Still receiving their post! Right to be annoyed?

[MillieS76]

We moved into a new house around this time last year. The family that where in the house before where lovely before the purchase but on moving day it was a complete 180.

The house was a state, an oven tray left with tin foil full of fat and a freezer full of ice and food as well as a fridge with mouldy cheese left. That’s ignoring the faulty electric box, the boiler that wasn’t working and the fact they took their outside bins with them🤦🏻‍♀️

Anyway, we are still getting their post a year on. We have messaged them on Facebook a few times when it looked important, like letters from HMRC. 4 months ago we got a handwritten letter from what appeared to be an elderly relative (from the writing) which I accidentally opened (didn’t think I’d still need to check the name on the front 8 months on) with £150 in it, we messaged again and they asked us to post it through their letter box which we did. Yesterday we got another one of these handwritten letters, I haven’t opened it this time but am I right to be frustrated by this? It’s been a year and they still haven’t bothered to update a family member never mind companies. If it was just this person I’d put it down to them maybe forgetting they had moved but we are getting payslips, mobile phone bills, union newsletters, HMRC reminder’s & insurance company renewal letters.

I don’t want to waste my time travelling 20 minutes to their house and certainly don’t want to pay to forward on the letter. What can we do without being a rubbish person- we’ve given a years notice to update these things!

@TooWicked

I open all of our previous owners post, and if there is a contact number or email address on the letter I phone or email them to tell them the addressee is no longer at this address and hasn’t been for 4 years now.

We still get a “Merry Christmas Brother and Sister In Law” Christmas card with no return address and 2 x £10 for the kids, the card goes in the bin and the money goes in a charity bucket.

Anything else goes in the bin.

And before someone comes along with the usual response to these threads about mail - no, it’s not illegal to open someone else’s post.

Id do this! every 3momths for 3yrs, we got parcel from next for previous owner- she lives in same village, not sure where. Id then get a knock from them, apologising ect. Last 4 yrs the parcels have arrived- I tell the delivery guy they dont live here and send them back ... I then get the old neighbour knocking and expain its been sent back.., they get a bit pissy about this and yet STILL HAVE NOT changed delivery address- not my problem.

I worry about this sometimes! I moved abroad and did my best to change my address to my new country where applicable/close accounts, but some companies refused to change my details without a ‘valid U.K. address’, which I obviously don’t have. That doesn’t apply to this situation, but it’s not always easy.

6 years on here and I still get post - personal and from companies - so I just throw it all in the bin now.

Do you know their new address? I just cross out my address, put the new address on the envelope and re-post. Always reaches them.

Just ignoring it/throwing it in the bin can be problematic if they've got debtors with your address. The bailiffs who visited us were surprisingly pleasant. We returned to sender after that.....

Cross the address out, write the new address on and put it in the postbox.

It takes 2 mins to message on fb. But there's no way I'd drop it off to them, they can come and collect. Other post would go straight in the bin.

You write forward to and then put their new address or return to sender as not at this address if official or junk. Put in post box when passing.

We have the same issue and our local post box isn’t close.

We had gifts arrive at Christmas for them - but we were away and now they’re stuck at the Royal Mail parcel place.

I would contact them one last time to tell them about the handwritten letter. They collect within 7 days or it goes in the bin and that all future letters will also be binned. That’s fair warning.

Return to sender or bin them, they've had enough time to sort this out.

I had this with the previous owner's telephone clairvoyant for a few years after I moved in.

The things I scribbled on their letters when I returned them got more sarcastic as the years went on.

I've lived in my house for 15 years and I still occasionally get post for the former owner. Just rts anything with an address on!
You are being a bit wet though. What sort of fool delivers post to someone who left the house in a complete state? You should have kept their money, put it towards the cost of the electric box or new bins and denied all knowledge. Once they find out from great aunt Doris that £150 has gone missing, they'll soon sort their post out! But they have no incentive while you do it.

Oh my goodness, when we moved here the previous owner used to come and knock on our door everyday at 4pm to collect post. I'd literally given birth and was trying to breastfeed and was so annoying. She then gave me her new address to send everything on. Where we had moved from we paid for Royal Mail to redirect. So I was a new struggling mum and posting on at least 100's of letters ... One day I left house and mentioned that I was going to postbox for neighbour, she said no, why are you doing that, it had been over a year. So the next letter I wrote "It's been a year, will not be forwarding anymore on". We still get occasional stuff, but goes straight in the bin.

I've got a friend that still writes to my old address despite me telling her repeatedly we have moved. Sometimes it's not the fault of the previous buyer. Luckily we have a nice lady who bought our house. You just seem judgy and disparaging.

Am I the only one who who thinks its horrible and sad that they care enough to take the cheque from handwritten sender but not to tell the sender they've moved? For the senders feelings, as I assume they'd message to thank, I'd put address on and put in post box next time I pass. Everything else I'd return to sender.

We get post for the (deceased) previous owners of our house still, after 5 years. Bin and move on.

@StarbucksSmarterSister

There is no return address on the letter

It doesn't matter. Put "return to sender" and Royal Mail will open it to see if the sender has put their address on the top of the letter they wrote. Older people often do.

From experience, ‘return to sender’ or ‘no longer at this address’ doesn’t work if it’s unpaid bills, debt collectors, etc. - they just keep coming.

I once had to start opening mail, after realising that the former owner had not paid utility bills and had left no forwarding address, plus we had grounds for believing that he’d returned to his country of origin.

Since I didn’t want bailiffs at the door, I had to write to all the creditors - 12 of them IIRC - with an explanation plus copy of council tax bill - debts inc. credit cards etc. amounted to over £20k - but they did then all back off.

People who go on about putting letters in the bin are just silly. The only way to stop unwanted post is to write "return to sender, not known" on everything and send it back. Putting letters in the bin won't stop them coming. The only things that won't work for are Shares Registrars, but at least they only post one letter once per year.

@Darbs76

Tell them to collect or goes in the bin

Simple solution.

We still get letters five years on. I am not surprised by this though.

At first I RTS, then I started opening them (yes, shock, I opened their mail, but I have a right to know what's coming through MY door) and, as I suspected, some letters were demands for money, parking offences, so I had to painstakingly contact the companies by email, letter or phone as I didn't want debt collectors at my door.
The previous owners had form for this, and made our life hell when we moved. We have no forwarding address.

@Aderyn21

I've lived in my house for 15 years and I still occasionally get post for the former owner. Just rts anything with an address on! You are being a bit wet though. What sort of fool delivers post to someone who left the house in a complete state? You should have kept their money, put it towards the cost of the electric box or new bins and denied all knowledge. Once they find out from great aunt Doris that £150 has gone missing, they'll soon sort their post out! But they have no incentive while you do it.

Denying all knowledge would be lying, and pilfering the contents of the envelope -- theft. Most people would not do these things because, you know, the law, the ten commandments, millennia of teachings...

We had this with our first home. We were naive and when the old owners asked for us to put their mail in the bin cupboard next to our front door to collect, we did it thinking it wouldn't last long. They didn't give us a forwarding address but were local as they would often come to our house, collect the mail from the bin cupboard and leave. It happened for about a year. It was only when a bailiff turned up at my door that I tracked them down and sent him round there! All the post went in the bin from then onwards

Tell them you have their letters and they are welcome to pick them up at your place - at your convenience. If not collected within a specified time frame, they will be thrown out. This may prompt them to get mailing lists updated.

From experience, ‘return to sender’ or ‘no longer at this address’ doesn’t work if it’s unpaid bills, debt collectors, etc. - they just keep coming.

Yup this - we have two names (probably the same person) that we get letters for - not the previous owner, clearly someone who gave a fake address - and we have phoned and written and explained to bailiffs at the door (who were very nice and promised to sort it out) but we still get letters for them. Last one was about housing benefit - I did write all over the envelope that he was using this address fraudulently, so we’ll see if any more arrive.