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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to open the letters for the previous tenant

31 replies

OhDearNigel · 31/07/2013 23:21

when I had High Court Sherriffs at the door on Friday trying to come in and seize £5k of my property due to an outstanding seizure order against the previous tenant of the house we moved into 3 weeks ago ?

It would appear that she has at least £12k of court collection orders out against her; we have paid more for our electricity the first month than we needed to due to a preloaded meter being installed to pay back her £1k electric debt. The gas had been cut off, as had the phone line which we had to pay to get reinstated. It has been incredibly stressful and I am having to write disassociation letters and try to get her removed from the electoral role. We have an excellent credit rating and I certainly don't want that wrecked by her credit blacklisting.

I am aware that opening post is an offence although as the full offence requires you to be opening the post "to the addressees detriment" I doubt it is made out. However due to bailiff situation I'm not really giving too much of a shit about "doing the right thing". I have informed all agencies that have written to her that she no longer lives here and where a forwarding address may be found.

OP posts:

Jan49 · 31/07/2013 23:48

YANBU

I'm in a similar position and I now return all the former tenants' letters to sender with details of the letting agency who can give them the new address. I also keep a sign on my front door telling any caller that people named X no longer live here and telling them who to contact at the letting agency. Luckily the agency has a current address.

The trouble with the law about not opening post is that if you follow it you can unknowingly receive and pass on letter after letter from companies requesting payment, who then write that they are involving a debt collection agency, then numerous letters from the debt collectors who may eventually come to the house, and you could be forwarding them to the new address, unaware that eventually someone is going to turn up on your doorstep making demands because it's still your address they've got.

I got to the point of dreading post in case it was another debt collector's letter for the former tenants and it would put me in a bad mood for the day, but now I get pleasure in knowing that when I return a letter with the agency contact details on it, this will result in the company getting a current address for the former tenant.

It sounds like you're in Scotland and the legal situation sounds similar to England. I really want to contact 'my' former tenants and ask why they didn't arrange for post to be forwarded, why they haven't paid their debts or contacted companies to say they have a problem, and why they think it's OK to dump their problem on me.

kreecherlivesupstairs · 01/08/2013 00:09

YANBU.

Original poster

OhDearNigel · 01/08/2013 00:51

Jan, i'm in England. Sheriffs act on behalf of the High Court.

One of the writs relates to unpaid school fees !

OP posts:

Nicknamegrief · 01/08/2013 01:07

We get this a fair bit as we are in married quarters for the Forces. The MOD fails to pay its heating bills for empty houses regularly.

Return everything to sender is what we are told to do.

I write it on the envelope along with new tenant. It has taken up to 9 months in places but they do stop.

As far as I'm aware it hasn't affected our credit rating.

Kungfutea · 01/08/2013 01:11

YANBU

For the first six months that we lived at our new address, we religiously took the mail to the estate agent as the previous owners hadn't given a forwarding address. At some point, it dawned on us that these were letters from debt collection agencies, credit cards etc. Then we started opening financial looking stuff, phoning the company up and telling them that the debtees weren't at the address. They even had their son use our address for the CSA! I felt bad at first but then realised that they clearly had no ethical problem getting us into potential trouble. I'm not sure about the legality of it though.

OhMerGerd · 01/08/2013 07:52

Yes do it. When we rented we discovered a previous tenant using the address for a new driving licence and bank account. Thing is she hadn't lived there for a number of years but as this is a village and even though we were new we vaguely knew she worked in a local business and she had counted on us just handing them to her unopened.

But we didn't. We rang the respective places to let them know and then called her and asked her to collect. The woman was approx 40 and had last lived there at 18 and said it was a slip of the pen a sort of accidental writing an old address ( what?).

When we told her not to worry we'd notified the relevants and they looked forward to hearing from her she got a tad aggressive about opening people's mail etc. we didn't care... Basically said sorry if we've done wrong please do report us and we'll explain it to authorities. Which seemed to inflame her more for some reason( wonder why ).

Interestingly she still works in local business ( its a trust position she could have got the sack if we'd taken the mail there hence our kindness in asking her to collect so we didn't have the conversation in front of her boss ) and is the rudest baggage ever. Don't care though at least we're not being pursued over some deed she committed using that address as her cover.

jacks365 · 01/08/2013 08:07

You would be better to just return the envelopes and provide forwarding address if known. The reason to do it that way is because firms courts etc have policies in place to deal with it when mail is returned ( I used to spend hours trying to track forwarding addresses) but if you ring up you'll get suspicion ie why did you open it if it wasn't for you? you may be outright disbelieved. Keepa copy of your ttenancy agreement to hand and if anyone calls show them that to prove you have since taken over.

Good luck I had similar issues when I got my last house, bailiffs even turned up on the day I moved in. Credit rating works on the name so it won't affect yourselves.

Meglet · 01/08/2013 08:11

I did. The previous owner of my house passed away and I was still getting random bank account letters after a few months. I needed to open them so I could phone them, return to sender hadn't worked for all the mail.

bigfuckoffpie · 01/08/2013 08:11

We just had this with a previous tenant. If you check the return address, which is usually on the back of the envelope, you find out which company its from without opening the mail - you can then both return the mail and e-mail them explaining that the previous occupant has moved.

Also, I let Experian know too - don't know if it made any difference though.

PenguinBear · 01/08/2013 08:12

What did you do op? Did you have stuff to prove you weren't here? We love 'here come the sheriffs' on Wednesday nights

TeWiSavesTheDay · 01/08/2013 08:12

Absolutely the right thing to open all the mail - you need to keep an eye in case they keep using the address to fund more debt, as well as make sure you know if they are sending bailiffs round!

PenguinBear · 01/08/2013 08:12

Her*

Nerfmother · 01/08/2013 08:17

If bailiffs for in ( open window or something) and took stuff for previous tenants debt, what could you do? Am curious now, we had this in an old house for a while.

EagleRiderDirk · 01/08/2013 08:42

yanbu.

I know a debt collection letter without opening the envelope.

as a fairly naive 21yo I had bailiffs knocking on my door at 7am one morning to cease our stuff. they were trying to force their way in despite my flatmate going to find the tenancy agreement. thankfully a neighbour heard the kerfuffle and thankfully stepped in telling them they've been shown adequate proof and to come back with the police. they never came back thankfully but it taught us a valuable lesson.

we haven't received a debt collection letter here now for some time.

Mariposa70 · 01/08/2013 08:49

We had this, though I did 'accidentally' open their mail. Our situation was slightly different as the letters were about mortgage arrears that the owners had built up. They were threatening bailiffs and we were worried that the house would be repossessed and we would be homeless with 2 young children (apparently they can break in and change the locks while you are out, the letting agent told us this)

We passed the info and letters onto the agents, who spoke to the owners, they said they thought it was all sorted and couldn't understand why the letters were coming here when the mortgage company had their address (?)

They say it is now all sorted out, but we re still getting the letters.

Dackyduddles · 01/08/2013 08:52

I always open post for precisely this reason. That way I can head off such issues.

If the person wanted it they would redirect, the fact they don't speaks volumes. I dump everything. I'm not interested in their rac subscription, just whether they are bailiffs etc letters!

Helenagrace · 01/08/2013 12:01

Having had a bailiff force his way into my home and start photographing stuff he was planning to seize before ascertaining whether the debt was mine I now open all mail.

We still get letters for previous owners and our address is being used by all sorts of names. It's a nightmare. Eventually we'll be buying a house again. I dread to think how long it's going to take to clear up our credit history now we're involved in all this mess.

smokinaces · 01/08/2013 12:06

Yanbu, I have done this. I used to ring the companies and tell them I was not them and give them the details that I knew of where they had moved to. Stopped the letters almost immediately.

We had a nightmare getting our gas and electric reconnected, had to have the council fax the companies proof of our new tenancy etc as they wouldn't believe we weren't pulling a fast one. The baliffs were coming for everything so I chose to open and ring instead.

Mia4 · 01/08/2013 12:08

YANBU OP. I just claim the envelopes were damaged in the post and already open, they can't prove they weren't even if they really wanted to. We have one arsehole of an ex-tenant who used to live here and I've had debit cards and loan repayment demands sent here. The companies are shit though, I've told them again and again to check the electrol roll-that he doesn't live here- but still they keep sending.

livinginwonderland · 01/08/2013 12:18

YANBU.

Wibblypiglikesbananas · 01/08/2013 12:26

How horrible OP. What I don't understand is where the bailiffs get their out of date info from? Don't they check before turning up all aggressive? Don't they have someone to report to or have to take responsibility for harassing innocent people in their legally owned homes?

If someone turned up threatening me on my own doorstep, trying to force their way in, I think I'd ring the police.

OnFoot · 01/08/2013 12:45

We've had the same thing. Previous tenant ran up loads of debts, then did a runner. Not only were we being harassed for his debts but he continued to use the address to acquire new debt and services. And British Gas put his debt onto our bill.

For us though, returning letters to sender didn't have any discernible effect on what we received. I returned important letters from agencies such as the DVLA, DWP, Child Benefits etc and also banks stating that the person did not live there anymore but they still kept sending the letters. I suppose because they didn't have any other address for him, but it felt pointless.

SixPackWellies · 01/08/2013 12:48

We have had this with our current place. The previous tenants did not redirect their mail, they left no forwarding address with us or the Estate Agent and we were getting endless court notices and bailiff stuff. We just wrote 'not known at this address' on everything and never had the bailiffs turn up.

what was odd though is that Estate Agent Head office rang us and asked us if we knew where they went as they had not paid their bill. We said no, and explained that we were returning to sender.

SixPackWellies · 01/08/2013 12:49

Oh, and we have been in the new place nearly a year now and are still getting boden orders and NEXT orders that the wife (I assume) is presumably buying and SENDING to our address!!!! Very bizarre. (Those go back too. She is a size 8. i'm not.)

ChessieFL · 01/08/2013 13:38

We had this in our previous house. Returning to sender doesn't always work - it stopped letters in some cases but a particular bank kept sending bank statements for the whole 3 years we lived there, despite us returning them for the first 18 months ( we gave up after that, once we opened one of the statements and discovered it was for an account with about 23p in it!)
We did have a letter from bailiffs, so we opened it to get the number so we could ring and explain they had moved. We didn't hear anything else after that.

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