Dumb Previous House Owner... AIBU?

You should not open or bin her mail just return to sender and stop being childish

It’s only illegal to open post if you are doing it to someone else’s detriment. Opening post to forward it on would not be illegal. Opening post to find out who to notify that it hasn’t been delivered would not be illegal.

But I would just be writing return to sender, not known at this address on everything that comes through and keeping it in a pile until you next walk past a post box.

Surely forwarding on final demands leaves you at more risk than notifying the sender that she doesn’t live there more, as otherwise how would they know not to send the bailiffs to your address.

The key issues are opening without a reasonable excuse and to someone’s detriment. Perfectly reasonable to open something which might be a final demand / from debt collectors

I would have returned to sender long ago. the mail redirect that royal mail does works well so there's no excuse for not using it!

I have 😂 Obviously POA doesn't apply!

Happy to be proven wrong if you want to link it here.

RTS doesn’t work at all. My ex boyfriend didn’t pay a parking fine and it went all the way to a hand delivered letter from bailiffs despite me sending every letter back to the council and telling the debt collection company he didn’t live here. In the end I sent the council an email through Resolver and it was sorted within hours - wish I’d done that first instead of walking to the postbox to return each letter!

I would either send the lady a letter or go round to her house and tell her you’ve returned all cards, demands, PIN numbers to sender and she needs to change her address on everything for security. The wrong post is only an issue for her not you, but outstanding bills get sent to debt collection for your address. Or you could contact the estate agent and ask them to speak to her but I doubt they will want to get involved or see it as their problem

While it is her problem. I don't see why it isn't hard to shove all her post in a bag and send a reminder to her saying, look we have lots of your post here for collection you might want to think about redirecting your mail. It does take a while to stop. Or just return to sender everything.

I suggest you do

Chuck them straight in the bin. It's her problem to sort out

I wonder how many of your forwarded letters are getting to her. I think Royal Mail no longer undertakes to honour a crossed out and readdressed letter. And redirection, which has probably run out also is far from 100%.

But yes, bank card and PIN is too much!

if mail is not addressed to your name it's illegal to open it even if you own the house. this is why there is a return address FYI.

i would just throw them in the bin if i was you

I suggest you read up on the law 🤦‍♀️

Have you actually called O2 and spoken to them to explain? I found this more effective than returning post. It's important because of course it'll be registered as an issue against your address. As for the other stuff I would just return it in the post.

I feel for you though - we are still returning mail from a guy that moved out 7 years ago! I went round to see him the other day about it, he was apologetic but clearly can't be bothered.

DP got a letter recently as one bank has taken over another. They said they’ve used banking records with other banks to get his current address and need him to confirm it’s him. Apparently, this bank has been writing to him at an old address since 2002. He doesn’t even remember having a bank account with these people and when he called them to discuss, they couldn’t confirm anything and obviously he didn’t want to hand over any details. Also, I’ve changed addresses and still had stuff sent to old addresses

it’s likely she forgot she has this bank or has no idea.

I’d write her a letter saying you have received this and please can she go through her accounts etc to keep her safe and stop hassle for you. Say nothing else will be forwarded from this date.

you’re not at risk of her being linked to your address. Any bailiff etc will ask and your credit rating isn’t affected.

How you read my comment is on you.

My point is that i dont generally call people dumb and stupid. That is just not who I am, and it is not something I can get on board with.

Hence i said “you lost me” and didn’t post anything further.

The widow part - yes, I do have empathy for that.

I said i lost interest at the dumb and stupid part.

No it’s not - it’s perfectly lawful unless you do it with intent to defraud. It’s actually quite sensible if it’s final demands and you can head off a bailiff

Yes it is

It is illegal to open mail not addressed to you!! Yes you can be prosecuted!!

Lol, really? She must have done something dodgy then as it's not against the law

NO IT'S NOT FFS

To be fair to the person who quoted you originally, your comment read as if it was unfair to call a widow those things, implying that a widow can be neither. Otherwise why is it an issue to call them that? If you do something stupid expect to be called stupid…

For those saying she wasn’t dumb… you don’t think requesting a pin reminder without updating your address first isn’t dumb? It’s certainly not the most savvy thing she could have done!

This does not work!

And BTW, for those who have said it’s illegal to open someone else’s mail, it is not if you’re doing it for a valid reason, e.g. in our case, the person was believed to have left the country, no forwarding address left with either estate agent or solicitor.

In fact we had all this twice - 2nd former owner also believed to have returned to his country of origin. He was the freeholder of the property and we needed to contact him, since we wanted to buy the FH.

In the end, I used a tracing service - he was living just 3 miles away under another name - because of debts attached to the freehold! They found him inside 10 days and when I asked how they could be sure it was him they said, ‘We have our methods!’

I'd send the bank stuff back to her bank but anything else I'd bin.

RTS depends on the company- many due process that information but if they can’t get another address they keep that one. So if the lady had moved abroad, but as she’s just across town and potentially has registered for council tax and to vote at that new address, it’ll be straightforward for a company chasing payment to find her.