...to think my mum has skewed logic over her free tv licence.....

[feedbackforfree]

... she asked the licencing authorities to change the license address to mine (she has lived here for 2.5 years). When I tried to cancel my licence, they advised against it until we provided them with documentary evidence that my mother lives here and what date she formally moved in. She's refusing to do it as they "should just believe me". She is absolutely afronted that they have asked for confirmation.

The cost of a license isn't going to change the course of my financial future but it is just another example of her strange logic. (It's not her age, she's fought and sulked her way through life and at no time has she ever questioned why there are so many arguments - of course, it is everyone else and never her!) In an attempt to justify myself a little, it's not just family - she left numerous jobs over the years because of her awkwardness and overly sensitive nature. Her favourite phrase? "I may not always be right, but I'm never wrong!" Another one is, "It is not statististically possible for me to be in the wrong ALL the time, feedback".

GGRRRR - I'm on sick leave for a couple of weeks so I'm suffering cabin fever I think......

YANBU, but I would go ahead and cancel anyway without the proof, once you have received her tv licence 'in the flesh' If they decided that she didn't live there then it would be up to them to prove it.

My MIL was a bit like this. The family motto was "Mother is never wrong. Sometimes misinformed but NEVER wrong".

When I got married I contacted the TV licencing to advise them of my change of name. They said they couldn't accept my word as I was Mrs Marriedname and not Miss Maidenname (as named on my licence).

I had a pretty farcical exchange with them in which I repeatedly told them that I was Miss Maidenname but since marrying I was now Mrs Marriedname and they said they could only change it on the authorisation of Miss Maidenname. So I tried an alternative tack and told them I was Miss Maidenname and wanted to change the name to Mrs Marriedname, they wanted to know why I, as Miss Maidenname would want to change the name on my licence to Mrs Marriedname.

Ad infinitum.

In the end I emailed them and stated quite clearly who I was when I married, my name either side of that date and that as far as I was concerned I had fulfilled my legal obligation by advising them of such and it was now up to them what they did with that information. I didn't hear from them again but my next licence arrived in my married name.

My point?

All they will do is check that there is a licence registered at your address. They won't care who is named on it. Or how long they have lived there.

The tv licencing people are weird. If you cancel your licence and your mother's is at the property they should back off, but I have been in the situation where cancelling the licence and putting it in someone else's name caused them to believe there was no licence at the property.

BUT if you have no licence, as I do, they will keep writing to you no matter how many times you declare it to them. They have been writing to me for several years threatening all sorts of action. in the end I gave up telling them I have no TV and I have never had any of this threatened 'further action' so I would guess you have a long time before their bluff is called in any case.

I've just left mine as Miss Maidenname.

meh.

sorry. I missed the point of the OP then, didn't I?

I think all organisations ask for proper proof these days because of those with criminal inclinations nicking other people's identities. It makes it a pain for the rest of us who live honestly.