To wish the old owners of of house would change their sodding address?

[TerribleCustomerCervix]

We bought our house in September 2020. Very smooth sale, old owners very obliging and left the place so clean you could eat your dinner off the floor.

But we are STILL getting post for them- I’ve not been opening another, but by the stamps/logos on the envelopes I can see it’s loads of official stuff. Bank statements for their adult kids, HMRC and bank stuff for the self-employed builder ex-owner, parking fines. We just got a brown envelope letter which is clearly a reminder about last months unpaid parking fine.

I wanted to start returning them to sender, but DH doesn’t want to. He’s been giving them to another neighbour who is still in contact with old-owners to pass on, who is now understandably getting pissed off at having to play Postman Pat.

I’m also a bit worried about our address still being linked to the previous owners business, especially with HMRC.

Am I being unreasonable to say to DH he’s being soft, and from now on everything is going back to the sender?

NU at all.
Return to sender marked with their moving date.
Paying for a year’s redirection solves all of this and they clearly didn’t bother doing that. You and your other neighbour have sorted things for long enough now.

We had this - return to sender every time. We then got bailiffs to our address and the advice was then to open all post and deal with the companies which we did. It did then stop - I called or wrote back with the letter explaining what had happened.

return to sender

Always return to sender. Always.

Return to sender. Eventually it will stop.

We're the same in our house - luckily we live rurally so have a nice postie who we know so he doesn't even deliver their post anymore, he gets it returned.

When he's on holiday we still get some stuff (8 years later!). It also used to be lots of important looking paperwork (and two new mobile phones!) until last summer the old owner emailed me and said he had accidentally got some very important paperwork sent to our house so he was going to post me some stamps so I could forward it on - when I said that it's not even getting delivered here anymore I think he got a shock 😅 It's just laziness after a bit, they can set up a redirection to start with. And our others hasn't lived in the house for four years before we bought it (it had been lying empty) so they had more than enough time to sort out!

So just return everything to sender! They'll sort it out pretty quickly then.

Urgh.

9 years here and we’re STILL getting the old owners post.

Letters from HMRC, all of his pension and fuel allowance stuff.

I have no forwarding address and did once call HMRC to tell them they had the wrong address but they yelled at me for opening his post. (I only opened it to find the number to call - I was trying to help.)

Recently he had a letter responding to his request to remortgage his property. It’s not his property.

We changed the locks upon moving in and put sturdy padlocks on the side gate because I could SO imagine him trying to pop back in for his post.

I get nothing for his wife. Nothing. So one of them knows how to redirect the post…

Always return to sender. It stops after a few months

Our flat in an old BTL
I love it- fascinating letters everyday
Credit card today for a person who hasn't live there for at least 3 years- if they ever did

@Muchtoomuchtodo

NU at all. Return to sender marked with their moving date. Paying for a year’s redirection solves all of this and they clearly didn’t bother doing that. You and your other neighbour have sorted things for long enough now.

When I feel the rage after we get another letter for them, DH always points out that old-owners did arrange redirection and it’s the post offices fault.

I’ve tried explaining that it’s a fat lot of good having a redirection when it expires after a certain period of time, and you haven’t changed your address with the companies sending the letters in the first place! It’s not the bloody post man’s fault!

Why would anyone open someone else’s post and phone up to say the address is wrong; just mark as “return to sender”!

Send back every letter

Bank statements and official looking letters for their children to your address sounds concerning

My brother racked up debt at my mother's address and the bailiffs told her to keep proof of ownership for her car at the door as that’s the first thing they'll look to seize. He used her house as postal address even though he moved out years earlier

I also had bailiffs hammering on the door and then telling me to open all letters of previous owners and respond not known at this address to all companies demanding money when I first moved in

Id definitely be returning to sender, especially anything that you know is official

Don't bother asking your dh and just stick it back in the post box, return to sender.
Weird thing to need permission for really, I wouldn't even think to run it by a partner.

@Pyri

Why would anyone open someone else’s post and phone up to say the address is wrong; just mark as “return to sender”!

Because it was from HMRC and I assumed it was important.

After a while we started opening the post after we received a letter addressed to them from the borough council we pay Council Tax to. We discovered that the previous owners of our house still had tons registered to our address - from memory mobile contracts, his business insurance (!), and some land that they owned.

@TheLightSideOfTheMoon but it’s not important to you? It’s important to someone else who should have changed their address. Returning to sender deals with it much more quickly and more efficiently than calling them

@katicomps

Don't bother asking your dh and just stick it back in the post box, return to sender. Weird thing to need permission for really, I wouldn't even think to run it by a partner.

I don’t need permission- I just leave it out to remind me to take it to the post box, he then sees it and drops it over to Very Patient Neighbour before I get a chance.

His concern is that Old Owners were well thought of in our tiny cul de sac, and that by doing something as mean spirited as returning to sender, it’ll blacken our name with the neighbours.

I think he’s mental.

I’d just write “no longer at this address” on everything and put it back in the post box.

It's not mean spirited to 'return to sender', it's normal.

Besides how will anyone find out and why would they care ?

People are cf’s that continuously wanting you to pass on their post , a few weeks maybe but they should have it redirected.
I’ve said it before when we moved into our house they wanted us to pass post onto ndn which we did for a couple of months it was bills / payslips / bank letters / Hmrc etc . I then started return to sender after a while , one day knock on my door ex homeowner requesting her post I said it’s being sent back . She skulked off unimpressed I said your welcome . The cf knocking on my door requesting post months after moving out .
Don’t do them any favours return to sender and if no return address bin . It’ll soon get sorted .

Returning mail to the sender is not "mean spirited" - your DH is nuts! As long as he keeps giving the mail to the neighhbour nothing is going to change. I agree with a pp, write "no longer at this address" and keep returning the mail - and if there is no return address bin it.

[quote Pyri]@TheLightSideOfTheMoon but it’s not important to you? It’s important to someone else who should have changed their address. Returning to sender deals with it much more quickly and more efficiently than calling them[/quote]
Doesn’t matter if it was important to me. I thought it was important to them.

The world doesn’t revolve around me. I am allowed to (attempt) to help others.

[quote Pyri]@TheLightSideOfTheMoon but it’s not important to you? It’s important to someone else who should have changed their address. Returning to sender deals with it much more quickly and more efficiently than calling them[/quote]
Maybe with some companies, but not all.
I sent letters back to sender from the bank for about a year after forwarding on for a year. Then what was very clearly a new bank card arrived. I opened and rang them. Took 5 mins to sort, after a year of no change.
By all means return to sender for a while, but if that does nothing, the phone can work wonders.

Could you print a sheet of labels at work with ‘Not known at this address-Return to sender’? That way you don’t have to write it each time.

Also, your DH sounds bonkers but in a very kind and thoughtful though slightly paranoid way 😂

I used to forward the previous occupant’s post to her until we had heating installed (very old house) and it woke up the fleas that had been hibernating. I binned everything that came to our address for her after that, filthy hag!