TV Licensing - STILL getting letters threatening prosecution for empty property!

[Galleryfluff]

Anyone have any experience of the same?

The property has been empty since the mid / end of 2019 & the TV Licence expired Feb 2020. Since then I have had a torrent of letters re the property being unlicensed & threatening a visit from the enforcement team / criminal record / £1000 fine plus legal costs. I have of course contacted the number on the letter to say the property is empty (several times), but that hasn’t stopped the letters.
We are in the process of selling, fingers crossed.

What to do? Anyone experienced the same - did you keep calling TV Licensing or just ignore them?

Don't ring. You can do a declaration online which is good for 2 years IIRC to state you don't need a licence.

Just.ignore them they have no powers, ,if anyone ever turns up.don't engage with them
they send these letters on a loop.they start off quite reasonable ,and become increasingly threatening ,( have had many ) in reality they can't do much ,then it all starts again with the reasonable letter .

I just notified them as per the procedure on their website. You just need to write to them or fill out the online form to declare the address is unoccupied, or declare the address doesn't require a licence. I wouldn't waste time ringing and would just have done the declaration as soon as the license was no longer needed.

www.tvlicensing.co.uk/cs/no-licence-needed/about.app

I don't have a TV licence at all (I don't have a TV and don't have any interest in watching or streaming live TV either) and I've quite literally never heard from them other than after 2 years (as per their policy) when they wrote to ask me to confirm it was still the case, which I did, and haven't heard from them since and nobody has ever come to the house - I'd ignore them if they did tbh.

@StaceySolomonSwash &@dontgobaconmyheart I haven’t done the online declaration, I didn’t realise I could do that when I first contacted them to say the licence was no longer needed. I’m reluctant to do it now as I assume I would need to give my name & address (letters are currently sent to empty property addressed to ‘the legal occupier’). I’d rather they didn’t have my name & address tbh.

@x2boys I think you are right about the letter loop, just looked back at some of the earlier letters & have had the same ones a few times.

You can literally just ignore the letters and absolutely nothing will happen.

I'm a tenant in a property. Never had a TV. We watch netflix that's it.

They send the letters on a loop as a pp said. They come in different varieties, always threatening. They don't follow up on those. If they wanted to, they'd have to get a warrant. To do that they need to reasonably prove tv is being watched in the property. Which they can't do, if it isn't. If they got access they'd find there is no TV and you're doing nothing wrong.

So you have zero to worry about.

They used to send people to my house, they would knock and when I answered start asking questions without saying who they were. After they did this a couple of times I just started asking bluntly who they were when I opened the door and sitting the door in their face without seeing a thing. I've done this several times, nothing more happens.

They also asked to come in. I said do you have a warrant, they said no. They would start to argue that if I've got nothing to hide, I'd be happy to let them in. But this isn't the way the law works. I don't have to prove anything to them. This the door shut on them.

Hope this helps op.

I gave up with watching TV last year and informed tv licensing that i no longer watch tv or even have a set. They hounded me for a while with letters and e mails which i ignored and they finally got the message. One letter even informed me that the investigation was on going and i will be visited by an inspector. Ignore them and they will go away.

One place I lived was on their database twice.
I had a tv licence for the address, but I got lots of letters for the other incarnation. After I'd rung up a couple of times and the promises to stop sending the letters hadn't been kept I just ignored them. They definitely did seem to be on a cycle of different levels of angry/threat but no one ever turned up on the doorstep.

This

My mom had something similar her boyfriend bought a TV they asked his name and address them they got letters threatening them because HE had no TV licence....its in HER name 😑 took ages to sort out

i was the same, i ignored them, if they wanted to send someone out to check that was on them, i didnt care, i done my bit by cancelling the licence and telling them it was empty

The letters get filed straight in the bin here.

Send a declaration online from their website and then make a complaint.

Sorry pressed send too soon. I don't need a tv licence so made the declaration online but they continued to send me threatening letters. I made a complaint via their online service and haven't heard anything since but did receive an apology.

"You can do a declaration online which is good for 2 years IIRC to state you don't need a licence."

Or you can just not bother.

There was nothing to "sort out", because you were licenced.

Just let them waste their time and money.

Yes I just ignored them. Nobody was living there so the TV wasn't being used and it was pretty obvious the place was in the process of being cleared.

Nobody ever came in person to check

Just ignore them. Don’t waste your time, let them waste theirs.

Obviously the letters bother you, but you are doing nothing wrong, it is just annoying letters. House is empty anyway, so nothing for them to find even if they were allowed in to 'inspect', which is unlikely anyway. Personally I would just chuck the letters in the bin.

If you're desperate to stop the letters, you could go online and complete the online 'no licence needed' declaration, giving a different email address to your usual one? That should stop the letters for 2 years, but honestly you have nothing to worry about.

They kept sending them to the house next door which had collapsed about 20 years and was now just a grassy pile of rubble.

Because there was no letterbox and our addresses were very similar 'Hamlet House/ Hamlet Cottage' we got them put through our letterbox by posties who had no idea the second property ever existed.

We looked forward to the threatened knock on our door so we could show them the pile of rubble but no one ever came. They just stopped eventually.

Just ignore them. Even if they send someone round then there's noone in to speak to them anyway. They can't force entry and they can't fine you if they have no evidence