To be getting a bit annoyed with the previous owners of our house

[Ginandtonicandamassageplease]

This is only a tiny thing and I think I should probably just let it go but I really wish they would redirect their bloody mail!! The letters don't bother me but there seems to be at least one company still registered to our address and now that Christmas is coming again they are ordering parcels which get left outside my door which are not for me so I have to go to the flipping Post Office to send them back again to the sender. GGGRRRRRRRRR!!

Ok, I feel better now!

[wowfudge]

When we moved house three years ago we got stacks of post for the previous occupants and I was going to take it to the estate agents for them to send on or to be collected when DP said, 'Why would you do that - return it all to sender. If they can't be bothered to provide a forwarding address, why should we bother to get their mail to them?' They had left the place in a right state when they moved out too so I was happy to shove it all back in the post box. Well I'm glad I did because over the next few months we received several letters addressed to 'the occupier' because they had not paid any of their utility bills and there were several debt collection agencies after them.

[LeepyTime]

I have a solution which I have started implementing. Basically, write "Return to Sender" and then on the back write "Please send any future correspondence C/O Estate Agents/Whoever you bought the house from". That way,even if you don't have a forwarding address, the post will now all be sent to the estate agent who will have to deal with it/pressure the owners to change their details.

For the record, we have notified our change of address lots of times with a certain bank and also the Child trust Fund, and letters are still going to the old address 2 years later! Don't know what to do about that!

[MsFanackerPants]

In my old flat some friends of the old tenants turned up to stay the weekend. At least with post you can just shove it in the bin postbox.

[Kewcumber]

I still get parcels, letters from DVLC, tax people. Now send them all back with MOVED printed clearly. Doesn't have any effect.

[Ishtar2410]

We had this for around 3 years after we moved in - not only mail, but also a loan shark and bailiffs.

There was also a long-rumbling situation with Barclaycard, where they kept sending statements to the old owner at this address, but wouldn't accept that we weren't that person! We rang half a dozen times and still received statements - I think it was only when the debt collectors got involved that someone actually started paying attention.

My favourite was when the son turned up looking for his car tax reminder - 9 months after they'd moved. Was most pissed off when I told him I'd returned it to DVLA - "How am I supposed to tax my car then?". I couldn't quite see how this was actually my problem!

[Sabriel]

We rented for nearly a year while trying to sell our old house. The previous tenants didn't put a redirection on and we had stacks of mail for them, including personal stuff and bank statements. They'd left us their forwarding address - obviously to save money on redirection

What really took the biscuit was when we had the phone connected and were plagued with phone calls for them, including her father and his mother . After a few months I was getting quite short with their callers and took to writing in big letters on all their redirected mail Please tell your contacts you have moved!

We had to pay for a year's redirection for both addresses, and still stuff got sent on by the new people rather than Royal mail.

We realised last week we hadn't told the insurance companies we'd moved and of course all of them send a confirmation letter to your new address and your old one, so both houses will be having our mail again for a bit.

[amarylisnightandday]

Yanbu. Old remnants only live across the road but I get piles of stuff for them and their family of 25 different names. After the first 3 months everything went in the recycling until she start harassing me because her driving license was sent here. Then her bloody son harassed and whined at me in the street.
Recycling bin bulging.......

Ps her driving docs didn't ever turn up here I'm not that mean.

[CokeFan]

We had mail redirected for 12 months after we moved. Some things slipped through, but the people who bought the house kindly just forwarded them on.

Since the redirect ended they've also forwarded a couple of letters on from a bank (who shall remain nameless). It seems that they have more than one "address system". We did change our address (in person in the branch and by letter) as soon as we moved but for some reason they kept sending statements for one account to our old address. We had to close the account in the end. We checked that they had our correct address at the time. Guess where the closing statement went?

In our old house we always used to get a card from Aunt Flossie and Uncle William - no idea who that was for.

We don't have a forwarding address for the woman who we bought our current house from (and she only had a redirect for herself and her children, not her ex husband). The house has a name and a number so lots of things slipped through and I've had to take all their post in to the estate agents. TBH I've quite enjoyed making the estate agents continue to work for her because they were totally ineffective while the sale was going through.

[ImperialStateKnickers]

Still getting letters from (I think) the French equivalent of HMRC, amongst other things, addressed to the people who lived here 13 years ago. I mark them all 'return to sender address unknown'. I did hear the man had had to move right away after getting caught with his hands in the till and was struck off the roll of his profession.
Thankfully doesn't seem to have had any effect on our credit worthiness.

[wewereherefirst]

We get CC statements for the previous owners as well as the odd bank card and tonnes of 'spam mail's and no forwarding address for them. It's irritating as we get loads of post for them and little for us.

I did forget to change the clubcard details, but I did when i saw they had used all my clubcard vouchers

[SamSmalaidh]

Start keeping the parcels, deny all knowledge.

[Enfyshedd]

Over a year after ExP & I bought our place, we had the following items of post for the previous owners:
-CSA letter/statement
-Letter from their DDs' school about something
-Letter from the hospital re. an appointment for one of their DDs.

Seriously! I had to ring up all of these to tell them that they no longer lived there and that I had no forwarding address (usually returned the post "No longer at this address", but it was at least the 3rd CSA letter that had arrived and the school & hospital letters had no return address on the envelope so opened them to find out what they were for).

Some people are just nuts - just think of the personal info I was able to get hold of...

[Ginandtonicandamassageplease]

Turn away I mean!

[Ginandtonicandamassageplease]

Thanks everyone! I don't mind about the letters - I just send those back to the sender but we get things from the children's school and all sorts of other important stuff. If the parcels all came from the same company I would think it was just an oversight but they are from so many. I have to turn about a case of wine every other month!!

[Kinora]

We have lived in this house for 14 years and still get mail for previous owners who are my in laws.

As mil and I share the same initial for our first name, I quite often open the mail (knowing full well it's not for me) - message has still not got through.

[specialsubject]

redirection is very much dependent on the people at the local office, so sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. My last one was still forwarding post two weeks after it expired, nice of them.. :-) I thought I'd told everyone but our lovely buyers have just forwarded a letter from the dentist...oops...

if it has been more than a year, including a Christmas, just do 'return to sender, not known' and chuck it back in the nearest post box. As for parcels - not for you to return, isnt there a phone number you can call?

[PeazlyPops]

Did you buy my house?

I forgot to redirect my post. I was going through IVF, I was stressed, tired, had a million things to think about and by the time I'd got round to it, it had been so long that I didn't bother.

[alarkaspree]

I have redirected my mail through the post office before and a very substantial amount of it still went to the old address. The redirection service just isn't very good. So I wouldn't blame them for the mail. The parcels are odd though.

[louisdog]

YANBU - we used to get credit card statements and contact lenses for the old owners for at least 2 years, and after 5 years we are still getting some sort of share letters, despite me returning to sender many times and even contacting the company. V annoying!

[Kewcumber]

Oh lordy I'm soooo with you. I moved in March and they're still getting more mail than me which is bloody annoying.

[blueraincoat]

YANBU! I have been in my flat for 6 months and got (what I presume is) a ton of Birthday cards for the previous owner last month. I thought you would at least tell your friends and family you had moved! We also get bank statements, that would be the first thing I'd change. They also left a box of stuff here and I kept trying to get them to come and collect it and heard nothing, they rang up this week demanding it back. Bizarre people. I wish I had invoiced him for storage charges now! (Joke)

[Brugmansia]

I have had my post on royal mail redirect for the past year since we moved and there's about another month left. Last week I received a bunch of letters dating back over several months that the current occupiers of our old place had redirected. These should have been redirected by royal mail but weren't.

[whoneedssleepanyway]

The week after I moved I order my Ocado delivery to my old address they rang me saying we are outside your house with your groceries and nobody is answering, and I said "no you are not" and they said "yes we are" and then I realised....luckily I had only moved round the corner so the lovely delivery guy rang head office and then brought it round.

I did remember to redirect my post though....!

[GwendolineMaryLacey]

We've been here 8 years and still get post for the previous twats owners.

[CajaDeLaMemoria]

We get a lot of post for the last people who lived here. They had been here for a long time, apparantly, and used a variety of names. They are almost always debt letters. EON keep hassling us about a debt, T-Mobile sent a debt collector yesterday who refused to believe that the named person doesn't live here anymore, and they even have council letters still coming here. I did collect them all up incase they come back but I guess they aren't going too...

My OH's parents get post for people who moved out 14 years ago. Christmas and birthday cards usually. They post them to the new address every once in a while...