

You should get a credit report done. Noddle is free I think. Any identity fraud will show on your report.

[namechangemyaddress123]

My credit report is clear, he's not using our names so no identity fraud. Only using our address to avoid paying fines / being prosecuted for things by the looks of it.

[paxillin]

I had the same and when I contacted the bailiffs who kept writing they wanted to come around and collect the debts from us! They were quite threatening on the phone. It did stop after those calls though.

[blueskyquacking]

This has only happened to me in rented accommodation, so not quite the same, but usually it can be cleared up with a bit of persistence.

In the first case someone (a stranger who as far as I could tell had never lived there for at least a decade if ever) had been putting my address down on parking tickets and the like. We'd been ignoring the letters with her name on because we got lots of post for former tenants we didn't know, but then the bailiffs came to the door one day. Luckily my housemate was savvy enough to know we didn't have to let them in. The landlady had to contact the bailiff company to a) demonstrate that she owned the premises and b) confirm that the person named in the court notice didn't live there. (In particular that it wasn't me, since I was the only tenant of the relevant gender/sex.) It meant they had my and my housemates' names, which we weren't happy about, but it stopped them threatening to take our stuff because a random person used the address somewhere dodgy.

In the second case a previous tenant of my flat hadn't paid council tax for some time and had somehow avoided them finding out his new address. Fixing that one involved me spending a lot of time on the phone pointing out that I lived on my own and had been paying council tax more or less on time since I stopped being a full time student. I don't remember if they needed to contact the landlord to verify this - I think I gave them the phone number just in case.

If you're the homeowner, letting the relevant organisations know (sometimes repeatedly for the same ones) that you bought the house outright from this guy, haven't rented it back to him, have no connection with him, etc. should eventually solve the problem. I suggest using some written communication - even if the phone is the way you will ultimately get through to someone - purely to have a paper trail that you can whip out if it happens again.