Can I redirect elderly relatives mail?

[fulgrate]

I have POA and take care of an elderly relative, he is very frail and lives in a flat with internal stairs. I am trying to stop him going down the stairs, but when mail arrives he will go to get it. He has no idea what to do with the letters and just leaves them in a pile for me to sort when I go up. I was wondering if I could redirect his mail to my house which would then stop him going downstairs unnecessarily.

Does anyone have e any experience?

Theoretically you could I guess with his permission , he willl get a letter to say it's been redirected

If you have POA you can set up redirection under special circumstances. It's in here www.royalmail.com/d8/help/redirection#:~:text=If%20you're%20applying%20on,and%20terms%20and%20conditions%20here.

Have you put up a sign on the door saying No Junk Mail?

If there was a box inside the letter slot where mail could fall, would he leave it in there for you?

Yes you can do this. But be aware that they do have restrictions for the length of time you can redirect it for. They may now wave this for poa due to the exceptional nature. But they didn’t for us - it was pre pandemic. But worth checking time limits.
As you have poa, it might be easier to just get the relevant post directly addressed to your address eg utilities and bank. Leaving personal correspondence to go directly to your relative.

I have POA for my dm. I could get post from the bank sent to my address instead (chose not to).

Utility bills could all go online

She used to get loads of catalogues & letters from charities she'd donated to. I unsubscribed her from everything.

Optician reminders etc you can stop those too.

Might be worth doing this as well as considering redirection of post?

DM's post was just like a job creation scheme for me at one point! X

He wouldn't understand to be able to give permission.

Thank you

Yes, it's not junk mail that's the problem though

I considered this but I think it would juts add confusion. We have to be very careful not to make any changes in the house now.

Thanks, I actually didn't think of this. It's probably the best solution.

What about a mail box on the outside wall. Then he wouldn't know the postman had been

I have as much online as possible already but I didn't consider contacting the source of the mail, I think this is probably what I will do now. Thank you.

The bloody eye test one has been the hardest of all the crap to stop!!

I did think of this but I'm not sure how safe it would be in the location (flat door faces onto main road)

Would anyone bother with it really? The odds of there being anything in it worth stealing are remote. Mines empty most of the time.

I don't really know but it is a consideration

I redirected all my DF mail to me. I have PoA, but helped him do it. I think this was a few years ago, if theres a time limit Royal Mail havent worried about it. Almost everything is re-adressed to me now anyway, but it did feel like a full tine job getting it sorted out!

If you get it redirected then you can unsubscribe him from everything to minimize the amount of post you are dealing with, and contact any companies you want post from to change address.

Eventually all the post will be addressed to your address and the redirect won't be needed.

Mum hiding, losing post - delusional. How can I arrange for post redirect without POA.

Start a new thread - you’re more likely to get good responses than on this older thread.

Please can someone advise on post redirection without POA for elderly delusional relative.

Came on here looking for help with this too. my elderly* *parent has dementia and Is throwing important mail in the bin such as hospital appointments etc. I do have POA .I've tried contacted individual places to redirect mail to me but it does not work and they still send mail to parent. Just another issue to add to my stress with caring for them.
I've looked on the post office website but doesn't seem to mention anything about special circumstances for elderly or dementia sufferers. And from what I can see It'll only redirect mail for up to 12 months and there is a charge.
Can anyone offer any advice please?

For hospital/medical stuff, if you have the nhs app, you can add another persons records to your app. That would be the way I would deal with all appointments etc. As they are added to that persons records, you will see them. There wasn’t a way to get those sent to me when I was poa for mil. Royal Mail redirection is something like £70? for a year and works very well - and easy to set up.
Anything else eg banking, all sent out two of everything, one to me and one to mil. But again a lot of things can be dealt with via apps eg water/elec/gas/banking.

Yes, the Post Office does charge for post redirection, whether or not there are special circs, and you have to renew the redirection every 12 months. The PoA documentation just has to be produced the first time. I've been getting all my mother's post redirected to me for nearly 3 years and it's the easiest way of making sure important communications don't get missed. The only irritation is that when you do need post to arrive at her house rather than mine - birthday cards for example - you have to trick the system by putting a different name on the envelope.