Dumb Previous House Owner... AIBU?

[zingally]

First of all, I am happy to be told I'm being a cowbag. :)

A bit of relevant background
We moved into this house in September 2024. We purchased the house from a single woman named *Jane (widowed) in probably her late 50s/early 60s.
About a month after moving in, we received a "final demand" in the post for a small amount she owed to O2.

She hadn't left a forwarding address, so I enquired with the estate agent who handled the sale, and Jane begrudgingly gave them "permission" to give me her new address (a house on the other side of our large town). I dutifully re-posted it and thought no more of it.
Then in about December we received another "final demand", still for O2 and the same amount. I put this one in the post to her as well.
I've also sent on Christmas cards, and various mailings from different animal charities.

Fast forward to about September this year, we received a credit card from a reputable bank in the post, for her. We kept hold of it for a couple of weeks, expecting her to get in touch when she realised her error (after all, she knows where we live!) But she never did.
At this point, I was getting fed up of being her forwarding service, cut the card in half, and posted it BACK to her bank, with a covering letter.

Fast forward again to this week. We received ANOTHER credit card for her (same bank)! We roll our eyes and put it to one side - how on earth has she not changed her address on her BANK?!
Then today we received a "PIN reminder". Her ACTUAL PIN NUMBER.

In all honesty, I feel disinclined to put her new address on it... I've done it enough times now.
Would I but a total cowbag if I just returned it "Not known at this address"? Solely because I think she's stupid?

This happened to me many years ago.
We got tons of post for the previous owner, and she called round a couple of times for it, then it just built up into a heap. We also had bailiffs round asking for them.
Then about 2 years later, I just got fed up and opened all that post. There was unbelievable stuff in there - a P60, a cheque, bank statements, insurance docs, so much stuff.
I had no forwarding address. I think I sent the important docs back "RTS, opened in error" and binned the rest. Unbelievable that people can be so disorganised though!

Just return everything to sender without opening - 'return to sender - not known at this address'. Banks won't change address on someone's account without speaking with the account holder. And you definitely shouldn't open other people's mail - technically it can be a criminal offence.

I agree with everyone, don’t open, put not known at this address.

Please don’t use the word “dumb” to mean stupid. It means unable to speak, usually because of hearing loss. That then moved to mean someone so stupid they couldn’t speak (which is obviously ridiculous, that’s not why) so its use is generally considered inappropriate ableist language.

Precisely! And it had been left outside the house by the courier, so we had no opportunity to accept or decline!

Then maybe you should have left “widow” off your comment and simply said “you lost me at “dumb” and “stupid”” if you don’t want to hear anyone called it - I clearly wasn’t the only one to read it the way I did as a couple of others replied to you saying the same thing!

Thank you for clarifying what you meant.

I personally think it’s fine to have an anonymous rant calling someone that in frustration. If they had named her, or posted it on the local Facebook group saying “what a fucking idiot Jane Smith is” then I would agree with you that there’s no need to be nasty. But we all do it at times anonymously - how often have you said something like “the fucking bank/hmrc/post office/random business are a bunch of useless twats who don’t know their see from their elbow! How stupid are they?” Either to yourself or a friend. Realistically you are calling a person, or multiple people, stupid - but you’re actually just venting your anger out so you can remain calm when talking to them to try to resolve it.

Merry Christmas!

Oh stop being so sanctimonious and just bin the stuff rather than opening it.

For all you know, she has updated her address and the bank/other providers haven't adjusted their systems yet. With the current state of customer services in the UK this would not surprise me.

And is she necessarily "DUMB"? (not like you of course!) maybe she's ill, or dead?

Oh.Do.Come.On!

Prison??

Actual prison though? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I thought it was against the law to open their mail and I’m a little shocked you have. We moved recently and got a redirect. The previous owners also got a redirect. A lot of their post is slipping through without redirection. Also, a lot of places aren’t great for sorting these things out. We had to change it in several systems for our bank because different accounts appeared to be dealt with by separate systems despite it being the same bank. It sounds like she’s tried to sort it but something is going wrong somewhere. She doesn’t know that you have it and the address is the issue. Just return to sender if you don’t have time/chance to drop it off at hers. We’ve just been accepting it as one of those annoying time-wasting tasks that are out of our control.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/section/84 - here you go - only illegal if you do it with the intention of acting to a person's detriment.

I think the PP was joking (given the 'mother's friend's neighbour's hairdresser's dog' description...)

I don't think this proves the point but I am no lawyer.

It states, without reasonable excuse. My interpretation of that is, for example if you have POA 🤷‍♀️

But if you return to sender" then the unwanted mail gets cut off at source (the sender). If you keep posting it on, she's got no incentive to change the address.
I actually think I it might be an offence to open mail addressed to someone else (?) - although I admit I would if I thought there was some kind of fraud afoot.

I don’t think you should tell me how to post.

Only one person agreed with you, not a couple. Exaggeration weakens your argument.

I do have empathy for the widow part. I do. I stand by it. I have witnessed the effects of bereavement and that is why I mentioned it.

Please dont tell people what they can and cant post. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes and all that.

That's probably because the internal 'return to sender' process can take ages. It's low importance as 1) the customer clearly doesn't care 2) the person receiving it isn't doing anything bad with it. So it's left to the bottom of the pile of jobs to do. Often they have to receive 2-3 items back before they update the address in case it just delivered to the wrong place e.g. 14 Somewhere town Darlington Vs 14 Somewhere town Dudley. So you have to return a bunch and wait a while then it stops

Criminal offence to open her mail

Yes sorry, I was replying to the PPs who (I had thought) were genuinely replying!

This isn't actually correct, although it's a persistant fallacy. The law is:

"A person commits an offence if, intending to act to a person’s detriment and without reasonable excuse, he opens a postal packet which he knows or reasonably suspects has been incorrectly delivered to him."

OP doesn't intend to act to the previous owner's detriment, and does have a reasonable excuse.

I don't think this proves the point but maybe I am the one misinterapting it.

For example, if I have sensitive data, such as personal medical information and I don't want anyone to know about it but is opened, accidently or on purpose then that person is now privy to my sensitive information.

The person opening the post may not be intent on commiting fraud but it may be a detriment to the addresse who may become distressed now someone else has seen that information.

OP doesn't intend to act to the previous owner's detriment

She's been cutting up their credit cards. It sounds pretty detrimental to me!

My policy is to RTS letters from the NHS and just bin everything else. I don't want to take on another admin task if the previous people are not responsible enough to do their own admin.

Once we had a bailiffs letter about unpaid council tax. I wrote to the bailiffs with the address I had for the previous owner and got a very polite email back thanking me for my help with their enquiries.

If they are likely to become distressed, they should ensure their sensitive medical information is sent to their current address. I wouldn't interpret "detriment" as feelings of distress, anyway, I would say tangible financial loss would be a detriment.

We had to open mail from previous occupiers as they owned >80K in VAT and no I did not want that shit on my doorstep.

We have been in our house 26 years and still get mail addressed to the previous owner who has been dead at least 28 years! We’ve tried RTS and not known etc, have even rang up various ones bit they have said they have to keep trying! Just bin them now!

But the law states the person has to 'intend to act to the person's detriment' - so the fact that the act of opening the post ends up being to their detriment isn't relevant, its about intent. And the law is that it is both intent to act to their detriment AND without having a good reason. So you have to be doing both in order for it to be an offence.

The law is clearly designed to make it an offence to steal the contents of someone's post/their identity. It is not about people trying to figure out what to do with post that is coming to someone's previous address.

Well she has acted to their detriment, in not returning the item to sender and she know's it has been incorrectly delivered to her. There is no reasonable expectation that the mail is for the OP or that she doesn't know who its for.