To stop forwarding post?

[BabCNesbitt]

We moved into a rented house in August, and in the first week we had a couple of official-looking letters for the previous tenants. I held on to them, intending to get the forwarding address from the landlady, but a few days later the old tenant came to the door to pick up the post and give us their new address (in a different city). I said I'd forward on anything that came for them.

I guess I expected that after a month or so, they'd have updated their new addresses, but these letters are still coming weekly for them, and I'm still dutifully scribbling "please forward" on the envelopes with the new address. AIBU to decide that enough is enough? Should I write something else on the envelopes or just start returning to sender?

We've been here 2 years and still get post for the previous people. I managed to stop the junk mail by registering their name on the mail preference society website (Perhaps you could try that OP ?) but we still get official looking post from finance companies etc.

I had enough a few months back and tracked the previous owner on facebook and messaged him. He told me he had changed the address with all things and it wasn't his fault if junk mail was still getting sent. (Those weren't the problem as I had managed to get them stopped ). I pointed out it was bank letters etc. I then got a very rude message back from him basically saying it was none of my business and it also wasn't his problem, then he blocked me.

My daughter opened a letter and it was an insurance renewal and it thanked him for being insured with them since X date. A date that was months after we bought the house.
We have recently started to get letters from different banks to the banks who we previously had letters from so he is getting finance/bank accounts recently from differnt places and still using this address. I now write on the finance/bank ones that they should investigate him as he's deliberately using our address.

8misskitty8

Might be a good idea to check your credit reference report - it's good practice to do it regularly in any case but in your situation, I'd definitely check it out.

You can do a free online trial with Experian (although it's 'fun' cancelling after the month trial) or register online for free with noddle. It only takes a few minutes.

Gather up the letters over a couple of weeks. Once you have a few, put them into a fresh envelope, address it to them at their new address and pop it in the postbox, but don't put a stamp on it.

I think you'd only have to do that once or twice, before they redirected all their mail.

ADishBestEatenCold If you want to be nasty add something heavy!

cozietoes i've actually opened a few , no doubt people will now post telling me that it's illegal etc. but it has my address on it so tough.

Don't know why he is using the address really as he moved to a massive house in the next big town mortgage free so not short of a bob or two.

Just found this on the royal mails website.

Is it against the law to open someone else’s mail?

Opening someone else’s mail is allowed in certain circumstances under the Postal Services Act 2000. It is only an offence if you open someone else’s mail ‘without reasonable excuse’ or if you ‘intend to act to another’s detriment'. For example, if you are receiving bank statements/cards in someone else’s name then you should act on that immediately. You should tell the sender, either by returning it marked “not known at this address” or by opening the mail and calling any number provided within. The “reasonable excuse” for opening such items would then be that you were helping to prevent fraud against the companies involved.

So looks like I should be opening the mail and phoning up the finance company's to report him !

Register on noddle tonight though. Once it's done, you can go in for life and it can be a reassurance.

Please don't - it really takes so little effort to put something in the post box.

We moved a few years ago and I paid for the Royal Mail forwarding service for the first year .............. I never, ever received anything after that. Recently, four years after we had moved (and our house had been re-sold) the second new owners kindly forwarded a letter to me - a long lost friend had been trying to get in touch all that time and the letters were never forwarded. (I'm not on FB and we didn't have any other mutual friends).

I know that is an extreme example but it saddens me that people can't be bothered to just shove a letter in a post box.

It saddens me that people can't be bothered to nip by their old house and check the forwarding service was working if its so important to them.

You have to pay for forwarding.

You are meant to tell DVLA, the Council and your bank etc that you have moved.

Monana - what an odd thing to say, I moved over 250 miles away, paid for the proper forwarding service for a year (and it worked) but it was the odd item of post that came after that year that was never forwarded to me. .

I normally pay for the 3 month forwarding service, but things like car tax only come once a year. If they get forgotten, and the new owners are arsey, things can get difficult.
I moved here 5 years ago, the previous owner was an accountant and did hmrc for lots of clients that I still get brown envelopes for. I send them on, but I don't bother sending the uni newsletter that their daughter signed up for 10 years before.

Agree your car tax renewal only comes once a year but is tied to your reg documents which must be registered to the correct address as that would be usef for any fines etc. No excuse really to not change it.

It's just lazy to not change addreses and expect others to go out of their way to do it for you regularly.

Our redirection finishes in 3 months (I extended it past a year) and when it does the people who bought my house are still going to get a shock - have you ever tried to get people to stop sending you catalogues?

I have give up with Bloom, Boden, pia jewellery - I now get 2 catalogues, one to my old address which is redirected and 1 to my new address when I phoned up to change it

I get dozens of catalogues, they're going to get miffed

It's just lazy to not change addreses and expect others to go out of their way to do it for you regularly.

But lots of us are saying we do arrange for postal redirection service, write to all the 'official' organisations etc etc but there are still instances (like my comment earlier, a letter from a long lost friend) when it would be nice to think that people would have the good manners to just forward something on - why is it so difficult? I still forward post on even though I have lived at my current address for three years +.

We have been living here since March and are still getting letters for the ex tenants. Brother of the ex tenants had the cheek to ask if I could be extra vigilant watching the post as his neice, sister and brother in law all had birthdays coming up and we'd be getting cards arriving for them. (The brother used to be a close friend of ours but not so much now. ) I txt him telling him we had dvla letters for them and that they should change the address so to avoid fines and whatnot but didn't hear back so might just return it to sender.

My basic rule would be: forward on anything for up to six months. That gives time for redirection to end (if they've just gone for three months) and to tie up any loose ends.

At the end of that, forward on the last lot and note on it "please update your address" (and maybe even put this is the last time you'll be forwarding it).

Anything after that, bin it.

I did something similar at our old house and it seemed to work. We moved into our new house in July and we're getting bits from the previous occupants that we do forward on, but it's as and when we remember, so they'll get them pretty late...

I'm on the other side of this as I'm moving soon. I'll pay for redirection for as long as possible (6 months? 12 months?) but I'm sure Royal Mail won't catch everything, and I'm also sure I haven't remembered everyone I have to notify of the new address. I was thinking of leaving a few large SAEs but slightly worried the new people will just use them for their own purposes. I think it would be nice to keep forwarding for more than a couple of months unless you're being absolutely inundated all the time.

We paid for redirection for 2 years after we moved , it worked well

We are still getting post for the previous owners , we did forward it to begin with , we now just put it back in the post marked no longer at this address

Don't do it if you don't want to , surely it's their responsibility to sort their post out , and it doesn't cost much for the redirection service

When I bought this house the vendor did not bother with a postal redirection which I thought was really bad form and since he left me with no working internet or phone line and no hot water I only forwarded on a very small amount of mail and then I decided to mark RTS.

He did me no favours I do not see why I should have done him any!

Mitzimaybe leave them with a few sheets of stickers with "now at....." on them so they can just stick them on rather than having to write out your new address on anything that is missed by the redirection service.

Drives me crazy. I moved in 2008 and the last owners of my new house didn't bother redirecting. I'd end up with carrier bags of post to take to them - they moved a few streets away. Full of promises that they'd get it redirected, they didn't so I stopped and just put it in the postbox. I then ended up with them asking me about a VERY important letter they hadn't received, not my problem. I'd lived there for 4 years at that point.

Next house was a rental with DP. Landlord didn't give us his address and said they didn't have a letterbox anyway (wtf?), so he'd turn up randomly to pick up mail. Oh and the previous tenants debt threat letters - which i'd open and phone the companies and grass on her. We left when landlord asked us to put his post in the garage so he could come and go whenever he wanted to pick it up. Garage had our VERY expensive motorbike in so no, fuck off.

This house is also a rental. Love our landlord, we just keep his post by the front door and he comes every now and then. He is getting it redirected - he says (after 18 months here!).

Do give them some warning, and maybe a month's grace period, before you start returning to sender. Stuff does fall through the net.

I was incredibly grateful, last week, to receive a forwarded solicitors letter that had gone to my previous address in error. We moved 9 months ago!

We still get stuff 14 years after moving in. Most of it I return to sender and it has gradually slowed down, but we still get the occasional summons :(