Opened previous owners mail

[justalittlelemondrizzle]

Since buying the house almost a year ago we have recieved all the old owners mail. Everything from car insurance and bank statements to birthday cards and junk mail. I've been returning everything to sender and for the last couple of months letters have greatly reduced and have almost stopped. It was my birthday the other day and today a birthday card came in the post. I didn't look at the name on the envelope as it was clearly a birthday card so just opened it like a giddy child wondering who it could be from. Well it wasn't for me but the previous owners son and £50 fell out. I'm not sure what to do. I have no forwarding address and I can't return this to sender.

Anyone who genuinely believes the police would be remotely interested in a birthday card which went missing because it was sent to the wrong address must clearly be living on another planet.

The conversation would go like this:

"Officer I'm missing £50 which was sent in a birthday card." Officer: "did you receive the card?" "No, it was sent to my previous address." "Ah, and were you having your mail redirected?" "Well, err, no, we just thought the new owners would send it on." "Ah, and how long ago did you move?" "Well, a year ago." "I see. Well to be honest it's unreasonable to have expected the new owners to have redirected your mail for this long. The onus really is on you to have changed your address. I'd imagine that by now they're probably binning all your mail anyway without even opening it. And quite aside from that, cards with money in them go missing all the time, people are generally advised not to send money in cards. Have a nice day."

DON'T go to the estate agents. They will just go out for drinks on it. Why would they send it on. How would you ever know!

Spend it, charity it. If you spend it then be prepared play it back if they contact you.

Also they moved ages ago and the son doesn't know?

The OP has no obligation to even be forwarding the previous owner's mail. The onus is on them to have changed their address. Failure to do so may result in mail being destroyed or thrown away. There is absolutely no legal obligation on the OP's part. None what so ever.

I periodically receive mail for previous occupants. I've lived here for over three years now. Not a chance in hell am I interested in finding out new addresses and such. It all gets shredded without me even looking at it.

The thing is wanna now the op has opened it and is fully aware it contains £50 that is not hers. That places an obligation on her

No it doesn't. the money was delivered to the OP's property. She is not obliged to do anything about it, even if she is aware of what the card contained.

RainIsAGoodThing Thu 30-Jun-16 16:51:20

Don't keep it. Nothing to do with being convicted, just being a decent person. Look them up on FB as pp suggested.

OP's already looked, and found nothing.

How is she under an obligation? She doesn't know where the rightful recipient lives and has no return address.

Years ago I used to send £10 every xmas and birthday to my niece. It was only after about five years that I learned I had the wrong door number - 11 instead of 8. My brother and SIL were too polite to say that I never sent them any cards.

When we sorted my mistake out, my brother and SIL said they didn't know the people at number 11, so whoever was there would have had no idea of where to send the money. They didn't demand it back, or call the police, because it was a mistake.

My MIL always sends me £50 in a card at birthdays and xmas but at least she has my address.

Look up on facebook, if you cant find keep aside for a month. Are they friendly with any of their neighbours?

Id feel too guilty keeping it unless Id done everything I could.

After a month Id say its yours.

I would feel absolutely no guilt what so ever.

If they'd only moved out a month before then I might, but given these people moved out at least a year ago and haven't even bothered to redirect their mail it's just tough.

And as said above, I'd be thinking that the person who sent the card was obviously someone they were NC with given they don't have their new address.

Talk of convictions and calling the police and legal responsibilities would never happen in the real world

Opening someone else's mail is only an offence if done with criminal intent (to steal or defraud etc).
I do open wrongly addressed post. We live on a main road with a generic sounding address (like number 20 High Street but not actually that).People who get caught out seem to pluck it out of thin air. We've had a 30 bill for NHS treatment, debt collection notification, STD test results from a prison doctor for someone recently released (poor chap had gonorrhoea and chlamydia), a police letter regarding being drunk and disorderly in the town centre- all for people we'd never heard of. Too right I open them and contact the sender! If you send it back it just keeps coming!

I recently opened a letter addressed to our previous owners, (which was about 3yrs ago now so most other junk mail for them has dried up). It was her new credit card, with the most insane credit limit I've ever seen. (Shame on me but being beyond skint I had the tiniest wonder if there was a way I could use it). That only lasted half a second though I promise!! Packaged it up and returned to the bank but when I rang them they were pretty dismissive.

I'm alarmed at the number of posters glibly advising the OP to donate the £50 to charity. How do we know whether the intended recipient would agree with her choice?

People feel very strongly about this. I, for instance, would never donate to Sue Ryder because someone in my local branch once sniggered at my selection of books.

You have a huge responsibility OP. I think you should spend it on chocolate or kittens. Not many people would object to them.

Ultimately, I'd go for chocolate. I have a cat. He's not all they're cracked up to be.

I would do what I could to pass it on, if possible. The solicitor who did their conveyancing should have contact details?
You can DH a previous occupant with Mailing Preference Service to stop further delivery of their post to your address.

I agree with limited-
I think the charity idea is an extremely poor choice.

Perhaps try looking on the electoral roll for your property which might have the names of all of the family who lived at the house. If you type in the address of your property, the surname on the card and 'electoral roll' into google it may come up with archived results for the years they lived there.

I'd forgotten the options on the MPS scheme so Thanks, Catz.

Why should you have to turn into Columbo to help out people who haven't bothered to sort their post out in nearly a year? It's only £50. Spend it.

Police, fb search, donate, estate agents, electoral roll checks what next private investigator? Billboard ad?

OP please don't get a kitten get a dog instead!

Go spend it, you know yourself if there had been a return address you would of sent it back.

If it was my card you received I would'nt knock on your door asking for it I would be pissed that I had not bothered to tell my generous gifter my change of address also golden rule is never send cash in cards my mum learnt that when she sent me £100 once.

I say this as the most straight laced law abiding person you could meet.

She doesn't have to be a detective.

In order to be honest she has to hand it in to a police station because she knows it's not her money.

It's almost certain that in about 6 months they will give it back to her but the point is she won't have taken something she shouldn't.

Being honest is a valuble thing

MN parallel universe indeed. I can just imagine the conversation if you took it to the cop shop. Spend it, you deserve it after forwarding their mail for so long.

isn't the first name of the person written inside the birthday card?

This thread is hilarious! Obviously the OP has nothing better to do than go into full Jessica Fletcher mode investigating The Case of the Missing Recipient. As for getting the police involved, or the possibility of the OP being prosecuted...??!

I clearly have the morals of an alley cat but I'd keep it.

All this talk of handing money into the police etc is very clearly just made up to make this thread seem more interesting. In the real world no-one would actually do this. Ever.

If you knew the forwarding address then obviously there are many who would forward it on. But the idea of prosecutions and the police and handing in £50 which had been posted through your door on the off-chance that someone would walk in and say "oh, someone sent a £50 to my previous address I wonder if it was handed in here?" Is just bullshit.

And no-one would ever be prosecuted - the local police wouldn't even give it a second glance let alone magistrates or the CPS. What a colossal waste of police time that would be. They'd probably laugh the person out of the station saying "well, you should have redirected your mail.

Actually, I wonder if this thread has been planted by the DM or similar for some light Friday reading.... .

Whoever sent the card can't be very close to the birthday boy if they a) don't know he's moved, b) don't know his new address, and c) don't call him by his first name. Presumably if they were a relative they would have signed it as such. I'm thinking wealthy godparent who hasn't seen him for years.

No-one is going to come chasing this. Buy yourself something nice.