To ask what the hell I do in this situation?

[Keremy]

Ok long story short. I have lived in our flat for 15 years. Our house is converted into 3 flats. One is long term empty, one is ours and one is occupied by a woman who moved in three years ago but hasn't been living there properly for at least two of the three years but is still registered as the tenant.

Anyway at the weekend I had nipped out and the son of the woman above left a message at the property with my friend who was at our house visiting thinking she was the new tenant of his Mums property as he thinks she has moved.

The woman above has been seemingly allowing her son to use the address to claim car insurance, he told my friend that he used to live at the property with his Mum (which I don't think is true as I have never seen him and the first post in his name arrived three weeks ago) and that he had had an accident in his car and needed the letters coming from his car insurance to sort his claim as he had fell out with his Mum and hadn't been able to contact her.

My friend was asked to forward any letters that came to an address.
I suspect his Mum has been allowing him to use her address for insurance as we live in a village and he lives in inner city London.

I am mightily pissed off at being dragged into this.
If I do send the letters when they come then I might be complicit to insurance fraud!
If I don't send them then I am assuming this man (who I have been previously told VERY bad things about) will keep returning

What the hell am I meant to do

The ins and ots of other tennents lives or insurance fraud have nothing to do with the op.

Do as you would with any letter addressed to somone other than you stick it next to the other letters with that address on it and forget about it.

That would be my suggestion.

If the son turns up say there are a load of letters for that address but you wouldn't have the first clue what letters are in the pile

Just to add his Mum doesn't own the flat, she lets it out for the same private landlord woman I do. As far as the landlord is concerned she still lives here.

Do you have any proof he is who he says he is, especially if you have never met him? There could be some deeper scam here than insurance fraud even. I would not let him in or hand over any post without the go ahead from the actual tenant.

So his mail is essentially going to an empty flat to which he has no access?

Well, he just needs to inform the insurance company of his address & get stuff sent/resent there!

If it's delivered communally, I'd just leave it out somewhere & hand it over if he comes for it.

Actually you've never met him-not sure if I'd even be wanting to hand stuff over.

if I just post it back to him he has no incentive to change it to the correct address

Keremy, if you leave the letters on the shelf they'll keep coming.

NOT AT THIS ADDRESS
RETURN TO SENDER

Write this on the envelopes, and pop them in the postbox.

The insurance company will get the message, and alter their records.

The mum hasn's been for her post in three months.

The son can't get hold of her.

I think there is more to worry about than returning the mail tbh!

But a) it's not your mail and b) it's not being sent to your address so I would just leave it with the rest of the mail and not get involved. If he gets in touch again say that the mail isn't sent to your address, it's sent to the flat below and as such you can't do anything with it.

Bewty I am not worried about the Mum, she has not lived here for at least two years for more than a day or two. She came back weekly for post from her new boyfriends originally then monthly then less and less. Earlier this year I did not see her from March to July and then she came back for a day.
She is clearly for what ever reason keeping hold of the flat in case she needs it.

I agree with putting the post on the shelf, if you bump into son just say you are not willing to forward any post on, but will continue to place on shelf.

When the post accumulates to a point where you can't continue to store it, you will need to contact the landlord.

I'm baffled how someone can ignore their post for 3 months and not check on their flat (or gave someone drop by and check on it for them)

You might want to mention this to your landlord. Properties left unoccupied cause issues with every bodies insurance ... if a pipe bursts above, leaks into your flat and damages your property the insurance co could argue the policy is void as the place was left unoccupied for longer than allowed.

Everybody's *

Once a fortnight just pop it all back in the post marked 'not known at this address'.