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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To expect former owners to have mail re-directed?

60 replies

growl3th · 07/01/2014 10:48

We bought and moved in to our new house in September and we are still getting mail for the previous owner. Much of it is concerned with the business that he ran from the house (including loads of junk mail from building suppliers) but there is also personal stuff. He did leave a mobile number for us to phone if there was mail and he (or his wife) would come and pick it up. This obviously means we have to agree a time to be at home for the pick up.

We got our mail re-directed for a year when we moved which isn't difficult so AIBU to expect others to do this?

OP posts:

hoobypickypicky · 07/01/2014 13:10

CrohnicallySick, these people ask for cuttings from the plants as well as access to the garden too!

My friends are just too much of nice idiots, DrinkFeckArseGirls. They're both consultants in medicine so they're not unused to dealing with odd behaviour and demands but they're so polite they don't want to offend by refusing.

If it were me I'd have told the old owners to fuck the fuck off many moons ago!

hoobypickypicky · 07/01/2014 13:13

NinjaBunny, I missed your post earlier, sorry. Thanks for the advice, I didn't realise you could filter out personal mail too.

NinjaBunny · 07/01/2014 13:18

NinjaBunny, I missed your post earlier, sorry. Thanks for the advice, I didn't realise you could filter out personal mail too.

Well. I think you can.

I've just filled it in myself as our sellers seemed to only have re-directed for a month.

Once the first 4 weeks were out of the way we suddenly had a tidal wave of Cotton Trader style catologues.

One of the options was something like 'register a previous owner' so you need to type their name in.

Will have to wait now and see if it works.

IrisWildthyme · 07/01/2014 13:19

If they haven't told you their new address they have probably not told their creditors either. Give them 2 weeks warning that you're going to stop keeping their mail for them and they need to set up a redirect, then start Returning To Sender. When this happened to us, I printed a bunch of stickers saying "Please Return to Sender - the Addressee has moved away from this address leaving no forwarding details and we have no information which would help you trace them so please stop sending mail for them to this address". Within a couple of months we stopped getting anything at all. Previously when it happened to a friend of mine and they did nothing about it, it wasn't long before they were being hassled by bailiffs who took a lot of convincing that the debtors weren't there.

PixieBumbles · 07/01/2014 16:09

YANBU to expect former occupants to redirect their mail, assuming Royal Mail actually honour the service.

We moved house a month ago and paid for 6 months redirection. We have received a few items in the first week but nothing more since then. We've only received the bits of mail we have because the letting agents for our previous property have forwarded them on to us (getting frustrated with us in the process because I told them we did have a redirection in place).

I've just fired off a complaint to Royal Mail about it.

catpark · 07/01/2014 16:12

We still get mail for the previous owners who moved out 18mths ago. They redirected nothing as we got mail for them from the first week ! We recently got renewal letters from insurance companies. Since you generally renew insurance yearly it means that a year ago they took out insurance/renewed using our address despite not living here.

I actually put return to sender on them and included a message stating that they might want to investigate why these people have been using the address to take out insurance since they have no legal right to use the address.

Sandancer · 07/01/2014 16:21

We've been here 4.5years and still get previous occupants' mail. I'm sick of returning to sender but it just keeps on coming...

My 3 year old ripped one open once (honest!) and it was from debt collecting agency who were sending bailiffs round... Well that was over a year ago and they ain't been...yet.

FryOneFatManic · 07/01/2014 22:37

We recently got renewal letters from insurance companies. Since you generally renew insurance yearly it means that a year ago they took out insurance/renewed using our address despite not living here.

Not necessarily. I still get letters inviting me to renew with one company, that I used about 4-5 years ago and no longer have my insurance with.

FryOneFatManic · 07/01/2014 22:40

hooby your friends might want to offend, but actually it's the previous owners who are being offensive by assuming they have some sort or rights over a house that is no longer theirs!

ceeveebee · 07/01/2014 22:52

Ninjabunny - unfortunately, registering with the mail preference service only prevents unsolicited junk/direct mail - it wouldn't prevent (say) a bank or a telephone company sending mail to an existing customer. Companies check against the list before they do a mail shot.

If he won't redirect his mail then you should just write "not at this address" and post back. Or if you are feeling generous ask him for a supply of large stamped addressed envelopes and send it to him once a week?

MotherOfInsomniacToddlers · 07/01/2014 22:53

The old owners of my house left a calendar hanging in the kitchen and wanted me to post it to them, when I hadn't done it within a week (also consider that I'd just moved house with two children under two and no family support!) they kept emailing and calling me about the bloody calendar, I let one of their friends collect it for them. Though they were really annoying through the whole buying process, constantly ringing and texting and calling!!

Having said that, maybe I'm generally easy going, I've always forwarded post for the previous owners and never felt hard done by or bitter about it, my old landlord had loads of post coming to the house for the 3 years we lived there and I was happy to write the new address on and drop it in the post box on the way to work......... Maybe this is one it the reasons he described me as the best tenant ever and said he was gutted I was moving! I thought it was just a normal thing to do

BumpNGrind · 08/01/2014 00:42

The previous owners of our house had mail redirected for 6 months but were still ordering parcels to our address for a year after they moved because it has an outside porch so the postie can leave it in there! It seemed to stop after I kept the last parcel for 3 months before notifying them.

However, I do have a little bit of sympathy. When I changed my name after marriage, our mortgage company sent the confirmation letter to my old address. Surely out of everyone we deal with, they must know where we live!

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 08/01/2014 01:06

Sandancer I had mail for the previous owners that I re-directed . Then after a year I thought "Bum" and just returned to sender.

Then there was an ominious 'red' letter......from baliffs who would've turned up if I hadn't phoned them.

I KNOW it's illegal to open someones mail but stuff that in this case

NatashaBee · 08/01/2014 01:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NadiaWadia · 08/01/2014 05:36

But you can only do that if the previous owners/tenants have actually given you their new address. We have moved several times over the past 20 years and never once have we been offered details of the old occupant's new address. I kind of assumed it wasn't the done thing, so now I never give out my new address to the people moving in, either.

FryOneFatManic · 08/01/2014 20:08

70 It is not illegal to open a letter unless you are intentionally doing this with malicious intent. EG if you open a letter to find a return address, or to let the sender know they've moved, etc that is fine

lilyaldrin · 08/01/2014 20:13

We moved in May and still get loads of stuff! No forwarding address either - at first I returned to sender, now it all goes straight in the recycling.

Biedronka · 08/01/2014 20:35

YANBU - I will forward/pass it on for 6 months after I move house. If after that they still haven't sorted it themselves then it gets RTS or binned.

I once had a previous owner turn up demanding a bank statement, it was about 8 months since she lived there and wasn't happy when I informed her it'd been sent back. She couldn't see what the problem was and I had to spell it out and ask how she would feel having the hassle of forwarding mail for longer than a few months. She admitted it would be a pita and she finally changed her address over. It was simple laziness on her part.

CaterpillarCara · 08/01/2014 21:51

It is a pain, but we paid for redirection for two years and told everyone we could think of we had moved. Some people are so slow to update their records (or so incompentent) and the redirection is not perfect. I am very grateful to the new owners at our old place who do still forward stuff if it looks personal / important. I do leave a bottle of wine on their doorstep every so often with a note saying thank you... it is probably only once every four months or so now. We moved two years ago.

catpark · 09/01/2014 10:25

fryonefatmanic, I know the previous owners took the insurance out a year ago as my youngest opened it. It was thanking them for using the insurance for the last year and it was now time to renew for the next year. It had their details including the length of time they had used that insurance provider for the discount, which was 1 year ! So they had used our address to take the insurance out. I taped it up and posted it back.

We actually get more mail for them than we get ourselves.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 09/01/2014 10:31

The last place I lived in, I ended up with poll cards for ten people.

Gennacy · 09/01/2014 10:35

I move around alot and alway use redirection - but they are rubbish. :(
That said I have ordered a parcel to be sent to me - and had a previous address on it - twice! First time I was sol because no one was living there, the second time and several years later, they caught the postman and sent it back (thank you)

My husband has ordered groceries for our old house in the past :D

Gennacy · 09/01/2014 10:37

Does anyone ever believe the "my child opened it" line? I know I use it, and my kids are old enough to know better I'm just nosey :D
Havent had any post like that for yonks though :(

DeWe · 09/01/2014 11:04

I agree with thinking yourself lucky.
We moved into this house 5 years ago. It had been repossessed, and so we have no contact with the previous owners.

We've spent 5 years sending post back "return to sender". Some of the things we've received have been quite important (as far as you can tell without opening). Things like hospital appointments, bank statements, inland revenue etc.

Mostly it's stopped now-I think we've only had about 4-5 in the last month. Two junk, two official looking things, and one Christmas card if I remember rightly. The Christmas card we binned, as we get that one every year, and eventually we opened it last year hoping for an address so we could write and tell them, but there isn't one. The rest we returned to sender.

Inglori0us · 09/01/2014 14:19

3 and a half years on we still get old owners mail. Stuff like Tesco points, bank letters and Christmas/birthday cards. They redirected when they moved but we are still getting it. I started to write PLEASE CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS, ITS BEEN 3 YEARS!!!! all over it in black felt tip pen and forwarding it on. Now I put it in the recycling.

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