To think the old tenant was in the wrong here?

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I moved into a new rental at the end of October last year, previous tenant moved out a couple weeks before. Since then I have been receiving their post/packages and even Christmas presents! I put them on the side and let them build up but quite frankly I got a bit fed up of it, especially since I paid for my own redirection which has worked perfectly fine.

I spotted the postman on Tuesday and asked what I should do as I couldn't just write return to sender and put them in a postbox as most of them wouldn't fit with them being medium/large sized parcels. He took them away and said he would sort it, so I've not just binned them or opened them myself! The tenant has turned up today asking where his post was to which I explained what I'd done. He got very shirty with me and asked why I hadn't contacted the estate agents if it was such a problem (why is that my responsibility?). His excuse was that he'd paid for a redirection back in October but that it didn't work properly . I'm not sure I believe this as why would someone wait 3 months before doing something about it?

I rang the agents earlier who told me not to worry and said that he probably hadn't even paid for a redirection and has just done it at the last minute. Personally I think it's a bit rude expecting someone else to hold all your post, a letter or two maybe but not stacks of them or big parcels. AIBU?

Yanbu. Some people just think it's everyone else's responsibility to facilitate them. It's so easy to sort out a mail redirection and like you say, you didn't throw their stuff in the bin or steal it.

YANBU.

You did the right thing. Under no circumstances should you have handed the parcels over to someone claiming to be the former tenant - how do you know they are who they say they are? You should either send the parcels back (which you've done) or just bin them. You're under no obligation to store them for any period of time.

YANBU. You did the right thing.

However, I have found the royal mail redirection service to be absolutely crap. I've had refunds every time I've used it. Maybe I'm really unlucky.

I don’t understand why you put it on the side and let it pile up for 2 months? Redirection doesn’t always work smoothly and he may have genuinely had no idea so much of his post wasn’t getting through until people started saying they’d sent Christmas presents.

If you’d sent the first few letters back to sender it might have been sorted more quickly.

Redirection can be tricky if you get post to different variations of your name: Bob Smith, Robert Smith, R A Smith etc But YANBU.

I've lived at lots of different addresses over the years (mainly due to work and/or relationship changes) and I've always set up mail forwarding for at least 3 months, more usually 6, when I've moved. I did lose one ebay package once as I hadn't set it up quite fast enough, but it's rare that a redirection hasn't worked just fine. I've also been in rentals where I got thoroughly fed up with things arriving for a previous tenant (I later found out they owed hundreds of thousands of pounds from a business that had gone bust which they shouldn't have been running from the address anyway) and eventually ended up writing "Not Known at This Address. Return to Sender" each time. I've usually lived fairly close to a post office or sorting office, though, where items were too big to fit in the mailbox.

The previous tenant sounds like an objectionable cheeky brat...

You did the right thing.

After we had lived in our current flat (mortgaged, not rented), we started getting quite important documents from a bank delivered, to the previous owners names. An upstairs neighbour asked if we could hold onto anything and she would pass it on to the ex owners, it was important bank account stuff and something else I forget now. There was no way in hell we were doing something so dodgy when upon opening one of the envelopes (not realising it wasn't for us) they were opening new bank accounts using our address! We had lived there two years already and they had actually sold it to the developers and it was empty for many months before we started proceedings to buy. So this was dodgy af. We rang the bank, then went into ours with the post. You've got to be so careful.

YANBU. The people who owned my house before me didn't bother to set up redirection until after they'd left, and I still get odd bits for them. I write 'gone away' in thick marker pen on any post that comes and put it in the postbox. Interestingly I still get post for people previous to them so it looks as though they never bothered to return anything either.

They haven’t collected any post at all since the beginning of November?

Is it bank statements and documents as well as personal and random post?

I’d be really annoyed if they hadn’t changed any addresses by now and it was a lot of post, but be more forgiving if it was a few things but it seemed as if the redirection wasn’t working or relatives they don’t see much etc. Something always slips through or gets forgotten.

We’ve had our redirections be unreliable before now. It’s very annoying. Sometimes you don’t realise until it’s too late that not everything has been redirected as it ought to be. So from the point of view that it could be happening with my own post, I’m inclined to be generous with infrequent things up to 6months or so. Doesn’t stop it being an irritating pile of stuff though.

yanbu...the odd item in the first week or so yes, I'd have contacted the EA/landlord and mentioned it to see if they wanted to contact the person. Letters would have gone back in the letter box with not at this address, similarly parcels back to the post office if not inconvenient to you. I have done redirection sveral times and had both excellent and diabolical experiences. The last time I moved (and it was years ago and purchase not rental, I left a couple of stamped sae's with the new owner in case any mail slipped through.

Was there really nothing small enough to put in the post with “return to sender”, no letters?

TBF, I think you should have notified the letting agent first. You probably would have got a resolution sooner if you had. Redirection often does go wrong. He may well have been getting some of his mail so didn't realise there was a problem for some time. I have had serious redirection issues every time I have used the service and it wasn't Christmas nor a pandemic.

I don't think you were unreasonable but he may be telling the truth. I also wouldn't be surprised if some of your mail ends up being redirected to him speaks from bitter experience.

Not your problem. Tell him to contact Royal Mail

I bought a flat off a local celebrity and three years later was still getting her parking ticket charges! She must have racked up thousands! First couple month I took the post to the estate agent then for the next YEAR wrote 'return to sender' but they still kept coming. So admit that I binned them. I've sold the place now told the new owners that they'll be getting her post too.

I think you are in the right here too.

We've lived in our house for almost 7 years. We still get mail for the previous owners. Nothing official just cards etc so I drop them with another neighbour who is friends with them. One of them is a Christmas card every year that is obviously from the same family. I always wonder if they don't like them or just haven't got a return address to let them know they've moved!

YANBU. Practically the same thing happened to us a few years ago. We got post for the previous tenant but it was just letters so we wrote Return To Sender and posted everything back. One day he rang our doorbell and asked for his post. He was quite upset that we didn't have it. Did he really expect us to have just kept it?

Mail redirection has been terrible the last few months.

I would usually be on your side but having moved twice in the last 18 months and used postal redirections for both, I know for a fact that they don’t work very well! Maybe Covid has affected things but quite a few bits I know were going to our old address didn’t appear. I even had a signed for parcel that should have been redirected confirmed as having been delivered to my old address (posted through). Royal Mail were useless, said they’d send a special retrieval bag to the house it shouldn’t have gone to but I never got it back. Waste of money really!

Reduction can be crap.

I don't understand why you didn't contact the agent sooner?

At least you sent them back though, anothernpisters mad suggestion of binningbthem is just awful.

I'm sitting on 3 parcels from the old tenant of our house...who moved out in October 2020 . I also still get their bloody mail including speeding tickets (you can see from a wrongly folded letter in through the envelope window). I have stuck everything postable back in the box with not at this address on. The parcels are delivered while I'm at work (not royal mail) and left outside. I managed to contact her on Facebook over a year ago and she said she would collect the parcel while in the area...since then had two more parcels. I'm not paying to send them to her, have no idea where she lives now, parcel company aren't interested. I genuinely don't know what I'm supposed to do with these fucking parcels. Do I bin them? She obviously still has her car registered at this address too, so she will be in the shit for that.

@SituationCritical Any other time I'd suggest reporting this to the DVLA, but it's been widely reported that the DVLA have become terrible recently, so...