Dumb Previous House Owner... AIBU?

IT'S NOT ILLEGAL TO OPEN SOMEONE'S MAIL

But OP you really should have been doing "not at this address" for quite some time now, not just forwarding it on

Debt and unpaid bills are linked to the person, not the address.

If you were ever to have a bailiff come round, you just need to explain that this person doesn't live at your address and hasn't since X date, you can show them your council tax bill to show that you are now the occupant of the property.

Opening someone else's mail is not automatically an offence in the UK.
That's an urban myth. HTH.

If you suspect Identity Fraud you may have to open the mail to deal with it.
Financial institutions, and especially loan companies will often take no notice of RTS or of phone calls without the identifiers you can only get from the inside of the letter. In fact often you cannot even tell who to call without opening the letter.

But the OP doesn’t have a reasonable reason to do so, she should just mark it return to sender, not known at this address”. It don’t matter what the post is, if it’s got a return address on it and is clearly named for the previous owner she’s got no reasonable excuse to open it.

unlikely she’ll get in trouble for it, but she’s making her own life harder by not just returning so they stop sending things to this address.

exactly, it would only be illegal if OP acted on the PIN and used the bill in the ex owner’s name. All she’s done is check on would could affect her.

Exactly the same here. It doesn't work at all, the post still arrives. Had to provide my council tax bill and my driving license many times now!!!

From experience, ‘Not known at this address’ doesn’t work! We had the same stuff coming again and again. So in the end I had to start opening it - it was all bills/unpaid fines, etc. and as far as we knew, the previous owner had buggered off back to his country of origin. Certainly no forwarding address.

In the end, to prevent bailiffs coming round, I had to write to all the creditors to explain, and then again with a copy of my council tax bill. They did then all back off.

Same here just had a card arrive - we’ve lived here over 5 years

In the past year I’ve had stuff from DVLA and the Inland Revenue

The people we bought this house off were nasty bullies

@zingallyyou are handling this wrong! You don’t forward it to her and you certainly don’t open the post /cut cards in half etc! You cross over the address on the envelope and write “not known at this address” on it and put it back in a post box.

This then goes back to the company who have procedures for updating their mailing lists that she’s not at that address. You are going to cause more problems with bailiffs by keeping her linked to your address the way you are.

Don’t forward post, don’t open post - return all unopened.

Did you have council elections since you moved in? Did you get a polling card for her if you did? Because if not, she’s probably registered to vote at her new address which will mean those chasing her for debts will be able to find her- but they won’t look for a new address if you keep failing to follow the standard procedure of returning the post to them.

It is not against the law. The law is that you can't interefe with post intended for someone else if you intend to deprive them in some way. So if OP intends to use the card/PIN number then that would be illegal. The act of opening mail addressed to someone else is not.

This is the exact wording of the law:
"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."

So in this instance, the OP is not intending to act to the person's detriment, and she has a reasonable excuse (its been addressed and delivered to her house, where she lives).

I would just assume that she never uses the credit card, it's automatically renewed and that's why it's gone to the old house and she hasn't missed it.

I still sometimes get post for the previous occupants of my cottage and I've been here six years. I just shove it back in the box with 'not at this address' on it.

I think you’ll find it isn’t actually against the law unless you do it for malicious purposes. So if you used the card and pin yes, just opening a Christmas card, no.

We've been in our house for five years and still get all sorts of their important mail, from credit cards to vehicle tax reminders, parking tickets, bank statements, money demands....this is all for a lady who has a huge presence online selling her books and lifestyle bits and bobs. She's clearly not an absolute idiot so 🤷‍♀️ I've even had a bailiff turn up at our door as she hadn't paid a parking fine...which I'm not surprised about as her bloody car is still registered to this address! I've sent post back, contacted companies, tried to find an address for her. Apparently she is in and out of the country. Massive pain in the arse. She has herself a CCJ now off the back of it so serves her right.

I am sure it's illegal to open someone's else mail.

It's not if you have a reasonable excuse to do so. People recite the "It's ILLEGAL, you could go to prison!!!!1" without any knowledge of the actual law.

If you do what you're meant to - Return to Sender and say Not Known at this Address, they will put a stop on her card. That may jolt her into action.

I know this because, having not received a statement for one of my cards last month I phoned up to check the balance I needed to pay and found out this had happened. Not because I've moved recently but because some 'dumb' neighbour in a nearby road with a similar name (eg I'm 1 Acacia Avenue, they're 1 Acacia Drive) had done this. (Instead of just bringing it round*, sticking it back in a post box or giving it back to the post person because, FFS, this isn't unusual and I DO live at the address the statement was sent to, it was just misdelivered 🙄)

*I've done this with their stuff coming to me in a similar misdelivered way.

Hm..id be careful with bank cards. She could accuse you of all sorts if you have her card and pin. Give it back to the bank so there is a record.

To be fair Vodafone chased the dead occupant of our house for 2 years after he died. Despite his family closing all accounts. In the end I had to start shouting about GDPR because they asked me for the account number and I had to open the post to do that and all sorts but it still took 3 angry calls on my part. So it might not be her. We got all our post redirected for 6 months and I've no idea does stuff still go to them- I hope not.

I had this for 5 years. I put it all in the bin. If they’ve had court summonses and have debts now it’s their issue

I rang the Police when I opened a summons with our new address on it.

Policewoman listened then said "why are you opening their mail?"

I put the phone down!

I don't really understand why you've not just sent the letter back saying 'not at this address' already

Your mistake was forwarding post onto the previous owner.

What you should have done, and what you should do now (without opening any mail) is cross out your address, write “MOVED - RETURN TO SENDER” on the front of the envelope, and stick it back in a post box.

That way the sender will know she has moved and will stop sending you stuff. It might take a while for the sender to update all their systems properly, but it will eventually stop her post coming to you.

It is against the law and with a harsh penalty could even be prison for opening it.

LOL, the OP's not going to prison for this! 🤣🤣

Let's keep it real.

She's passing the mail on to the previous owner, not going on a mad shopping spree with her bank card!

Same here, I’ve been living at this address for 4 months and the previous owner has had so many bills, cards, bailiffs and Christmas packages at my door. I found her on fb and was about to message her, luckily my partner stopped me. I just don’t understand how people move out and act like they’ve moved across the world and everything is forgotten.

This is not unusual when you move house.

I am sure it's illegal to open someone's else mail.

You just write 'not known at this address' on everything you receive for her and drop it onto a post box.

You say she 'begrudgingly' gave you her new address but I'm not sure that she has to do that.

To call her 'dumb' is very unkind.

This ^