To be annoyed at letters being address to my partner and not me?

[bigdinolittledino]

Sob
myself and my partner have decided to mortgage our property which is currently owned outright and is a self build.
The house is 50% mine and 50% his and we are unmarried.
I do 100% of the admin, sorted all the mortgage out with the broker, made sure all the documents were in on time and all emails are from my email address which is [email protected] and signed off with my name.
All the documents which have come in the post from the broker are handwritten to My partner and never to me or have me included even though they have never spoken to him before.
I kind of got used to this and accepted this might be the way the broker does things.

However, this morning in the post comes our council tax banding letter and again it's address to just him.
I was the one who used MY local council account to register which is in my name for the tax and submitted all the information but still this letter has come address to my partner, a male.

Are woman still viewed as people who are not allowed control of anything?

Why is this still happening in 2020?

I know it's a small thing to be wound up about within the current climate but I fee so wound up by it just thought I'd engage some opinions if I'm being a tad sensitive or not.

I could have written this post myself op, it really annoyed me too. I

YANBU! 😔

They're structural microaggressions, and when women experience them repeatedly every day, for decades, it has a way of wearring you down.

As it is intended.

This is exactly me too.

I (unfairly) took it out on my husband and would thrust the post at him and say "you need to deal with this" knowing he has absolutely no clue. Then I'd ask him every day if he's done it yet before finally getting too twitchy and just doing it myself.

This irks me too! Even more annoyingly I don't think it's often intentional, it's what comes naturally to people as it's so ingrained in their heads to deal with the 'man of the house'.
I got equally annoyed and being constantly called 'Mrs' Kin when we weren't married but had joint tenancy, council tax, utilities etc. I corrected each and every single one that did it but it does just fucking piss me off. What a bloody assumption to make. I actually bring this up and correct people as often as possible and now the majority of our post comes addressed to Mr and Mrs Kin.

Also, when we were buying our house our solicitors would forward all the negotiations between them and sellers solicitors onto us. These two opposing solicitors, both with obvious women's names were addressing each other "Dear Sir," literally every single email and emails were passive aggressive in nature. I wondered if this was just a solicitor thing... I had no idea what was going on.

Sounds like we're going backwards in regard to treating women like grown up people.

I was divorced in 1999 and before that had a joint mortgage on a house with my then husband, started in 1977.

All correspondence from the mortgage company was address to Mr A Pigs and Mrs B Pigs, not even Mr and Mrs A Pigs, let alone just him.

What's happened? Have we somehow slipped back to the 1950s.

And no, you're not being sensitive OP, I'd be bloody furious in your shoes.

I think it would annoy me so much I have to speak to someone at the brokers and tell them to address all post to me in future.

So glad I am not alone with being annoyed at this!

I've even had emails from my account signed off by myself only to have the reply 'Thanks OH name'.

I really want to write a letter asking why they are doing this still in 2020!

To the PP who wrote about solicitors doing it, this happened to us too.

The company I work for has software that automatically does this if a man and a woman are on the same policy. It would cost pennies and be incredibly easy to resolve.

There can be real financial consequences too. Some (many? most?) energy suppliers do not allow accounts in joint names. You may have arranged to be on a fixed tariff that saves you hundreds of pounds each year. If the named person dies or leaves the house, when you inform the energy company to try to change the name on the account, they will say that this is impossible, and they will immediately put you on the expensive standard tariff until you have the time and will to sort out a new cheaper supply.

This happened when we moved house as well and me and dh thought it really wasn’t on.

Write to them and tell them it’s unacceptable and they need to address correspondence to you.

In your situation I would have done so at the first letter.

I once phoned up an estate agent and asked them to correct their details to include me as primary contact as they did the same thing. I mentioned I would not continue to use them if they couldn’t send letters to the right person. They managed to then send everything to me- they just needed the nudge.

For goodness sake you MUST challenge it. Don’t just moan on here, do your bit and actually make a difference. Call your broker and ask for them to change it to your name for future. Contact the council tax office and ask for details to be updated as they are incorrect. Council tax bills are often used as proof of residency so it’s really bloody important to get your name on it.

If you don’t challenge this it will be our daughters and our daughters daughters still dealing with the same shit!

I may have got frustrated about this while pregnant and phoned up to query (whinge).

My name is now first on all letters we receive from that company 😂😂

Challenge it on the first letter. Why put up with it?!

I've recently bought a house and our solicitor did this. I was the one in contact with him dealing with him, and then he would only send important correspondence to my male DP.

I would absolutely challenge it, every time.

I was going to say that I never encountered that while house buying, and then remembered that I did have it on one occasion - I can't remember which company it was now though. I asked about it over the phone and a very apologetic woman sounded extremely embarrassed by it. She agreed it was unacceptable, but apparently it was the way the computer system was set up.

It needs to change, and nothing will be done about it unless it's more of a pain for them not to change it.

This reminds me of a story an old friend once told me. She and her husband were both Cambridge graduates, both equally as clever academically, and both with similar well-paid careers.
Wife went to a car dealership with her husband and two little childen looking for a new family car. One of the children needed the loo so husband took him, leaving wife with the car dealer and the forms.
Dealer says "Sorry but we'll need to wait for your husband to sign this one as it says signed by Dr (surname)
They both had doctorates! Apparently he looked somewhat embarrassed when she took the pen and signed!!!

YANBU!

I’m still seething at the water company making DH the primary account holder and me secondary for no apparent reason and refusing to change it.

@Nicknamegoeshere

This reminds me of a story an old friend once told me. She and her husband were both Cambridge graduates, both equally as clever academically, and both with similar well-paid careers. Wife went to a car dealership with her husband and two little childen looking for a new family car. One of the children needed the loo so husband took him, leaving wife with the car dealer and the forms. Dealer says "Sorry but we'll need to wait for your husband to sign this one as it says signed by Dr (surname) They both had doctorates! Apparently he looked somewhat embarrassed when she took the pen and signed!!!

My dad doesn’t drive, but anything car related and people would talk right across my mum and try to just direct things at him.

We went through the process of buying a house early this year (had to pull out at very last minute due to personal reasons but we went through pretty much the whole process).
We explained to them to ideally send everything to both of us, but to send to me if they can only send to one for any reason, as my husband is in the Military and kept going away for Exercise.
They kept just sending emails and calls just to him! In the end I kept calling and explaining to them to stop doing that. They were apologetic but it was so annoying! I definitely believe it was sexism. It was both of our salaries going towards the mortgage so that really irritated me. Especially when they got a bit annoyed when we were not replying to emails quickly!

YANBU. DH saw a copy of our annual mortgage statement the other week and queried why my name was first on it. I pointed out that:

1. I was down as buyer 1 when we did it
2. I put down more deposit
3. I earned more when we bought it
4. I deal with all the mortgage paperwork
5. We’ve lived here for five years and it’s the first time he’s noticed, which is either due to a shocking lack of observation or the fact of 4) above

He piped down PDQ well done TSB mortgage department!

This annoys me to and DP does none of the bills, it's all with me. We recently changed energy supplier to E.ON and they apparently are unable to do joint bill/account holders. Even though I put both names in but my phone number and email they defaulted for him and then I had to call and add myself as an additional person. I said to them at the time it's very backwards and we are in 2020 where women have equal rights within the home.

We got a letter from an estate agent addressed to Mr and Mrs [husband first name surname] confirming an appointment despite me organising it.

I actually mentioned it and the follow up letter came through to Mrs my name and Mr husband name 😄

I had this with a car. We both went to the garage. It was for me. I test drove it. My husband sat in the back. Told the guy it was for me. My car. I was paying. Yet on all the paperwork he wrote my husbands name. Made it all out in his name. All the official forms.
I sat there and watched him write it. When he had finished I said to him. It is my car. Why have u done it all in my husbands name. The guy looked confused. Like I was being stupid. He said it didn’t really matter. Well it did to me.

That luckily was the first and only time I have ever experienced anything Like this.

I think YABU and overreacting. So what if the letters are addressed to him? It’s not an issue, it doesn’t matter.