AIBU to do nothing after receiving a letter for the previous owner

[Onemoret1me]

I came home tonight to find a handwritten envelope that had been posted through Royal Mail, signed for delivery.
we hadn’t signed for it, it was just through the letterbox and had my address but no name in

opened the letter and it’s a letter addressed to the previous owner, a male who must be at least early 60’s ( not lived in the house for approx 7 years)
the letter is from a potential child of theirs saying they’ve been informed previous owner may be their biological dad and asking if he would get in touch

The letter is signed with first and last name but no contact number or address

would I be unreasonable to do nothing? I feel if I start trying to see if I have previous owners forwarding address still then I’m sticking my nose in something that doesn’t involve me.
equally, I feel if I do nothing then this person will assume previous owner has received the letter and chosen not to reach out.

what would you do, if anything?

Exactly. There is no moral responsibility here, what MN hyperbole.

I would mark the envelope no longer at this address and put it back in the post. I would not have opened the letter.

The sender could have employed a tracking or tracing company to find his dad if they wanted to, they've not been in contact for 7 years.

If you bought your house though an estate agent, I would take it to them. otherwise, take it to the lawyer who acted on your behalf. this is too big a thing to ignore.

If the sender is genuine and thought the recipient might still be living in the house and he was still living there, that letter could have been opened by a wife or a partner, since it had no name on it.

Seems a pretty odd thing not to include the recipient's name on the envelope (if it is genuine) given the nature of the content.

And if the OP does nothing and it is genuine, there are other ways the sender could continue to try and make contact with the individual. They could sign up for access to 192, for a start.

Asserting that the OP has a "moral obligation" to try and bring these two individuals in touch with each other (assuming it is genuine) is bonkers.

I can understand why OP opened the letter as it did not have a name on it - just her address. It could have been for her or a partner or anyone living in the house.

YABU to have opened it. You should have forwarded it on if you have or can find an address. It’s not “getting involved” to forward some mail on ffs.

Return to sender, not at this address. Don't engage. This is none of your business and not your problem. Return to sender means the sender will know the person they're looking for is no longer there.

Why not read the OP's first post and her later posts?

The envelope had no name on it.

If she had not opened it she would not have known it was not for her or someone else who lives with her.

The letter had someone else's name on it.

"opened the letter and it’s a letter addressed to the previous owner, a male who must be at least early 60’s"

I would just seal it back up and write not known at this address.
Theres no need to try to solve this for strangers.
Edit by strangers i mean letter writer and whoever it is they think lives at your address.

The drama and hyperbole on this thread 😆

If anything I think amateurs can do more harm than good by getting involved in the drama of strangers.

The reading comprehension on the thread is up to its usual standards I see !! OP says there was no name on the envelope but the address was hers. Why was she unreasonable to open it ? How else would she know what was in it ?

I agree with putting it back in the post box - I’d just mark it ‘no longer at this address’. The sender wouldn’t know it hadn’t been delivered in this case though, because there is no return address for RM to send it to. Tracked delivery services don’t keep identifying details of the sender unless they complete the return address part of the recorded or special delivery labels and attach them to the letter or parcel.

If it was me, I’d have to try find previous home owner and pass it on.

last year, my partner wrote a letter to the man who he found out was his biological father, he never got a reply, in this situation, we believe that the man is still living at the address we used and he just chose not to reply, however there’s always a possibility that there is a valid reason. But nothing we can do. We don’t want to keep sending letters.

it was a bit silly of the letter writer not to include a reply address in the letter mind.

Oh please not this again @ThreadGuardDog

Very strange for it not to be addressed to anyone. The daughter has found out the address. Presumably she’d needed to have known his name to do that

Not what again ? My post wasn’t directed at you so what’s the problem ?

I think this would sit very heavily with me if I didn’t do anything at all.

But the fact this daughter knows the address of her father but not his name is peculiar

OP wrote in the first post:

". . . opened the letter and it’s a letter addressed to the previous owner, a male who must be at least early 60’s ( not lived in the house for approx 7 years)"

There was no name on the envelope but the letter is addressed to the previous owner.

OP did not say whether the sender was male or female.

“Dear previous owner”

I read it as but yes I am perhaps wrong

very odd not to put name on envelop. Could have been opened by anyone. As indeed - it has been

I would drop it in to the agent who sold me the property marked for his attention

and leave it at that

To be fair when I was younger not putting a name on the envelope was the kind of stupid mistake I might have made as someone that didn't send letters.

What woman ? The sex of the writer isn’t known. And to be fair my BiL is in his late fifties and has a twenty year old daughter, so it’s not unknown. I did wonder whether it would be a younger person because the lack of care taken in writing and posting the letter maybe indicates that they are more used to email communication. Letter writing is a bit of a lost art these days.