Do I own a letter sent to me?

[kazra1]

I have received a letter addressed to me but the contents were not intended for me. Do I have the right to retain this letter or legally do I have to return it?

From what I understand the copyright of the letter remains the 'property' of the writer but the actual copy remains my property (under normal circumstances).

I have made sure that the people who sent the letter have been informed however out of the blue there are threats of legal action to return it to them and I wanted to know where I stood. These people even sent someone to the house at 9pm of an evening with a copy of their request.

The inclination is to just post it and be done with it but the way in which this was handled is in my view disgraceful and I may wish to take legal action about this and related matters and may wish to retain this as evidence.

Thanks in advance

I took collaborate to be helpful on this thread (not seen her elsewhere).

Initially she answered your question by saying - I have professional knowledge, and you are in the wrong, the letter does not belong to you.

You asked for more detail - fair enough.

Collaborate answered that that would require too much investment of her time - fair enough.

You told her she was out of order for posting because she hadn't been helpful - out of order IMO. She had provided the information you asked for but was not able to provide further detail. That doesn't mean that her original comment was not helpful.

I'm a he, BTW.

Just as a matter of interest,is the op within her legal rights to photocopy the letter?

amillion It's disappointing to see the OP leave, because we're not going to get the level of detail of the problem to allow good answers to intruiging questions like that. I'd say - no, don't copy it. What would be the legitimate purpose of that? I think that you have a duty to keep confidential anything that is disclosed to you in a way which makes it obvious that it is confidential.

I think you forgot to apologise, OP

Sorry collaborate. Like I say I haven't seen you around to know that and haven't been unfortunate enough to need to post in legal :)

I think this is one of those situations in life that is easily resolved and less stress for all involved, but when you have two parties determined and pig-headed then it makes life all the more difficult. My advice would be, pick your battles, dont make them. Let this one go, its not important in the big scheme of things.

amillionyears - No. Copyright belongs to the writer of the letter so in general copies cannot be made without their consent.

wow,didnt know that.
I know I may be going off topic,but with say the likes of MN,it is the other way round isnt it.Once we have written something,it becomes their property.

I think that's very sensible Zippey.

Also, if I'm understanding the situation correctly, the company are probably not being heavy-handed in order to deliberately be nasty to OP. They are doing it to cover themselves because if they've been negligent with the other person's data, they need to be seen to do everything they can to recover the data. So if other person sues them they can say 'Yes, it was a genuine mistake, but we have done our best to sort it out' rather than compounding their initial negligence by not bothering to try and recover it.
It also sounds like OP is cross because they have been careless with HER data and have not been similarly conscientious in trying to put it right. But she's not going to get a better response to her initial grievance with them by obstructing things here - the two are completely separate issues.

What a mountain out of a mole hill!

In normal circumstances I think the letter belongs to the person to whom it's addressed. But if it was sent in error to you then I think this is different. I got a page of somebody else's bank account. I realised of course this was a mistake and rang up the bank. As I knew it was not mine although it was in a letter addressed to me along with my usual bank statement. It must be extremely important and I don't understand why you are not returning the letter immediately.

It must be important to everyone, I can only speculate about the cost of heavies out of business hours. It might have been interesting to learn more. Or Claimed might be right, could be very boring.

Ah yes, that pack mentality and previous relationship with Collaborate that meant at least two of us didn't know she was in fact a he.

Lawyers are extremely expensive. One gave you solid advice for absolutely nothing, but didn't feel they wanted to provide extra research, unpaid, in their own time. Apparently this is unacceptable to you. Your response was unacceptable to us - looking a gift horse in the mouth tends to annoy people, you see.

Victim mentalities are counter-productive. They may enable someone to feel self-pity, but they don't allow constructive resolution on any issue, and they tend to alienate others. Just an observation. I can't provide peer-reviewed data/dicta from a LCJ on the issue.

For the record.

This was not a company it was the local authority, so I guess the cost is on us.

There was never any intention not to return this to them, it came to light on 7th September and was going to be posted recorded delivery at the post office however without warning or request they sent people knocking on the door on the 11th, there is a weekend in between this and the earliest I could get to the post office would have been 13th or 14th.

ONLY after they came heavy handed at the door did I question the letters return because their actions in my view were way over the top. I reported this to them and asked them to investigate.

Although the instances seem unrelated they are in fact related because if it happened to one person it almost certainly happened to someone else.

As you will appreciate I do not want to go into specific details as there is now an investigation taking place, I no longer have the letter.

Thanks for the constructive comments, however is such a shame that some others have nothing better to do than try and raise their online profile by being nasty.

There is no self pity in this situation and maybe I am the only one who think these have been over the top, its not my fault that they posted the letter, I could have just binned it but brought it to their attention, if the letter was not that important then I am sure they would have not been so interested.

Kazra - I think you tried to do the right thing, had good intensions and when they started playing hardball it got your gander up. Some people would have continued to fight them, but some people would also just let the whole thing go, as its the easier thing to do.

I would probably do the latter, some people would do the former. Its a forum and people will have differing views. I wouldnt worry about it. Although I wouldnt have done the same, I can understand why you would be angry.

I think you got a lot of grief for your tifftaff with Collaberate on here, he is a lawyer and a relative expert on matters of the law. I dont think he was all that rude to you, but its sometimes difficult to convey emotions on a written forum.

I think if you had posted 'AIBU to think it is a waste of public money to send the heavies round when I was going to take it to the Post Office at the first opportunity?' people would have been on your side. It was the talk of you withholding it that people were about.

My when son was in nursery myself and a few other parents had a dispute about payments. It got quite messy and they threatened me and the others with court. They sent me a recorded delivery letter and included in my letter were the details relating to another woman.

There was everything in there, how much she owed, her full name, address, phone number, name and age of her son etc. So I did the decent thing and rang the woman and told her. She was outraged! I then posted it all to her with my details and she made a formal complaint.

Never heard a word from the nursery again, this was about 8 years ago.

OP do you mean to sound so rude?

I had a letter this week that wasn't for me, it was a letter from the NHS relating to the weight of another child in the same class as DD1. I phoned the NHS to complain and then took the letter into school to be handed over to the correct family.

There is no way that I would have copied it or kept it even though it was addressed to me as it didn't relate to my child.

is such a shame that some others have nothing better to do than try and raise their online profile by being nasty.

Self awareness at last.