to get annoyed about post for previous owners coming to my house?

[izchaz]

We moved in nearly two months ago and are still receiving 8-10 letters a day (many of which are clearly sucker-list "win big money" scams, not that this is relevant, but I sort of look at this as junk mail) for the previous owners of our house.
They have family nearby who pop round once or twice a week to pick up the letters (and numerous parcels) and apologise for the hassle. The family members have always been very apologetic and polite about inconveniencing us with more mail per day than I receive in a month, but I have had one very grumpy conversation from the previous occupant who (I felt) was accusing me of holding on to a parcel of his because of its value (I had never received this parcel, have no idea as to the value of his mail and was a bit affronted by his roundabout accusation).
Today I wasn't quick enough getting to the door when the postman came, and the dog "opened" one of these letters for me - it's a notification for successful finance on a new phone contract. Taken out last week. This means that they're taking credit in their name at our address. I went a little mental, rang the company providing the credit, explained and insisted they contact the relevant people, which they have promised to to.

So, to my AIBU: would it be unreasonable to take an absolutely hardline policy and either open everything that comes through our door for them in case there's more of this credit fraud going on? Or should I return all to sender? Or should I give them more time to get set up at a new address?

Secondarily: was I unreasonable to ring up the credit company?

I think you'll find it is illegal to open personal mail addressed to someone else. Why do you need to know what's in it? It's not yours. Put return to sender on the envelopes and either put them in the mail box or give them to the postman. Even when previous owners do change their address, some mail slips through. I think you're just nosy.

ItsDecisionTime, unfortunately the piece of post which you happily return to sender may be a threatening letter warning that bailiffs or debt collectors will be coming round to YOUR house to collect their money. IMO that makes it your business.

So what do you do if previous owners are dead? Our house was owned by my dp's grandparents. His grandmother died around 4 years ago and his grandfather 18 months. His aunts now own the property (dp's father died 10 years ago), and we now rent it from them. Obviously the important stuff was sorted, although we did receive a letter from the dvla saying gf was being taken to court for some offence he committed after his death .

Anything of importance we pass on to the aunts, or at least inform them so they can decide over the phone or via text message whether it's worth messing around with, but what about all the junk? Do we just rts it?

ItsDecisionTime Tue 13-Aug-13 23:36:28
I think you'll find it is illegal to open personal mail addressed to someone else.

It's already been explained that as long as there's no malicious intent then opening the mail to find details of sender to return the item is acceptable.

This is the first time I've been grateful that in Switzerland the postman will only deliver mail addressed to specific people registered as currently living at this address!

YANBU, "not at this address" on everything, don't accept parcels, tell relatives you've done it and don't engage. They sound dodgy - why else would the relatives be happy to keep doing this for extended periods when a redirect/change of address is easy enough?

Save time create and print out some sheets of labels on the computer with "please return to sender, addressee gone away" on. Much quicker!

You have my sympathys op. When I moved in this house the previous tenants we're back right pain with their mail. At first I handed it over, but it just kept on coming. Then a friend of theirs would pull the postman to get to it first and informed me that all of my mail would go to theirs so they could sift through and post mine later. I had to complain to royal mail.

It just went on and on! When they knocked MONTHS later saying they were expecting an important letter I snapped and told them to change their fucking address.

I ended up opening letters seemingly from every debt collection agency in existence. I rang them all up and gave them their new address.

It's hard to imagine how irritating it is if it's never happened to you, but it really does play on your last nerve.

I tried the above tactics and was eventually written to by Santander to say they has to legally keep writing to last known address to inform about these bloody £10 worth of ancient demutualised Abbey National shares. So they keep coming...

For info on this topic - royal mail redirection can only be done for 3 years max. I moved out and had it set up so I don't miss anything. I think in 3 years I have finally made sure everything has been updated but I was prepared to keep paying for piece of mind but found out there's a maximum limit.
As its still my property I've left redirect labels reprinted with tenants just in case, but if anyone is getting mail after 3 year's when there wasn't a problem before then that could be the reason...

I really liked the idea up thread about getting their new address, saving up their post and sending it to them without postage. That would certainly make them take note (make sure it's really heavy)

In relation to bailiffs etc coming to your door unfortunately in some cases that can't be helped no matter what you do. If your new address is the only one they've got then they're going to go there because as far as they're aware that's where they live. That has nothing to do with you receiving their post. If you open their letters then you'll actually get a heads up about the situation so perhaps in those cases you receiving their letters is a good thing!

The best thing to do is return to sender because if it is a credit company they should log addressee gone away, this then is added to their credit file so that when they next apply for credit it's flagged up as possibly fraudulent and they will need to prove their address. Obviously this isn't foolproof (is anything? ) but you sending it back is the best thing to do as annoying as it is.

As has been previously mentioned your credit rating is attached to a person only and not an address. You would be best to have them removed from the electoral roll showing that they reside your address as, again, they may be asked to prove their address if applying for credit if their application has not scored enough points and they can't be seen at the electoral roll. This depends on each companies individual credit scoring system I.e applying for an unsecured loan will have more rigorous checks than for a mobile phone for example.

Have you changed your locks OP?

If you have a forwarding address then forward it to them (don't pay for postage) if they don't get the message. If parcels delivered tell the courier to return it as its a wrong address. Don't sign for stuff.

It's decision time have you any idea what it's like to receive threatening letter after threatening letter through the door for people who no longer live at your address?

It's quite scary to be threatened with bailiffs and as I said return to send doesn't appear to work! I've spent countless hours on the phone to many debt collection agencies explaining that previous owner doesn't live here. Some of them are very snotty too.

The previous tenants at my home ran up massive debts. For six months I sent everything back, return to sender. It had no effect what so ever. I think most of the debt collection agencies just assume that the debtor is trying to fool them.

So I started opening mail and calling the companies. Only then did the mail start to reduce and 12 months on I only get a few pieces of post and it's usually adverts now. It isn't illegal to open post if you have a genuine reason, are not up to mischief and cannot pass the post on.

Some of the companies were very good, some I had to call repeatedly to get them to understand. I was in shock at the amount of money the previous people owed but also how much discount on the debts some of the agencies offered to induce people to pay and the inventive methods they used to try and find people.

Just write on it 'return to sender - not at this address' and pop it back in the post.

When I first moved in to my current house I'd be getting a handful a day for the previous tenants it was ridiculous (a couple got accidentally opened and it became obvious that most was from debt collectors they clearly owed money left right and centre, they also left owing rent) but I religiously put it back in the post with the above message on the front and now (less than a year on) I get maybe one or 2 letters a week, I will continue to do this until it completely stops, it worked for my last property where I stopped getting other mail completely from about 6 months in.

If you feel you can then I'd tell them you know they are still using your address to gain finance and your not having it and as such all future mail will be returned to sender as not known at this address, that should spur them on to sorting it out.

I have this since moving in the winter, I now return to sender, it really annoys me! Mostly junk mail too.

The Bailiffs can't enter your house if you're not there and if you are, you can give them proof of identify that it's not you they're looking for. But, as many posters have said, anything financial which is returned to sender shouldn't come back to you anyway. Spam mail where the previous occupier is on some kind of marketing database may continue to come to their old address for years to come and there's nothing you can do about it. Those poor people may be having a really difficult time and you're not helping by involving yourself in their business. Really.

I've learned so much about the previous owner of our house from his non-redirected post. First of all all the deb collection agencies / bailiffs' letters, then the Bang & Olufsen stereo shop mailers, super fancy modern furniture stores, herbal viagra offers, Jaguar and BMW mailshots... charming man.

I tried the above tactics and was eventually written to by Santander to say they has to legally keep writing to last known address to inform about these bloody £10 worth of ancient demutualised Abbey National shares. So they keep coming...

Bamboostalks, that happened to me at my last house for over a decade and never stopped. A previous occupant had shares and the financial services company continued to send post. I wrote "moved away, RTS" and they sent me forms twice asking for any known address so I told them the estate agents' details and they eventually wrote saying the law obliged them to continue to send stuff to the last known address and I should just bin it!

Funghoul, just mark it "Deceased, return to sender" if it's junk and the names should get taken off their mailing lists. If you do nothing, sometimes you'll just continue to get mail from the companies.

itsdecisiontime the post shouldn't come back but it does. The finance companies assume that a debtor is trying to get out of paying so continue or they sell on the debt so the whole process starts again. Yes bailiffs have rules to follow but not all of them do, as far as I'm aware they can take items from outside of the property so anything in the garden etc. Quite honestly I didn't want to have to deal with it. If the previous tenants, in my case, had been bothered they should have had their mail redirected or left a forwarding address.

Slightly OT but we moved a few months ago and set up a redirection with RM.

RM seems to fecking ignore it 9 times out of 10 and still sends post to our old address, who very kindly every few weeks re-address it and forward it on. It's a pain in the neck as we paid for a service that seems haphazard, and gets worse every time we complain and they deny that anything misses the redirection!

CreatureRetorts, no I've not had the locks changed, should I? Is that something that's commonly done? [gibbers behind large dog] it hadn't even crossed my mind that that would be a thing to do..?

I still get post for the vicar who left thirteen years ago. Last year I accidentally opened a letter informing him someone would be coming to tune the church organ. I took it to the church and explained the situation to the warden yet again. After listening, he asked me what part I would play in tuning the organ. I was tempted to pretend to fix it, playing it loudly and out of tune.

I also rented a house which was receiving a large amount of post from the Bank. I rang them in the end saying I was the tenant and the owner did not live there. They said it was the first they had heard about it. It turned out the house was in repossession and I had a tenancy agreement with the owner they were completely unaware of as I was of course unaware I was renting a property about to be repossessed.

I have all my mail redirected to my new home until I can be bothered sorting it. It barely costs anything. Have been doing it for six months.

The previous lot just sound dodgy (eg lets just pop in to see if a parcel) so yes it's something to think about. I'm scaremongering though, sorry.! A big dog should scare them off.