Still getting mail after 18 months.

[Summer84]

We bought our new house 18 months yet we are still getting mail for the people who used to live there before.
Within the first 3-4 months, we received:
Letters from HMRC
Letters from his accountant (he is self-employed)
Tickets to a show at the O2
Debit Cards
NI cards for the children
Letters from the banks

Anyway, we called the estate agents that we bought from and asked them to pass the mail on and tell the old owners to get a redirect, as we would not be doing this again.
When we moved we had a redirect from day one and still have the redirect on now until July, which means we would have had it for 2 years.

On Valentines day last year (after we had been in house for 7 months) we returned home to find a box of flowers on the doorstep, for the woman who used to live there, fortunately the box had a contact number on its label, I messaged this number and it turned out that the husband had ordered flowers and sent them to his old address…. Who does that??
When he came to pick them up, his words were “ I wondered why they hadn’t come. Thank you very much”.

Anyway, we receive more mail from
HMRC chasing a debt
DCAs chasing the HMRC debt
His accountant forwarding letters from the HMRC chasing debt

I really don’t need to go on with the ail that we get but we if we kept all of this mail we could have been a bad mad, who would have stored all of this data and if we did, we could have had:
Names
DOB
NIN
An address (albeit the old one)
Bank Details
Credit Cards
Car Registration details
Pension Details
The list goes on…

I have called the accountant a few times, as they would be the best person to prevent most of mail coming to us, but they still haven’t done anything as they need to speak to him first, they clearly haven’t said anything, but I know they have spoken to him recently, as he has called to pay invoices, as we receive the receipts.

But my latest thing is, I received a letter from the DVLA (V11) as her vehicle tax runs out at the end of this month and I am going to write to them and get her details removed and let them know that she does not live at my address and has not done so for 18 months, in the hope that they receive a fine when they find her, as it looks like she blatantly let her VT renew at my address and not hers last year. AIBU if I do this, as I have had enough and I am just waiting for the DCA to turn up at our door.

Yes, I understand that it can be a chore getting everything in order after moving, unless we are just mega organised, as we changed our details with literally all that needed to know within a month, as 6 months prior, we were making up the list of everybody that we would have to inform and whilst we have had our redirect in place for 18 months, we do get the odd letter, but these are mainly for sales, ie a previous window company…. Nothing of any importance. But 18 months…… what would you do?

I used to work for a letting agency so you can imagine all the post we use to get brought into the office. I simply use to not even open it, cross out the address across the front & write 'no longer at this address.' If I was feeling friendly and if it looked important I would write the new address on the envelope - but only the first line of the address and postcode and shove it back in the postbox.
It's not your responsibility to start writing people letters etc to inform them of change of address for somebody else!!! This is their shit not yours

Sorry, meant to say securely sealing it so that you can return to sender.

I opened the previous owners mail, good thing I did as it was about his bloody pacemaker and he was meant to be at the hospital. After that, I started ringing the companies. Now, anything that gets sent to me is either returned, or binned if it's leaflets etc.

Whilst you point out about the accuracies over whether I have the right to open this mail or not, surely, he should not have a right to be continuing to run his business from my address?

You're responsible for your choices, regardless of his.

You are over thinking this! Don't open it, don't bin it, return to sender. Yes, they are clearly incompetent losers but that isn't your problem.

Summer, I think everyone’s just trying to say you’re making life unnecessarily hard for yourself. It’s annoying, we all totally get that, and the addressees are a pair of arses - so just RTS it for a while and it’ll stop. Job done!

I had this two years after moving into our new home. Pension stuff, care home receipts and letters, medical stuff. Tried taking things to them, posting on, return to sender, not known at this address.... It still kept coming. Got very sick of it, esp after I'd written a letter along with a bunch of forwarded mail asking them to sort it out, and they didn't. Wrote a final (quite sharply worded) letter telling them they had a few options if they wanted to receive any more - pick it up, give me envelopes and stamps, or redirect! And to text me as to which they wanted to do. She rang up and left a message on my phone thanking me for what I'd done so far and asking me to call her. No idea why though, as the message was broken up. Had no patience left at that point, and didn't want to put in any more effort. Haven't heard from them since, nor had any mail apart from one xmas card, so I assume they finally sorted it out!
Give them the options, then throw stuff away. They've had plenty of chances to sort it out, and are now using a false address on legal documents!

i'm sorry dullclothesbrightmind but what does that even mean?

OP I had this - not for such a long time, but still...

I did RTS them but one letter looked particularly alarming, so I opened it. It was a letter from bailiffs - I was really glad I opened it as I was able to call and stop any visits.

I only carried on with the RTS for about six months. After 18 I think throwing it in the bin is fine, keeping any flowers or chocolates is fine.

For your own peace of mind, if you can see that it's DVLA or HMRC or whatever, I would email them rather than RTS. The RTS envelopes often sit in a corner for months waiting for someone to tackle them.

And don’t bin it, it won’t stop then as the senders won’t know there’s an issue.

We still have post 15 months after moving for previous occupiers. We've had debt collectors at the door. I just keep rts in the post box, I'm fairly fed up with it now though. I have rung a few people using the postcode on the envelope, because I'm not wild about debt collectors coming knocking, to tell them to please stop sending letters.

It's against the law to open someone else's mail

Can't believe thus rubbish is trotted out all the time on Mumsnet.

It is not against the law to open mail not addressed to you - it is against the law to intend to i intercept or stop the mail from reaching its intended recipient.

OP I had this at our last house - except it was loads of debt and eventually debt collectors. So if it has a return address on the back I usually returned to sender with 'not at this address since xxx'.

If there was no return address I opened it to see if there was contact details inside. If there was I occasionally returned it, if it looked important. Many times it was marketing so it got dumped.

Re the DVLA I had to write to them to remove 2 cars from my address as the previous owners idiot son kept getting speeding and parking fines.

Eventually it stops.

You should have kept the flowers.

summer, I suspect dullclothes means that two wrongs don’t make a right. Just because the other party is doing wrong, doesn’t give you carte blanche to do the same.

FWIW, I’d just mark them as ‘return to sender, not at this address since August 2017’ (or whenever)

It means it doesn't matter how incompetent he is that is not a justification for you opening someone else's mail.

If you want to help yourself, then as others have said, just return to sender and eventually it will stop.

If you want to keep yourself a state of outraged anger, then keep on opening it (OMG look at his important mail. He's such an idiot!). Not sure what you are hoping to get from doing that, or this angry post. Other than continuing to feel angry.

@Grace212 thank you for confirming that what I am doing is OK. all mail goes in the bin with the exception of anything that looks important, like the DVLA letter, HMRC letters,

As I also know that RTS letters are not processed with any urgency. As this happened on another old house, but after a while we just binned those letters too, as RTS didnt always work (some companies have confirmed previously that by law they have to write to the last known address until confirmed in writing by the person that they have moved with their new address)
that previous occupant had moved abroad but still kindly sorted his things out, but these people are just stupid!

PS. If I get flowers on Valentines day again this year, I will also keep them!

Why do you open things not addressed to you?

I didn’t know National Insurance cards were issued anymore

Haha @TheVonTrappFamilySwingers

I knew it was not against the law to open it and I also knew that this would be the first thing that would have been thrown at me,

Someone has said I am doing this to vent, and remain angry:

“If you want to keep yourself a state of outraged anger, then keep on opening it (OMG look at his important mail. He's such an idiot!). Not sure what you are hoping to get from doing that, or this angry post. Other than continuing to feel angry.”

This is not what I am doing, I simply wanted other peoples opinions. As at the moment, I am binning it, I did the good deed at the start by sending mail back via the estate agents, but I also told them to pass the message on, of telling them to redirect their mail, as I would not be going back to the agency with it.

Also given the fact that I have tried with the accountant, Which I think people are missing form this, RTS’ing his mail, they are still going to forward to my house, as this is his companies registered address?!???

And yes you are right – I should have kept the flowers!!!

@troubleswillbeoutofsight well up until at least a year ago - they did / do

Interesting I’ve just googled as I had a feeling this wasn’t so. National insurance cards were not issued after July 2011

Sorry if I was wrong I've always been told it's illegal to open someone else's mail. Although I'm not sure why you would want to open it.

In the bin it goes! If they cannot be bothered, why should I bother RTS!
You could keep putting them in the bin. Sure.
Or you could RTS by simply handing them back to the postie, or dropping them in a post-box. Guess which one has more chance of reducing the annoying mail?

For anyone interested, Postal Services Act 2000:

84 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, or

(b)intentionally opens a mail-bag.

(2)Subsections (2) to (5) of section 83 apply to subsection (1) above as they apply to subsection (1) of that section.

(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.

(4)Subsections (2) and (3) of section 83 (so far as they relate to the opening of postal packets) apply to subsection (3) above as they apply to subsection (1) of that section.

(5)A person who commits an offence under subsection (1) or (3) shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.

After 18 months I would definitely be binning everything.

What difference does it make to you if their vehicle is registered incorrectly? If they are hopeless at admin, it's their problem.

I still get stuff for a previous resident. I have been here for 6 years. They all go straight into the recycling.

NI cards havent been a thing for about 8 years 🤔