Opened letter by mistake, previous owner

[BingoBastards]

I'm not sure what to do now, previous owner had a letter through. I wasn't looking properly to see it's not addressed to me and opened it. It's a cheque.

I've emailed him about it but what the fuck do I do? Tear it up and put it in the bin? I don't exactly want to get sued for opening a letter by mistake.

He had some life crisis and disappeared so I don't think he's going to respond to email

I’ve opened dozens of letters from the previous owners. Despite them leaving twelve years ago I still get post for them. I bin it if it’s not important or stick it back in the post with a ‘return to sender, not known at this address’. Obviously the cheque needs to go to him so why not email him asking where you should forward it to?

I’ve never been worried about opening their mail and no one’s ever come for me despite the obvious signs of taping the opened envelopes back down.

Why don’t people do an automatic redirect when they move, I always do.

This. I think people assumed you had no way of contacting him when advising return to sender.

Why did you not just email him and ask him where you could forward it to?

I'm another one who thinks it's odd to email him and then panic post it back immediately! I get he's not replied to previous messages. But if you've emailed regardless then you should at least wait a few days before posting. Think you need to email him again and explain you've put it back in the postbox to return to sender.

Just reseal and return to sender.

We still get the previous occupiers post three years later. Really important stuff too like HMRC, Companies House etc.
A massive piece of gym equipment (6ft long), bags of compost etc.
Even the police turned up to question one of them as a witness once!

Every now and then I message them and they have to pop by if it's a delivery. It's very odd!

We get dividend cheques for the owner of the house before the people we bought it from. He hasn’t lived here for eight years.

We have sent them back to the issuers several times. They don’t seem to take any notice ( as in, amend their records) . One famous financial institution sent the SAME cheque back twice.

We just shred them now, obviously neither of the parties concerned give a hoot,,so why should we. I’m not playing cheque tennis.

You've posted it back now op, so I wouldn't worry about it.
A good few years ago, my husband opened a letter which came through our letterbox.
I was shocked to be rudely awakened by him ( I was having a lay in ) angrily demanding to know why I'd taken an 18k loan out, why I'd not been repaying it and what the hell had I spent it on? He was almost puce at the bailiffs part of it.
Once I got the letter off him to read it properly, I managed to point out that the letter was for number 24a not 24 and it wasn't even our name on it!!
A very red faced and apologetic husband taped it back up and stuck it back in the postbox.
We never heard another thing, but we did listen out for an almighty row happening when the correct neighbour got it. Disappointed to say we never heard it if it did.

I was in a dilemma as although I've emailed him before about what to do with mail he has never responded and never given me a forwarding address.

This morning I checked on the mail from yesterday but opened this one by mistake, emailed him then didn't know whether to get rid of the cheque or send it back.

I have a couple of ways of getting hold of his telephone number but it seems like a lot of effort if he hasn't done me the courtesy of letting me know a forwarding address.

I've done that. We had recently moved in and then went on a 2 week holiday and returned to a moutain of mail. accidentally opened a tax return cheque for the previous owner. They'd been arses and rude and had not told us their forwarding address so I just sent it to their conveyancer with a cover note of apology.

Never heard another thing.

He's had MONTHS to sort his address. Just return everything to the sender. Don't email him again and don't try to get his address or phone number. Just STOP! He's clearly not bothered so stop trying to help him!

I've lived in my house for 16 years and still get post for the previous occupiers - one lot from a bank (!!!) and one from a chain store loyalty card thing. I redirected everything for the first five years or so but lost their address, then returned to sender for another five years. Now I've lost patience and just shred it. I can't imagine how you don't tell your bank where you live!

Christ. People really overreact on here.

Only an offence if it’s intentional, to cause harm.
I was still getting the odd letter 5 years after moving in so opened a couple by mistake.

After 6+ months of dutifully posting everything RTS for the previous owners, who didn’t do a mail redirection or didn’t “know where they were going”, I got fed up and started opening everything. I then spent over a year calling every single debt collection agency, telling them we’d moved in etc. every single place was nice to me apart from NatWest. Who I bank with, and had changed my address to the address of the previous owners. They were happy to keep sending threatening letters to my house, but the woman on the phone was horrible to me. It turns out the previous owners had literally done a bunk, somehow managed to skip out on everything.

On the other hand, before moving into this house, we had a rental for a few months in between. I did a mail redirection as I didn’t want to change addresses on every single thing twice. The lady who bought our old house must have got one poxy credit card statement for me, and instead of texting me, where I could have explained that it must have slipped through the redirection, she did RTS and my card got blocked when I was abroad in business and needed the card. That was fun.

OP, I think if the previous person hasn’t bothered to reply in the past, you’ve done about as much as you can. It was an accident! I even tried to call the previous people’s solicitors as the mail situation above was bonkers, but it was fruitless.

I have lived in my house for six years, still get mail for the previous owner, who's been dead for several years. It all goes in the recycling, I don't faff about returning it. Lots of them are from institutions who have ridiculous computer systems that can't accept being told she's dead from a random such as myself, so they keep sending her dividend cheques!

After husband I I bought our first house we were getting mail for the previous owners for years. One day I opened a letter from HMRC not realising it was addressed to her, not me (same initial, I just saw Miss X and opened it) and found a tax refund cheque for over £1000. I binned it in petty revenge for the shit she pulled when we were buying the place.

We also for our current house had no forwarding address and the vendors were very cagey.

Made sense when we started getting bailliffs turning up at the door. That was a total pain. So we started returning to sender saying not at this address and it stopped after about 2 years. It was stressful at the time but all the bailliffs who turned up were very polite and non threatening to us when we explained. They had seen it all before of course.

FWIW a few years later there was a DM article about the male vendor who was a total con man and was being sent to prison for fraud.

Yeah...I think I felt very hesitant this morning as I wanted him to have his cheque and felt bad I'd opened it.

Virtually everything is online nowadays so I can't understand why people keep buggering up. That creates enough problems in itself as when I'm asked for address I pause and say "do you want me to log into my online account?"

So all his mail straight back in the postbox now, I'm through

I dropped off stuff for the previous owner at the estate agents. They had a forwarding adddress.

Out of interest, does anyone know what Royal Mail do actually with letters sent back with 'return to sender' or 'unknown at this address' etc on them? Do they actually go to the bother of returning them to sender? I'd love to think that they do, but then again it's not a particularly efficient service for straightforward postal requirements....

Was there a name and address on the letter accompanying the cheque? If there was, I'd ring the sender and tell him so he can cancel the cheque.But I'm always telling strangers their bags are open or their skirts are tucked into their knickers too. Classic do gooder.

I still get mail for my previous owners. I’ve been here 2 years now. I opened one the other day by accident and it was a speeding ticket so they haven’t even changed the address that their cars are registered to.
Twice they’ve sent a Hello Fresh order here as well. I contacted them via the EA and no one picked them up so I got some free dinners.

Generally agree with passing bits on/repost with RTS - but in your case I would be concerned they are knowingly continuing to use your address as a cover address for their dodgy activities.....HMRC, police, and large valuable deliveries = red flags. Don't panic just start refusing deliveries and repost letters with 'person does not live here' thing.

We did that for three years. Why should the new owners be responsible for the previous owners lack of organisation skills?

Now I open them and laugh that she has been denied maternity allowance, has debt collectors chasing her and Vodafone cut off her phone plan.

The previous owner of a flat we bought left no forwarding address even with his solicitors - everyone seemed to think he’d returned to his country of origin.

I found out almost at once that he hadn’t paid his final electricity bill, and suspected a lot more debt - loads of mail kept arriving and RTS - no longer at this address - had zero effect.
So I started opening it - much was from debt collectors - at least £20k total. I wrote to them all - a dozen letter with copies of my CT bill, and they all backed off.

What really pisses me off is that I’m sure he could return to the UK tomorrow and what would happen to him? Precisely nothing.

Other countries are much stricter!

Dd knew of someone denied entry to Oz because of IIRC an unpaid speeding fine over a year previously.

Oh yeah I get that too (different person) but about car insurance - it was less than £100 (he asked me to open the letters and take a photo and send that on to him) so I said it was best to speak to them and get it reduced slightly then pay it.

Feeling lucky now that I only have bank accounts and NHS to change as I'd like to move soon